fuzzyp.6295

I want to believe!! I've tried a build similar to you and even with Unravel, giving up that utility just didn't work out that well. This was before the recent sigil/rune update though and my D/D build has been much more effective with the changes so I can imagine a D/D Weaver build would be too. I'm waiting anxiously for the videos. :)

Fire is better imo after the Tempest Defense nerf. Air used to be strong with DPS on D/D Ele, good fury uptime and nice extra damage with lightening rod. But right now, Fire is def a better choice. Offers better condi removal with smothering auras and if you're using the new Sigil of Battle, I honestly have very little trouble maintaining about 20 stacks of might up between regular blasting and the extra might from Fire Aura/Arcane Prowess. I run D/D Ele in WvW all the time. Weaver bores me to sleep and Tempest just feels like its missing something. It's still very strong in 1v1 situations but don't expect to be able to win anything more than 2v1 like the good ol' days. It's actually pretty strong against Mirages both condi and power. It's decent against Soulbeasts and if you can catch a thief/deadeye, its good against them too but if they catch you, you will mostly be 2 or 3 shotted. Most warriors can out sustain your damage with their ignoring damage traits and reset the fight easy. Core Necros are cake but Scourges can be annoying. Revs are usually 50/50 and similar with Guardians. EDIT: Oh, Holos can be annoying with their stealth and high burst but its winnable. Don't bother with scrappers though, way too tanky for D/D right now. You can win against FA Eles pretty easy too, but if a Sword Weavers are running a high sustain/barrier build you will struggle and probably just wind up causing a draw.

I've been thinking a bit about Weaver and how to balance it out with Elementalist. I had a thought. I think one of the reasons Elementalist is hurting so much is because when put together with Weaver, it has in the past been extremely powerful. I think thats why we lost alot of our damage on attunement swapping abilities, like Arcane Fury and Electric Discharge. So I was wondering, how would people feel if Arena-Net were to go through a lot of the Weaver Traits and rework them to specifically take effect while the Weaver is wielding 'Blade Weapons', so either a Sword or Dagger? This could push Weaver towards what it probably should have been at the start: a powerful, melee spellsword. By making most of the traits of Weaver work only with swords or daggers, it might allow them to return some damage to core Ele through other traits and skills since Weavers would no longer feel they have to pick Weaver to deal decent DPS. Meanwhile, Weavers's will now be able to have some fairly useful abilities that can make it competitive in either single target DPS with sword and perhaps give it some decent survivability traits now that they wouldn't have to worry about Staff Weavers using all the extra damage abilities. It's just a small thought and I didn't really think about how it would change the traits. But I dunno about you guys, I would rather see Weaver lose as lot of its Staff and Scepter DPS in order to allow it to truly shine as a Melee Spellsword which is what the class should really be. And in return, hopefully Arena-Net would feel comfortable returning some damage to Core Ele to make that competitive once again.

I don't really see how this would ruin roaming in the slightest? You will be marked more often I guess, but a zerg isn't going to turn around and head to a sentry to kill one person. And even if they do, honestly, if you can't out run a zerg without stealthing anyway then you were probably dead before the marked changes. As an ele main, I have no access to stealth or reveal and have to constant out run zergs when marked. It's not hard. This change, if anything, brings more small fights. You might get outnumbered more frequently in fights as other roamers head to your spot to fight, but hey thats the way Anet always intended WvW, its not a balanced game mode. As for the cheesy perma-stealth builds, I am happy there is a little bit of counter play now but I'm still hoping one day they will give Ele a reveal skill. Pls anet.

I've been running cellofrag's build in WvW myself for the better part of the summer in NA. It is extremely effective in 1vXing unskillful players. If you battle another serious PvPer, you will not be face rolling as he does. The pressure of the build is also lacking, all it takes is for a player to kite you about for it all to wear off. And good luck fighting anyone who can cleanse conditions fast, because your raw damage output just can't make up for that extra condi damage. Cellofrag's build is really, really good and he has contributed alot to the meta of Elementalist. But remember that even in those highlight vids, he is cherry picking his best encounters to make an entertaining highlight reel. His videos prove Weaver (not core ele or tempest) can be played effectively using a sustain heavy build that uses condis to help with keeping the damage constant. Or, in other words, a hybrid build. I think my issue isn't that Weaver can succeed in running a hybrid build, its more that Elementalist has little pay off for running anything other than Hybrid, then more often than not fails at even running hybrid due to the classes weaknesses. At least thats my take on it.

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.

So this is coming from a WvW perspective, particularly from a D/D Elementalist, a weapon combo that just doesn't exist anymore. This is probably more of a rant, but I will try to add some constructive feedback as well. My biggest disappointment in the Elementalist is that it lacks any decent class based survival mechanic. I get the idea of the elementalist is that it is a glass cannon. You kill things before they kill you. Burst damage has and will always be the counter to an Ele. We have the lowest armor rating and the lowest HP pool. Our class mechanic is a glorified weapon swap, whereas other classes get access to higher HP, higher armor rating, higher mobility, multiple blocks and/or evades (we have next to none). And thats before getting into actual class mechanics like Mesmer's distortion, Guardians Aegis or Warriors straight up "ignores damage" traits. There used to be a time where an Elementalist's sustain could be consider its defense mechanism. You could outsustain your foe with regen and water traits, while comboing in finishers to buff yourself to the point where you can over power them. But this style of game play for Ele is long dead and burried; half because the game itself evolved over the years and half due to knee jerk reactions and over zealous nerfs that honestly could be reverted in todays game and not change a thing. I think it was Karl getting on twitter way back when to brag about how he was nerfing ele? Before HoT? ... :( Alright well thats int he past. Ele right now has two options: 1) Go full glass DPS. This is the fresh air scepter builds that can 100 to 0 an opponent decently fast, but melt if their opponent so much as looks in their direction. or 2) Full Tank Support, which is arguably a really bad idea since right now in nearly all game modes support ele is outclassed. Why does it feel like the class that is suppose to be a well rounded jack of all trades feel like there is no middle ground? This is my biggest complaint right now. I wouldn't be so upset if this was across the board, but then you encounter full glass Mirages that can instantly down you, Soulbeasts that can use WI that crits for more HP than an Ele can even have, or a burst warrior who after missing their combo can then kite and run away while enduring pain. When I heard of Barrier I thought that was a really good idea to explore with Elementalist. Having it scale of Healing Power, I thought it would be a great way to bring the sustain of an Elemenatlist back up. Unforuantely, the amount of barrier given to Weaver is... kinda lacking. And the fact that it hasn't been extended to any core Elementalist traits, particularly in Earth or Fire, is really boggling. We currently have four mainhand weapons: Long Range High AoE Damage (Staff), Long Range High Single Target Damage (Scepter), Mid-Close Range Weapon (Dagger) and Close Range Weapon (Sword). The Sword on Weaver right now is, I believe suppose to be another high single target damage weapon, having more survivability built into it at the cost of some damage and it being close range. But what about Dagger? It really, really needs some love. Look into it. I also BEG you guys to look at the traits for the Elementalist. There are so many that could probably be retooled. Why is Diamond Skin not using Resistance? Have you considered moving Powerful Aura into the Tempest Trait line so it synergies better and perhaps gives Tempest a chance to break out of its support-ness into a more well rounded, offensive Aura class? Speaking of Tempest, has anyone ever used Latent Stamina? Like, ever? I dunno man. So TL;DR: Elementalist's survival mechanic now feels like its suppose to be"kill the enemy before it kills you" but its lack of any middle ground makes it impossible to really play any decent builds that aren't one of the extremes: High DPS or High Tankiness. Other classes get that middle ground easy. I think the best way to reach that would be to re-tool the Dagger a bit since it is currently an underused weapon that stands potential of being a great mid-ranged weapon. Thanks for listening. I know you guys put a lot of effort into this game so thanks for taking the time out to arrange this thread. I hope we can have more dialogue with developers in the future about the long term goals of Elementalist! Because this is the only class worth playing. :)

Crashes have continued with me. It's better in PvE, although I still crash on occasion (noticed it happening frequently with PvE story). However, I am crashing extremely frequently in WvW right now. :(

I have no issue spending my money to support to Anet, I have been with you since Factions. I think the new mount skins are lovely. But I want to spend my money on what I want. If I liked one or two skins, you could force me to drop $100+ just for one item? That is horrid and you should be ashamed. What really ticks me off, however, is the fact that you dump in all these wonderful skins only a little over a month after an expansion pack is released with no way to get any in game. You know when the consumers get upset when a game releases with immediate DLC? Same issue here. This is a huge slap in the face to us consumers. You will not be getting a penny out of me until this is addressed, and with the current rate of locking skins behind RNG loot boxes and expecting us to drop money for a chance to get it is complete ludicrous. Let me be clear; I would have no problem dropping 400 gems on a skin for a mount that I like. I've grown to accept that this company will prioritize getting money from us. For a free to play game, its to be expected that skins will be added and purchased. But this is an absolute shameless money grab. I'm wondering, will the new weapons from the design a weapon contest be Black Lion Chest exclusive too? :-1: