Integrity.2061

A user whose name i sadly cannot find anymore in this forum suggested to put the hammer orb mechanic onto the attunements while giving the hammer different skills on slot 3. I personally enjoy this idea to have the orb mechanic on core weapons too tbh as it would support the feeling of playing an elite spec even further when played with core weapons.

I have to agree with you here. Ele isn't in such a bad spot. For starters Ele can bring AMAZING immobilize if needed. Overload earth, aftershock, signet and you can even use arcane skills which provide amazing immob if traited. the utility is definitely there. Furthermore, it IS possible to do QtP Pylon kite as elementalist. I did it as celestial weaver, dealt decent enough dps and had no problem with sustain and also no problem with the orb mechanic (lightning flash, burning retreat and mistform). Handkite at deimos, also perfectly possible as tempest Samarog? You can be the pusher utilizing immob plus lightning hammer. The utility is definitely there. I'm solohealing and tanking simultaneously as a full celestial tempest while also doing all the mechanics a druid does. Aside from ten man healing I provide permanent Fury, Swiftness, Regen, Vigor, Might and protection and that way more reliable than a druid does. Plus, Rebound is a thing. Tempest is the only profession that can prevent an entire raidwipe with just 1 button which can also be used to ignore mechanics (the amalgamates clap for example, or a dps can just stay at dhuum since rebound will prevent the wipe) Giving tempest quickness/alacrity would be way too much for the utility it provides. Many people neglect that the ele has in fact an offensive buff called static charge which is applied to your group after every air overload. Combined with fresh air it does in fact boost your subgroups dps by a fair margin. Furthermore, catalyst will be pretty amazing at giving quickness. I played with 100% boon duration at beta and could provide 10man quickness as a single quickness giver. Plus, the sphere mechanic gives us the privilege to be the only class providing perma quickness at range. However i can agree that stability could be added. My idea would be to enable the trait staunch auras to give your party members stability as well when they got an aura from you. Weaver does look a little bad since it is only a pure dps giver, however it is perfectly playable in PvE and pretty much so in PvP/WvW. I could only imagine to maybe give the weaver the opportunity to provide alacrity to your squad by changin the dual abilities of the staff into a more supportive ones. So you could be a weavalac with staff. Idk sounds pretty cool xD.

I'd like to discuss the topic of weapons regarding the catalyst. I know that hammer is quite controversial, i for myself quite enjoy it but my bigger concern are every other weapons aside from hammer. Catalyst played with any core weapon feels like a core elementalist with a sphere. That is not only a problem because literally any core weapon is lowkey useless in PvE and to great extent in any game mode, but also completely damages the feeling one should get when playing a new elite spec. The following concepts are only examples on how to make it more interesting, so dont wonder if some suggestions seem a bit OP^^ So why not putting the augment mechanic onto the core weapons? For example Staff Fireball: We all know it, deals flat damage. Now in fire Sphere, why not let it apply 1-2 stacks of burning each hit? Lava font: Increased duration and damage when cast in fire sphere Meteor Shower: Longer duration with decreased sprinkle effect when cast in fire sphere. Let burning retreat become Burning riposte which gives everyone a fire shild to block for one secound ( a fire shield like crecia gives in LS 5 sometimes) Let phoenix Aoe Cleanse 2 Condis when returned to you when cast in fire sphere For focus, let Gale be an AoE around the target when cast in Air sphere. Let swirling winds last longer when cast in Air sphere. How about Transmuting Shock Aura grants this AUra to allies after transmuting when cast in Air sphere? Let the wind Gust on staff be an Aoe Knockback, Static field Pulses damage and maybe Quickness for allies Let Healing Rain actually Heal and last longer when cast in water Sphere. Let cleansing wave grant Pulsing regen 3 times when cast in Water Sphere Let Lightning Strike on Scepter hit multiple times (3-4times) when cast in air sphere (maybe only 2 in competitive modes) EtcEtc I think you get what I mean And why stop there? The conjures could also get boosted. The flame axe could permanently have the fired up effect as long as the caster stands inside the fire sphere The frost bow could have 2 additional stacks of water arrow with the sprinkle effect removed from it when cast inside water sphere Earth shiel could have improved barrier generation and block duration (longer tectonic shift effect while skill 2 blocks multiple hits for 1 and a halve second) Lightning hammer could grant increased attributes Same for fgs while the fire storm lasts longer when cast inside the sphere. these changes seem a bit over the top and I wouldnt mind proper ballancing but these changes could give the catalyst a unique feeling when played while also providing more valuable options ESPECIALLY in competitive, but even in PvE modes aside from hammer. Because so far, the specialization seems to be designed around the hammer. I dont mind the hammer and honestzly except for implementing a ranged weapon (like longbow) I'd rather have them fix the ranged options the elementalist already has.

I tried the catalyst in fractals to see if it could work similar to the firebrand. It worked pretty well and the healing was awesome (i know that probably no one cares about a heal quickalyst, but i do xD) But some things should be addressed to make it more pleasant. 1.) Healing delivered should also charge the sphere's energy. otherwise it charges pretty slowly sometimes. 2.) Staunch Auras should benefit the group. Every aura you apply also applies stability. Give it synergy with water magic's aura share so your party gains stability each time it gains an aura. This way youll have plenty of opportunities to apply stability to your group. Maybe even make aura share baseline and rework the water magic trait that the aura share can be expanded to 10 people? but maybe I'm dreaming too much here xD. I'd also would like to have empowered empowerment changed. That if you reach 10 stacks, you share 3-5 stacks with your party. This way ele finally gains some offensive support for the party. Otherwise I'm fine with the specc so far in PvE if the dmg gets a bit tuned down. In competitive modes however i see some problems. The hammer is somewhat playable but extremely clunky. You'd need way more defensive abilities in Pve to make it work and be the "steady presence in melee combat". The synergie with other weapons is fine, but does feel like a regular core ele. For starters, Please let the sphere deal at least SOME dmg, because it deals none in pvp/wvw xD Then to make the utilities useful, the augments should also benefit the group. Let the heal augment affect the group too when activated in the water sphere. Generally many augments have a potential to affect the group when activated in the sphere. The block augment could even block attacks for allies standing inside the sphere as well for the duration. Maybe the overall duration affecting allies could be lowered. But having such group defensive tools at your hand could increase its viability in competitive GROUP combat. The trait energized elements isn't really useful. Maybe give it an option for players that this trait additionally enables the sphere to stick around and move with you in order to enhance melee pressure. Elemental Celerity is a weird tool to be honest. I liked it when i played healer with staff. Doubling these skills is really nice. However, it felt useless in almost any other scenario. I feel like this skill could be also a group buffing tool. My idea is that it buffes your own stats by 5% and shares all of your stacks of Hardening Auras, Empowering Auras and Elemental Empowerment with your group for 8-10 Seconds. But thats just my take on it. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the specc so far

I totally agree that the dmg is way too insane. I'd personally say though that it may should stay a bit above scrapper (like1-2k dps) since scrapper has way better survivability and is easier to use. I disagree with the boon duration part though. I totally get your point. the purpose for diviner gear is questionable there. However with enough boon duration you can give quickness to a 10man squad. If you consider that OP, then sure, but regarding to that nearly every support has to be nerfed. Chrono can do 10man quick with boon duration gear as well and doesnt need much boon duration for 5 people. Firebrand makes perma quick and only has to change one rune, otherwise the entire gear is full dps. Given the fact that nearly every support is extremely strong in that role (support) i dont see a nerf to boon duration justified honestly. but the damage is too insane. Although i found it quite funny to have raids full with elementalists, this is extremely unhealthy for the game. we had it with only tempests, then weavers and now with scourges and firebrands xD. One issue to fix the dps is to work on the fact that the orbs hit multiple times per orbit when you abuse the hitboxes. Fix that and maybe lower the power coefficient again and you have a spec which deals around 38-40k dps when playing full dps and around 5k lower when played as quickness as the sc player did

i wholeheartedly agree with you. I used this spec in PvE and it completely shines there. The entire PvE community likes to disagree with the statement that Pve doesn't matter xD. And I tried to PvP with the spec. It was a bit clunky but i didn't feel powerless. I think this spec just needs more getting used to it for decent builds to develope. And even though many people don't like the hectic complexity brought with skill 3, but there are also a bunch who enjoy it. Many specs are stronger in pvp than others and if you find a spec to be weak, maybe the right synergy is simply not found over this short beta.

Another thing with skil 3. Sometimes the character seems to automatically cast Grand finale after activating the orb which severely punishes the rotation.

I think the greatest issue is that the orbs can hit multiple times during one orbit when standing inside the hitbox. Addressing that would tone the dmg down significantly already. I really like that specc, but i really dont want raids to be filled with 6+ eles again. since this was funny some time, it was pretty unhealthy for the game. Furthermore since that speck has dmg and utility, it would render the weaver useless in pve. That would be sad:(

SO far I love the specc! It deals decent damage, power as well as condi and it even has decent boon support! The changes were really well made:) if this class launches anywhere near like it is now I'll be a happy ele main.

The spec is working great so far! However i have some issues with the skill 3 on the hammer weapon type on every attunement. It appears that if the orbs get blocked by the enemy, they simply disappear and don't deal damage anymore. however you keep the buff which is tremendously punishing since you loose a lot of dmg when the orbs simply disappear:-) I tested it on crabs for example who start blocking at the begin of the fight and one could perfectly see that the orb of skill 3 instantly disappeared once it got blocked. Furthermore, I'm not sure whether it is so good that the orb can hit multiple times when the player stands inside the hitbox. This way the catalyst deals an INSANE amount of dps which is kinda unfair, especially in competitive game modes xD. The benchmark for the catalyst this beta is ridiculously high. however i do feel that fixing the orb in only hitting once every circle it finishes could be enough to address the issue.

The old dungeons are, quite simply, not good. They are buggy, and filled with repeated content/encounters and other than AC, not particularly good for atmosphere with the sheer amount of immersion breaking reused assets. The only thing they are good for currently is the cosmetic skins. Dangling Ascended gear to get people to do them would only highly how deficient this content truly is. I honestly like your ideas. And it is undeniable that most dungeons cannot really be considered good content due to bugs etcetc. The fractals are more polished in any way imaginable and with these they have proven that they can design intriguing and challenging 5man content.

I do like your ideas about it, this way dungeons would be way more profitable and intriguing, especially when the stats became selectable rather than giving fix stats which become rendered useless very often.However I'd still like the "hard-mode idea" as an addition to the dungeons rather than reworking them in general, so players get the choice whether they want to do the normal ones who remain as they are, or do the hardmode which yields better rewards such as ascended armor, weapons, trinkets and maybe even a dungeon specific back piece. :)

Some sweet juicy 5man content is something many people deeply desire. Fractals are nice, yes, but it is a bummer to my mind that the already existing dungeons don't get any love anymore.In Guild Wars 1 once you've finished the story of one campaign, you got access to the so called "Hard mode" and that is something I really would like to see here for the already existing dungeons.The old dungeons polished for a harder challenge, the tokens you get there can either be used to get the already existing exotic sets, but furthermore an ascended and visibly upgraded version of all dungeon specific armory and weaponry could be included with selectable stats rather than given ones. This way, the content of the core game would be recycled in a way profitable to many.I may imagine that revamping every path or even creating entire new paths solely for the hard mode could be a tedious act, but damn that would be so damn juicy. With the missing item spiral (which I don't miss at all) it wouldn't be too hard to include ascended equipment in there.It is one of GW2 strengths that you are able to get end gear through various opportunities. may it be crafting, fractals, pvp, wvw, raids...To my mind, it wouldn'T hurt if dungeons could be another possibility. Additionally, i think it totally wouldn'T hurt to include 2-3 dungeons per expansion as well, giving some proper hints on some lore or even a neat side story. I really like this game and 5 man content, but fractals are nice but many times meh... and the dungeons are also ok but not profitable anymore. giving the dungeons a hard mode for lvl 80 players would really add something to the core game while also making it easier for new arriving players to get gear appropriate for other challenging content. I'd like to hear your thoughts about it:)