Bladestrom.6425

January 12, 2019

problem i have is condy removal, if your not in water and your under pressure your in trouble, and can easily melt if you are targeted.

December 23, 2018

@PrZone.4753 said:
@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:
@"Quasar.1756" said:Ok, so let's get to the nitty gritty of things.
What is the "biggest' issue with Elementalists? - and - What can Anet do to satisfy / appease the Elementalist community of GW2?
All replies are welcomed.

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

no protection against stealth: A mesmer or thief jumping out of stealth just kills you. Done. No defense, nothing. A deadeye marking you? Good luck running into the right direction, or you go down. Without any defense whatsoever. A soulbeast with his unblockable shots isn't much better either.

lack of mobility: While a ranger is pew pewing you from a save distance, you can stand still and channel pile driver - just to see it fail or do negligible damage. And for some reason even oh so slow necros are able to run away - how? It is said they are slow. All hackers?

lack of protection: warriors with their permablocks, guardians with all their stuff going on.. yeah fun. Fun to fight them.

evades are a bad joke: twist of fate can be interrupted. You can be pulled right out of it. And then you die. Great fun.

healing: just abysmal

barrier: exists for pretty much every class but ele. Oh, we get some. 200 barrier is a lot, isnt it? compared to the 2-4k other classes get. Good thing no Mirage will ever jump at you out of stealth for 24k damage. Oh wait, they do. A lot.

boon sharing: dead. FB does it better.

boon removal: other classes can at least take away or turn opponents boons. Eles can't.

damage: apart from the test golem, pretty bad. There is a reason why scourges dominate wvw group fights.

CCs: a joke

clunky: other classes can pop there defensive skills at will. Ele has to attune to the right element. And low and behold, that comes with so long cool downs between switching, you don't even really have to care. Just sit down and die. Good luck to double attune to earth, when you are in fire/air. But you can use unravel! No, you can't. Because the utility slots you need for such basic survival skills like flash or mistform. Which have both deliciously long cool downs.

Elite skill is just garbage: it could be good. But you have to time your 4 elemental switches perfectly and you have to hope that you don't need to go back to any element because of circumstances. Others just pop theirs and it is done. Winds of Disenchantment anyone?

anything else I missed?

Ele isn't good in any aspect and abysmal in most.

You basically hit the nail on the head, I'd have to say ele is probably the hardest class for Arena net to balance though. Ele is the jack of all trades, they either end up doing TOO much of everything or just not enough to be relevant. It's a hard sweet spot to find.

give ele 4k hp, done.

December 22, 2018

@Blocki.4931 said:You're right. It's not ArcDPS, it's bad players that are the problem and commanders are the sole arbiter of who is bad or not in their group, rightfully so.

Toxic players will always be toxic, but we all know there is a very specific type of toxic player that obsesses over meter results over teamplay - I call them the meter wh***es, because being seen to be winning the meter war drives their behaviour. Damage meters accentuates the problem.

Classic example is the fractal fight that requires 15k dps to beat a boss, and group does 20k, but a player gets bullied because he does 4k on a 'meter'. In this case its the meter that's triggering the meter w - if there was no meter they would kill that boss and be none the wiser. The question therefore is where is a meter needed - and it is only required on tightly tuned fights of which there are only a couple outside of raids. The meter w attend raids ofc, and that's why raiders get a bad name.

October 27, 2018

@Silence.3702 said:The only problem with Ele is that its being forced to run sage or mender to be viable
thats poor design

thats it in a nutshell. Either give ele an extra 5k hp or extra base heal and the profession is utterly transformed and fixed.

October 24, 2018

pve for ele has never really been a concern (i.e what this thread is discussing) and spamming aoe in blob v blob of is not really relevant to anything as you don't balance for blob play beyond builds that can shot at a distance.

October 23, 2018

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:lets say you do 11.5k dps on a zerg. People in zergs do not stand still in aoe, so basically your 11.5k is spread across all zerg. Even if everyone did stand about like rabbits caught in headlights so your aoe can rain over them for a sustained period of time , that's STILL only 2kish dps per person. You see its not your 2k dps thats finishing people off, its the players on the front line with the burst, your just background noise that looks shiny on a meter or hitting already low players who are pvping.
Ask yourself this, if you were in the front line and you see red circles - what would you do? same for everyone else.Spot on, I should've anticipated and mentioned that, ty for the opportunity. Yeah so players aren't static, they'll move out of damage, but imagine 1 weaver with 11.5k dps, 2 scourges with 8k dps and a handful of revs all within 6-9k DPS and spread that out over a radius of 600 and at least a few things are going down because the damage output is greater than frontline sustain output.

Weaver is the final nail in the coffin, it can't down things alone, that's correct, but you down things so much more effectively when it's present.

1v1 - your dead1vx - your deadzerg caught at front - your dead5 v5 - people aint gonna stand in your little red circles - your gonna get pressured and dead.

so on and so forth, that's a shit build.

Basically the single solitary scenario where weaver staff contributes is the aoe spam from the back, which is the circles of red spam blob v blob gameplay that anet and players do not want for obvious reasons.

October 23, 2018

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:
@"vesica tempestas.1563" said:if a front line has 10-40 people that's not whats happening at all, the aoe hits 5 people and has long cooldowns. What is happening is a lot of confirmation bias with meters and number spam.
OK, I should've been more clear - I'm not suggesting I've ever taken down 10 frontliners simultaneously. But you do believe me when I tell you that I consistently chain-cast (as quickly as possible in the game) 5 to 7 skills and can at least take out 4 or 5 of them, yes? Because I do that literally every single day, man. Also the cooldowns are not that long if you do a complete rotation (earth-water, fire-earth, fire-fire, air-fire, water-air, repeat with earth-water... best DPS rotation for WvW and no cooldowns aside from meteor shower) Confirmation bias is a good point to raise and I'm glad you brought it up but it can't be confirmation bias if it survives such a large sample size.

I'm not sure how many times I can say "I do this all the time and I swear to god it works and everyone who sees me do it knows it was me because they comment on it and treat me as an asset" before I sound like I'm entirely absorbed in my ego. It's really demanding and not easy, but it can be done, and it can be done fairly consistently --- that's all I'm saying.

I just feel like everyone who says it's number spam/meaningless numbers has never got consistent 10-13k averaged dps over a 3 minute long complicated zerg fight while surviving almost flawlessly before. If you've done that first-hand and seen all the downs you've generated you won't think it's meaningless >

__> god I sound like a kitten when I read that over, but I'm not sure how else to put it. It's possible ;

; how do I convince you it's possible!? lol

lets say you do 11.5k dps on a zerg. People in zergs do not stand still in aoe, so basically your 11.5k is spread across all zerg. Even if everyone did stand about like rabbits caught in headlights so your aoe can rain over them for a sustained period of time , that's STILL only 2kish dps per person. You see its not your 2k dps that's doing the main pvp work to down people, its the players on the front line with the burst. Ele AOE is just background noise that looks shiny on a meter and/or hitting already low players who are pvping.

Ask yourself this, if you were in the front line and you see red circles - what would you do? same for everyone else.

October 23, 2018

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:Says it all really about why balancing is screwed and has been for a year 'consistently top DPS nearly 80-85% ' this is what the balance team seems to see, bloody meter numbers. dee pee eees has absolutely nothing to do with pvp beyond a meaningless spam behind the field in a zerg, i.e when facing a zerg of 40, your spam hitting 5 or so people who dont instantly dodge your aoe is meaningless pretty numbers. What makes pvp is the ability to compete in 1v1, spike individuals down fast, be able to hold in 1vx or be able to safely retreat.

I agree on your points regarding PvP but you should've read my post a little more carefully. I outlined how I frequently see enemy frontlines start immediately going down after I've chained off a few high-damage aoes in rapid succession. This was not an exaggeration. I have many videos to prove it works. My damage is not just a pretty number, it's effect is able to be confirmed visually. Everything around me dies and every guild I'm in, as well as a few other guilds I'm not part of/squads who know me well recognize that they are able to do a lot more when I'm around. In some squads I can consistently hit over 40% of the total zerg DPS [this is infrequent, but it does happen] ... if I'm doing almost half of an entire squad of 30's DPS, it's not just a 'meaningless number' ... that's a game changer. Again ... not ego-tripping. Just telling the truth. Weaver is effective. I have a toon for every class and used to main several others, it's not that I don't understand the importance of 1v1 combat or any of the other important things regarding pvp ... it's that weaver is genuinely OP as hell in WvW and sometimes it seems like nobody even knows it.

if a front line has 10-40 people that's not whats happening at all, the aoe hits 5 people and has long cooldowns. What is happening is a lot of confirmation bias with meters and number spam.

October 22, 2018

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:
@Mini Crinny.6190 said:I can edit videos and only put the good vids out too, Cellofrag isn't amazingAside from picking the more interesting fights as opposed to just videos of wrecking random smaller groups since no one wants to watch that anyway, if you think those are cherry picked clips then with all due respect that just says more about your own experience with this game. Yes I'll admit many of cellofrag's clips are average fights for anyone who is competent. I sincerely don't mean to come off as ego-stroking, but in an attempt to prove my point, I will mention that in-game I'm consistently top DPS nearly 80-85% of the time when it comes to real full-on fights both in d/ps and total %dmg (yes I look at it during every single fight) I'm almost always on the ball with my gameplay and by now I have way too many videos uploaded for it to be cherry picking so I reeeeeally don't mind if you want to say someone necessarily has to be cherry picking their clips dude! I live that experience out every single day, not just the days I make videos.

Weaver is indisputably top dog for generating downs and breaking frontlines up so that the melee train can push through. I can't even tell you how many times I've chained off skills quickly and watched the opposing frontline crumble. Honestly I've only seen a few handfuls, maybe 15-20 other weavers who can even pull it off that I know of, but you're just doing yourself and your guild(s) a disservice by not recognizing the true DPS meta. You just need the right people to be on the right classes. Weaver is NOT for everyone and there are many ele mains who would be better off (in terms of maximizing success) playing Rev or Scourge, unless they're more casually oriented in which case fair enough. inb4 I get flamed for telling the truth.

Says it all really about why balancing is screwed and has been for a year 'consistently top DPS nearly 80-85% ' this is what the balance team seems to see, bloody meter numbers. dee pee eees has absolutely nothing to do with pvp beyond a meaningless spam behind the field in a zerg, i.e when facing a zerg of 40, your spam hitting 5 or so people who dont instantly dodge your aoe is meaningless pretty numbers. What makes pvp is the ability to compete in 1v1, spike individuals down fast, be able to hold in 1vx or be able to safely retreat.

October 14, 2018

the ONLY place that ele is remotely competitive is pve raiding, and its about time the devs doing the balance relaxed the tunnel vision on this niche and realised the there is no smoke without fire - clearly ele has been in a bads place for a very very long time, and everyone apart from them can see it. They are either wagging the dog by the tail or incompetent from an analytical pov (ignoring the incredibly lengthy dev pipeline timescales which is another issue altogether)

August 27, 2018

imo all they have to do is give eles more base hp. This gives us the freedom to use either more aggressive gear/skills/runes, or indeed go the other way and be more tanky. Giving more HP will also be very unlikely to overtune us (gear difference is not that massive as we already stack fairly high in condy/power). I bet the class would be 1 hundred more times more enjoyable for seasoned players and new players alike. Finally, by tweaking only 1 stat it would be remarkably easy for the balance team to tweak in hot patches to fine tune as we go with little risk. Safes route: next balance patch give 1-2k hp, then increment by 500 as needed over the next few months until the meta settle down,

August 25, 2018

@Feanor.2358 said:
@Jski.6180 said:
@Feanor.2358 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@"bOTEB.1573" said:
@Jski.6180 said:I think the up and coming update to herald is going to remove ele from wvw viable maybe pvp over all. It dose not seem that dmg is getting nerf at all on the hearald class but now its going to be more able to bring more buffs for the group. Ele was always behind before the update to herald with a blast / aura fury vs a perma fury passively. Anet tell me your not updating a class that is used often over classes not being used at all like tempest.

I don't believe we will see any large (game-changing) updates of the ele. I lost hope. I am expecting it to be below trash and less needed profession for a long time.

Well what was probably stopping Ele from getting important updates to push them out of trash tier on all game modes was their ability to deal too much DPS on Raid bosses. "Hey, Staff Weaver deals too much DPS on golems and raid bosses so it must be good". I have some faith (little) now that part of the Elementalist is no longer true we might see some updates to the rest of the Elementalist skillset to make the profession at least viable in anything other than DPSing raid bosses.

Meh, I don't really care about the potential other applications. I mean, if you insist - sure, whatever. But all I really want from ele is to dps bosses and bomb zergs.

The problem is this ele brings boons ontop of its dmg

It's irrelevant in PvE. The boons you provide are already covered, and better.> @ThiBash.5634 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:
Meh, I don't really care about the potential other applications. I mean, if you insist - sure, whatever. But all I really want from ele is to dps bosses and bomb zergs.

Funny, because I'd prefer the exact opposite: dps shouldn't be low, but changing tactics on the fly is what I like best about ele. It's nice to be able to deal damage, but it's even better to change to a different attunement and spend a few seconds support (giving up some dps of course, it should still be balanced) and then go back to full dps.

Glpyhs, combo fields/finishers and traits like

Arcane Precision

and

Elemental Attunement

is what I like most about ele.

Again, I don't mind you having that. Albeit it is a bit strange for the class with most fragile base stats to be extremely durable and tough. But if you want that, sure. As long as the glass cannon remains an option.

you cant have fragile base stats and not be durable and tough - against real people or with random pugs you will get slaughtered and be a liability.

August 22, 2018

@"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.

I would love conjures to be removed - a skill that when used reduces your available skills from 20 to 5, and requires you to pick it up again to continue to have only 5 skills fro an extended period of time. Truly awful.

August 20, 2018

@Feanor.2358 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@Feanor.2358 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would love to see better survivability for Elementalist in all game types, but especially WvW and PvP. The Elementalists
base health
too low with just 1,645. Compare this with Mesmer (5,922) and Necromancer (9,212) who are ALL high-damage, cloth armor caster classes. Generally the Elementalist does not out-damage a Mesmer or Necro, so is there any good reason left why base health is so low here?

If you check the snowcrows raid benchmarks you'll see that in raids Elementalist out-damage Mesmer and Necromancer, that's why they have such a low health pool (for.. balance) even though in PVP and even in solo story instances, a Mesmer and a Necromancer out-damage the Elementalist by a huge margin. But you see, for better or worse (probably worse) the raid benchmarks are how Arenanet now balances this game with zero thought about anything else.

Because they need to balance for that potential. That's what Benchmarks tell you. The potential of the class in terms of DPS. And that carries over to every other game mode.In a group Elementalists are that powerful. For them to buff their individual capabilities they'd have to nerf the power it gets in a group, which would probably mean destroying elementalist's identity completely.The main reason why elementalist is in disuse in sPvP is the same, imo, that brought sPvP low. They removed teams from the equation. Elementalist works like a striker in football (soccer for the USAnians). It is good at finishing and getting the goal, but it needs a team to "feed him the ball", otherwise he's useless. To change that they'd have to remove that identity, and make him a discount necromancer.

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would love to see better survivability for Elementalist in all game types, but especially WvW and PvP. The Elementalists
base health
too low with just 1,645. Compare this with Mesmer (5,922) and Necromancer (9,212) who are ALL high-damage, cloth armor caster classes. Generally the Elementalist does not out-damage a Mesmer or Necro, so is there any good reason left why base health is so low here?

If you check the snowcrows raid benchmarks you'll see that in raids Elementalist out-damage Mesmer and Necromancer, that's why they have such a low health pool (for.. balance) even though in PVP and even in solo story instances, a Mesmer and a Necromancer out-damage the Elementalist by a huge margin. But you see, for better or worse (probably worse) the raid benchmarks are how Arenanet now balances this game with zero thought about anything else.

Too bad for the majority of the players (including myself) who never raid then. GG.

That doesn't mean the dps isn't there if you're not in a raid.

This is at the root of the issue, spvp/ small group pvp requires that you can compete 1v1 and potentially hold 1v2 by going defensive until help arrives, and then some burst on demand. This is not the same as big pretty numbers while doing dps rotations on scripted pve monster that can be memorised, or a static dummy. Dps rotation numbers are mostly irrelevant outside of raids unless they meet the above criteria as well, and they are a million miles away at present because the the balancing 'attempts' that are made on a ridiculously long development lifecycle. Example is players who try to pvp with a glass cannon build - they quickly get targeted and melted down quick style because they are weak and gimmicky and offer a quick opportunity to skew the fight with a 4v5 which snowballs quickly.

Dps rotation numbers are relevant anywhere in PvE. Your personal grudge against raids doesn't mean anything you don't like is only restricted to them.

you dont 'rotate' in pvp, its a totally different playstyle.

Hence my wording "anywhere in

PvE

". Although I would argue it's not that different in PvP. You still have skill sequences you use in particular situations. The PvE "rotation" is actually built up from such sequences. What you see on the golem is just the ideal case where you chain one optimal sequence to the next, and the one after it, until the golem dies. In actual fight you often need to break and resume it. In other words - adapt to the particular situation.

Everything is a sequence at the end of the day, but pve raiding is about min maxing the smoothness of the rotation and dps over everything. Out of raiding this is relevant but not essential, and pvp it is simply not relevant or appropriate. In PVP its about switching between defense and offensive spikes to counteract and overwhelm the opponent. Reactive gameplay is at the core, not rotation, in fact steady dps at a given rate is extremely bad because its predictable. Back to the original point, balancing based on this for PVP does not work (as we can can obviously see at the moment)

August 20, 2018

@Feanor.2358 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would love to see better survivability for Elementalist in all game types, but especially WvW and PvP. The Elementalists
base health
too low with just 1,645. Compare this with Mesmer (5,922) and Necromancer (9,212) who are ALL high-damage, cloth armor caster classes. Generally the Elementalist does not out-damage a Mesmer or Necro, so is there any good reason left why base health is so low here?

If you check the snowcrows raid benchmarks you'll see that in raids Elementalist out-damage Mesmer and Necromancer, that's why they have such a low health pool (for.. balance) even though in PVP and even in solo story instances, a Mesmer and a Necromancer out-damage the Elementalist by a huge margin. But you see, for better or worse (probably worse) the raid benchmarks are how Arenanet now balances this game with zero thought about anything else.

Because they need to balance for that potential. That's what Benchmarks tell you. The potential of the class in terms of DPS. And that carries over to every other game mode.In a group Elementalists are that powerful. For them to buff their individual capabilities they'd have to nerf the power it gets in a group, which would probably mean destroying elementalist's identity completely.The main reason why elementalist is in disuse in sPvP is the same, imo, that brought sPvP low. They removed teams from the equation. Elementalist works like a striker in football (soccer for the USAnians). It is good at finishing and getting the goal, but it needs a team to "feed him the ball", otherwise he's useless. To change that they'd have to remove that identity, and make him a discount necromancer.

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would love to see better survivability for Elementalist in all game types, but especially WvW and PvP. The Elementalists
base health
too low with just 1,645. Compare this with Mesmer (5,922) and Necromancer (9,212) who are ALL high-damage, cloth armor caster classes. Generally the Elementalist does not out-damage a Mesmer or Necro, so is there any good reason left why base health is so low here?

If you check the snowcrows raid benchmarks you'll see that in raids Elementalist out-damage Mesmer and Necromancer, that's why they have such a low health pool (for.. balance) even though in PVP and even in solo story instances, a Mesmer and a Necromancer out-damage the Elementalist by a huge margin. But you see, for better or worse (probably worse) the raid benchmarks are how Arenanet now balances this game with zero thought about anything else.

Too bad for the majority of the players (including myself) who never raid then. GG.

That doesn't mean the dps isn't there if you're not in a raid.

This is at the root of the issue, spvp/ small group pvp requires that you can compete 1v1 and potentially hold 1v2 by going defensive until help arrives, and then some burst on demand. This is not the same as big pretty numbers while doing dps rotations on scripted pve monster that can be memorised, or a static dummy. Dps rotation numbers are mostly irrelevant outside of raids unless they meet the above criteria as well, and they are a million miles away at present because the the balancing 'attempts' that are made on a ridiculously long development lifecycle. Example is players who try to pvp with a glass cannon build - they quickly get targeted and melted down quick style because they are weak and gimmicky and offer a quick opportunity to skew the fight with a 4v5 which snowballs quickly.

Dps rotation numbers are relevant anywhere in PvE. Your personal grudge against raids doesn't mean anything you don't like is only restricted to them.

you dont 'rotate' in pvp, its a totally different playstyle.

August 20, 2018

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would love to see better survivability for Elementalist in all game types, but especially WvW and PvP. The Elementalists
base health
too low with just 1,645. Compare this with Mesmer (5,922) and Necromancer (9,212) who are ALL high-damage, cloth armor caster classes. Generally the Elementalist does not out-damage a Mesmer or Necro, so is there any good reason left why base health is so low here?

If you check the snowcrows raid benchmarks you'll see that in raids Elementalist out-damage Mesmer and Necromancer, that's why they have such a low health pool (for.. balance) even though in PVP and even in solo story instances, a Mesmer and a Necromancer out-damage the Elementalist by a huge margin. But you see, for better or worse (probably worse) the raid benchmarks are how Arenanet now balances this game with zero thought about anything else.

Because they need to balance for that potential. That's what Benchmarks tell you. The potential of the class in terms of DPS. And that carries over to every other game mode.In a group Elementalists are that powerful. For them to buff their individual capabilities they'd have to nerf the power it gets in a group, which would probably mean destroying elementalist's identity completely.The main reason why elementalist is in disuse in sPvP is the same, imo, that brought sPvP low. They removed teams from the equation. Elementalist works like a striker in football (soccer for the USAnians). It is good at finishing and getting the goal, but it needs a team to "feed him the ball", otherwise he's useless. To change that they'd have to remove that identity, and make him a discount necromancer.

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I would love to see better survivability for Elementalist in all game types, but especially WvW and PvP. The Elementalists
base health
too low with just 1,645. Compare this with Mesmer (5,922) and Necromancer (9,212) who are ALL high-damage, cloth armor caster classes. Generally the Elementalist does not out-damage a Mesmer or Necro, so is there any good reason left why base health is so low here?

If you check the snowcrows raid benchmarks you'll see that in raids Elementalist out-damage Mesmer and Necromancer, that's why they have such a low health pool (for.. balance) even though in PVP and even in solo story instances, a Mesmer and a Necromancer out-damage the Elementalist by a huge margin. But you see, for better or worse (probably worse) the raid benchmarks are how Arenanet now balances this game with zero thought about anything else.

Too bad for the majority of the players (including myself) who never raid then. GG.

That doesn't mean the dps isn't there if you're not in a raid.

This is at the root of the issue, spvp/ small group pvp requires that you can compete 1v1 and potentially hold 1v2 by going defensive until help arrives, and then some burst on demand. This is not the same as big pretty numbers while doing dps rotations on scripted pve monster that can be memorised, or a static dummy. Dps rotation numbers are mostly irrelevant outside of raids unless they meet the above criteria as well, and they are a million miles away at present because the the balancing 'attempts' that are made on a ridiculously long development lifecycle. Example is players who try to pvp with a glass cannon build - they quickly get targeted and melted down quick style because they are weak and gimmicky and offer a quick opportunity to skew the fight with a 4v5 which snowballs quickly.

August 16, 2018

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.

July 31, 2018

@Quasar.1756 said:
@"Nath Forge Tempete.1645" said:LAva font has no difference on little or huge hitbox ... it tikes one time per second no matter the target size ... so i don't get why they had to reduce that ... they just picked the skills that deals the most dmg on dps meter and nerfed it .In the order:
Meteor Shower
Lava font
Glyph of storm (air)
Lightning hammer skill 4
Icebow skill 4
Easy to understand the nerf mechanics here ! Instead of putting effort into revamping old and cheesy mechanics (such as MS and conjures) they just toned down numbers. Easier and takes less effort and time. Maybe they are low on budget.

Your statement opened my eyes to something. If the nerfs were intended to be across all modes of play (PvE, PvP, etc...), WHY did Anet hit the skills USED for a RAID dps rotation for Eles???

Hmmmm...Should I conclude that 99% of the Ele 'CHANGES' are based off of raids??? O.O

NOTE:

Not being sarcastic here, just seeing a new perspective on the "REASONING' for the ele 'CHANGES' since PoF launch.

Thats exactly whats going on. Its really really easy to quantify dps on a dummy/boss/piece of static npc meat, except this isn't WOW, the game does not gravitate around raids, its just a blindly obvious failing by whoever the hell it is that thinks this is how you balance for a game like GW2.

All said however the real root cause of all balance ills is the incredibly slow turnaround for balance changes. Their dev-ops operations should be a focus to drive out this massive inefficiency which is probably the number one grievance by players and therefore arguable the best bang for the buck in terms of investment -> player happiness. Players will always have issues with balance passes, but that grievance melts away if you know balance changes are weekly/daily etc, that's something players will live with.

July 25, 2018

The ele designer obviously thinks class balance is still in 2004 where its all about rolling your face over a key rotation over and over to get top deepeeesss on a meter and all players want are to be glass cannon deepeeesss.

June 29, 2018

@Cyninja.2954 said:
@Voltekka.2375 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@"Ferelwing.8463" said:snip

Okay I'll make this easy, by your definition any build which works and (let's say some what helps in some way) is viable.

Fine, then you can start adding just about all the stat combinations here:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats

You do not need to be optimized for damage for pve. You can be optimized for damage but the game certainly does not require you to. I'm sure quite a lot of casual players run their own variation of builds. You can splash some vitality in to make yourself more durable especially if you are less experienced. If your tank permits you can even splash some toughness in. The damage ceiling which needs to get hit in raids is very low so it is more than viable to exchange some offensive stats for defensive ones as long as you succeed. A lot of players do so for HoT or PoF that find it to challenging.

So, where is the problem now?

Lets be honest, here: an encounters against an AI opponent can never be compared to a human opponent. Thats why pve has more "optimized" builds, as roles are pretty much defined: support chrono/tank druid dps berserker. Lets be honest some more, now: do raid players REALLY use vitality (apart from druid, when magi was meta) toughness (apart from tank)? No, they dont. Wvw builds are optimized depending on what you face. Eg, many necros play trailblazer in zergs (which is laughable). Or when roaming (still laughable). But its in metabattle, so it should be good, eh? Wvw builds heavily rely on zerg compositions, small group compositions, roaming etc. In pve, it is pretty much clear: dps is full zerk or viper, druid full harriers, etc.

Thank you, at least one person gets it. Yes pve builds are more optimized and yes there is more variety in wvw builds (which for the 3rd or 4th time I have agreed to).

I'm disagreeing with how much this varierty difference is apart if compared under similar fair circumstances. Many stat combos are mathematically not viable and strait up inferior. The fact that not many people have optimized their wvw builds or aim to achieve different break points (also dictated by their own skill and comfort zone) is nothing more or less than people in pve adapting to their skill level and say using marauders instead of berserker. The fact that this gets done less in pve is simply because there are resources to use which dictate what stats to use (something which is not as easily available, developed or shared in wvw).

In pve raids its all about optimisation, but in wvw you have much more freedom to experiment with builds for pleasure and scenarios, i.e a bursty cannon, a tanker, a bruiser, a backline dps, a small group roamer where you optimise to match the group etc, all with full power, full condy or a mix, heavy heal, lower heal, no heal, unusual skill combos, boon play, some toughness etc etc. Anything and everything to surprise and unsettle an opponent (and bring variety to gameplay). You dont surprise scripted pve bosses, they pummel away through their scripted rotations.

an example, at the moment i play a weapon choice as ele that is very unfavoured and not 'optimal' at the moment but im getting a hell of a lot of success because opponents don't expect things that are happening. Every now and then though i will switch it up depending on mood and what i'm participating on. This is in the spirit of early GW in a way - huge skill ranges and options to experiment, all viable when you are not tunnelled on a particular meta and can switch it up easily.

June 17, 2018

@yann.1946 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:Strawmen, As i said, If you guys want to believe that GW2 is the only AAA mmorpg in existence that somehow has casual players that would not like 10 man instances, you go on ahead.

What I'm more curious is if these so called "Casual Raids" would exist in those other AAA mmorpgs if they weren't part of the gear progression.

ofc instances need reward systems, really?

I think you might have missed the point he/she was making.

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:@vesica tempestas.1563
What you are missing is that in ESO veteran trials give far better gear than the normal version.As for the question, why does ESO have "normal" Raids, this is a no-brainer, that's where players farm their gear, in Guild Wars 2 we don't have a concept of gear treadmill, maybe, to satisfy all those World of Warcraft does it, and ESO does it, people they should add a true gear treadmill to the game. You know, to be like those games.

i'm not talking about gear, I sub to ESO and i enjoy raids casually, the gear is good enough and i get 10 man content.

Yet gear is all the reason "casual" raids exist.

look you guys are frantically, desperately trying to find holes in what i'm saying. ONCE AGAIN all im saying is there is a precedent for casual raids, thats it, thats all. Its a truth, not an opinion, fact.

The precedent includes the complete package, which you are leaving out completely. "Casual" Raids being there to get gear for the higher tier Raids, and higher Raids having much better quality gear than normal Raids. THAT'S the precedent in other games, not that "Casual" Raids simply exist in other games. You are omitting half the truth, which makes your argument misleading and flawed at best.

I know this, we all know this. in GW2 its skins, in other games its gearsets, that doesn't invalidate my point about millions of player playing casually. If you guys want to beleive that GW2 is the onbly AAA mmorpg in existance that somehow has casual players that would not like 10 man instances, you go on ahead.

Fine, so let's introduce a subscription fee to GW2, reduce the amount of gem store skins which need to get sold and put the saved resources to add more in-game luxury skins. Based on that get easy and hard mode raids with even more unique skins in for every difficulty people would want to play.

Absolutely doable. So, who is up for a monthly GW2 subscription?

This doesn't account for devaluing gear of corse, so we'll just remove acquired skins on a quarterly cycle forcing people to reacquire them just as they have to for gear sets in other games.

Strawmen, As i said, If you guys want to believe that GW2 is the only AAA mmorpg in existence that somehow has casual players that would not like 10 man instances, you go on ahead.

No, but GW2 is the ONLY MMO which has no gear treadmill. Call it strawmen as much as you like does not make this less true. It's a reason why itemization from other games can't simply get copied over.

soo, it works in 5 man instances in GW2, but lo, its

impoooosssible

to do it in 10 man instances lol. In any case the points was about precedence for desirability. We have ranged from WOW private servers to implementation to god knows what to find oh so many many many blockers for giving casual 10 man instances. Interesting right?

They didn't really copy anything. They constructed fractals the way they did to fake a treadmill.And dungeons have not gotten an easy mode altough it has been asked too.

In a discussion its a lot better tot adress the point being made instead of trying to dismiss what others are saying. ( I know their are other people who also do this. Just trying to give some friendly advice)

thing is, they are not arguing for something, they are throwing excuse after excuse for not making a thing happen purely because some are oh so desperately fighting to block something that would give value to other people, its highly selfish behavior, and its not good for a community based game like GW2.

If you distil this down to its purest form and ask the casual community if they would like casual 10 man instances then im sure we all know the answer would be yes. That's the point here. Once you know this then implementation is a different problem, and Anet are smart cookies.

June 17, 2018

@Feanor.2358 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@Feanor.2358 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:@vesica tempestas.1563
What you are missing is that in ESO veteran trials give far better gear than the normal version.As for the question, why does ESO have "normal" Raids, this is a no-brainer, that's where players farm their gear, in Guild Wars 2 we don't have a concept of gear treadmill, maybe, to satisfy all those World of Warcraft does it, and ESO does it, people they should add a true gear treadmill to the game. You know, to be like those games.

i'm not talking about gear, I sub to ESO and i enjoy raids casually, the gear is good enough and i get 10 man content.

Yet gear is all the reason "casual" raids exist.

look you guys are frantically, desperately trying to find holes in what i'm saying. ONCE AGAIN all im saying is there is a precedent for casual raids, thats it, thats all. Its a truth, not an opinion, fact.

Actually you're making two generic definitions of the term "casual raids" and assume equality between them when none exists. One of these exists for specific reasons the others have told you. Reason which do not exist in GW2. The other is a hypothetical content which - for some

reason

- does not exist in GW2 either. I trust you can correlate these two

facts

on your own.

Interpret intent behind the argument and you will see where the real argument flaws are. Any instances with more than 5 players must be impossible to do in GW2 it seems.

Of course not. We have instances with 60+ in the game and they have pretty good success rate.

'im alright jack' as long as existing raiders have their little niche 10 man, screw casual players. ' its too difficult to do', 'they are lazy', 'its too expensive', 'ah but other AAA mmorpg are [excuse here]', thinking about other people or selfish intent. quite sad really.

June 17, 2018

@Feanor.2358 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:@vesica tempestas.1563
What you are missing is that in ESO veteran trials give far better gear than the normal version.As for the question, why does ESO have "normal" Raids, this is a no-brainer, that's where players farm their gear, in Guild Wars 2 we don't have a concept of gear treadmill, maybe, to satisfy all those World of Warcraft does it, and ESO does it, people they should add a true gear treadmill to the game. You know, to be like those games.

i'm not talking about gear, I sub to ESO and i enjoy raids casually, the gear is good enough and i get 10 man content.

Yet gear is all the reason "casual" raids exist.

look you guys are frantically, desperately trying to find holes in what i'm saying. ONCE AGAIN all im saying is there is a precedent for casual raids, thats it, thats all. Its a truth, not an opinion, fact.

Actually you're making two generic definitions of the term "casual raids" and assume equality between them when none exists. One of these exists for specific reasons the others have told you. Reason which do not exist in GW2. The other is a hypothetical content which - for some

reason

- does not exist in GW2 either. I trust you can correlate these two

facts

on your own.

Interpret intent behind the argument and you will see where the real argument flaws are. Any instances with more than 5 players must be impossible to do in GW2 it seems.

June 17, 2018

@maddoctor.2738 said:
@"vesica tempestas.1563" said:Strawmen, As i said, If you guys want to believe that GW2 is the only AAA mmorpg in existence that somehow has casual players that would not like 10 man instances, you go on ahead.

What I'm more curious is if these so called "Casual Raids" would exist in those other AAA mmorpgs if they weren't part of the gear progression.

ofc instances need reward systems, really?

June 17, 2018

@Cyninja.2954 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@Cyninja.2954 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:
@vesica tempestas.1563 said:
@maddoctor.2738 said:@vesica tempestas.1563
What you are missing is that in ESO veteran trials give far better gear than the normal version.As for the question, why does ESO have "normal" Raids, this is a no-brainer, that's where players farm their gear, in Guild Wars 2 we don't have a concept of gear treadmill, maybe, to satisfy all those World of Warcraft does it, and ESO does it, people they should add a true gear treadmill to the game. You know, to be like those games.