Helgaley.3619

Guarantee they'd make shield OH a ranged weapon just to be different. Lol.

Just let the record show that the main focus of my post was really not supposed to be player count. Lol.

Players are good at identifying problems, but not necessarily coming up with ways to fix them. My frustration isn't necessarily related to balance as much as it is related to design. Yes, the professions are all well balanced in terms of output, but there are disparities in terms of how they are designed to achieve that output. Some professions have more gimmicks that inherently increase the complexity of the profession without adding much value, and because Anet doesn't think complexity should be rewarded, it just ends up feeling bad to play. You can't deny that something like quickness FB is easier to play than something like quickness catalyst, and even though they are capable of achieving the same thing, one is noticeably more difficult than the other. What I would like is for Anet to either move away from adding unnecessary mechanics that feel gimmicky because they increase the complexity without adding any value, OR to begin rewarding mastering that complexity with greater output in terms of healing or DPS or whatever. I'm not disagreeing with all of your points, but you have to acknowledge that even though the rosters have increased, certain professions are still not being played as much because they have more gimmicks and complexity that isn't rewarded.

Making weapons gimmicky garbage is a deliberate design choice though, and it isn't necessary. They just need to stop adding unnecessary gimmicky nonsense on top of otherwise simple weapons and mechanics, and they'll be fine. All the gimmicks do is punish the player for not mastering them because, as Anet has said and demonstrated, they don't think complexity should be rewarded. It's just so stupid seeing it typed out lol - their design philosophy basically revolves around gimmicks that add no value and complexity that yields no reward.

Felt this. I'm getting older, my brain doesn't process as fast as it did 10-20 years ago, and I want a simple, straightforward ele build. Lol. The next balance patch is going to neuter fire tempest and that's one of if not the only LI build we have left...

Gimmick - something that is not serious or of real value that is used to attract people's attention or interest temporarily. Anet - please stop with the gimmicky profession and weapon design. It is not fun. Mesmers getting greatswords and revenants getting hammers as ranged weapons? These examples are innovative, and they are fun. But the EoD elite specs, slapping quickness and alacrity on every profession irrespective of whether it makes sense, and these new weapon proficiencies? These are gimmicks - they're definitely different and might attract attention, but they don't seem to offer much value, and unlike the HoT & PoF elite specs, the EoD specs haven't exactly improved with time. If elementalists spend years asking for staff buffs or a long-bow or a rifle, maybe don't give them another bruiser type elite spec followed by a pistol and layer them with gimmicks on top of gimmicks that increase the complexity of the class but not the reward for mastering that complexity. It's also disappointing to see how many profession forums are complaining that feedback was not incorporated into these new proficiencies despite your messaging claiming that it was. Your messages should match your actions, otherwise it's just gaslighting at worst & poor marketing at best. Obviously we as players don't know GW2s total player count, but now that it's on Steam, we can at least see how many people are playing via the Steam client. Steam Charts peaked at 8,042 players in August 2022, but as of today, that number is now 5,214. Steam Chart probably only represents a fraction of the total player base, but that's still a 35% decrease. TL;DR - Anet's innovation has turned gimmicky, feedback is getting ignored, and it isn't fun. Enough with the shtick - please just listen to the feedback and give players what they are asking for instead of trying to be different just for the sake of being different.

I kind of feel like all the new weapons are a bit boring to play? I'm getting tired of Anet always taking the "different for the sake of being different" approach to weapons and elite specs. It's like a hip restaurant that started out being innovative with quirky twists on classic recipes but now they just do weird stuff like serving spaghetti out of a light bulb. It's definitely different, but it isn't clear who asked for it or if anyone really likes it. Lol.

All these bizarre concepts like hammer wielding catalyst, the jade sphere which has both a CD and energy requirement, and now the pistol when they could have just fixed staff and conjured weapons and pleased 3/4 of all ele players lol

I thought those nerfs were kind of funny when I was reading through the changes lol. Like what is pistol actually good at? They really felt the need to nerf a mediocre weapon the very day it released, and as always, there is little to no explanation for any of the changes. #salty

Anet always seems to try and pick a direction that nobody is really expecting, and sometimes it works, like with rev and mesmer having hammers and greatswords as ranged weapons, but hammer for catalyst definitely doesn't work. It seems like they just wanted to be different for the sake of being different, but the reality is that hammer is just an entirely arbitrary choice that doesn't even fit the class. It offers nothing that couldn't have been achieved by going with a weapon the players actually wanted, like long bow or rifle, but that isn't how Anet operates.

You should have seen the beta preview video for catalyst where they tried to introduce it as a "traditional mage" style class. Lol. Your points about hammer are spot on, and they've been said before many, many times. It's a frantic and awkward weapon that nobody asked for and few people enjoy. The niche that it fills, or at least filled before weaponmaster, is that the orbs allow you to efficiently build energy to place the jade sphere down for buffs/DPS.

At this point, they'd probably make more players happy by simply buffing staff rather than adding another weapon, especially since we already have scepter fulfilling the 900 yard range slot. Lol.

Okay boomer

110% this. "I suffered so others should too. If they don't like it, they can go play some other profession that brings more DPS, utility, and survivability with half the complexity of ele."

You kind of said what others are getting at - it does the job well in capable hands, and the average player doesn't always have the most capable hands. Lol. It's problematic when you build a profession as a selfish glass cannon with a high learning curve that other professions with higher survivability can outDPS while still bringing utility to a group. If Anet wants the professions to be balanced in terms of numbers and roles they can fulfill but not balanced in terms of design and complexity, then that is inherently going to lead to the current situation where certain professions are left behind because there is no reward for mastering them. The average player is always going to lean towards bringing professions that offer the highest output for the lowest effort, and I just want to be clear that I think that's perfectly fine. It's fun, you know you're contributing, and unlike complex professions like Elementalist, you aren't going to feel like a burden to the group by either being in downstate all the time or making mistakes in your rotation that ruin your output. Your position is that it doesn't need to be changed because other people will still bring it and you don't care about support roles, and that's fine. You know what would happen if Anet made some changes to either reward the complexity of Elementalist or made it easier for the average player to master? People would still bring it to your groups, and you still wouldn't care about support, so it wouldn't matter to you anyway. The point I think others are getting at, myself included, is that if complexity and effort is not rewarded, then people aren't going to want to play it. It's that simple. If the profession cannot do anything that other professions can't do better for less effort, then that is fundamentally bad game design that, as you've said yourself, doesn't discourage people from bringing that profession in their groups because it discourages the average player from wanting to play that profession in the first place.

Title. In other words, what does ele do that other classes can't do better? Feel free to share your thoughts on general strengths and weaknesses as well. My thought is that ele shines most in pvp or WvW roaming. Skilled eles are hard to take down in both modes, but cele stats obviously have an impact in WvW. I don't think it does anything particularly well enough in PvE that would justify the average player bringing it over most other professions.

I'm even more annoyed after seeing guardian pistol gives them the ranged condi weapon they were missing while else still doesn't have a great ranged power weapon. Meh.

Noooo it's condi focused and not power 😭

If we ever do finally get a longbow, it will probably only have one 1200 yard range ability in which you stick it in the ground and fire yourself like an arrow into melee range. The other abilities will have 160 yard range and will center around spanking the enemy with the quiver, but with the power of all 4 elements.

It's already kind of lazy as it is. Most of the offensive boons are almost effortless to maintain, but then with quickness and alacrity, you have some classes that can vomit them out with no effort (harb) while others, and I'm not gonna name any names (CATALYST), have to build energy to place a stationary field people might move out of that goes on cool down before it can be placed again, and you can't build energy while it's down. You definitely notice when you don't have them, but it doesn't really feel impactful or fun as much as it feels like checking off a box. It would be nice if they had some kind of diminishing return that would gradually reduce their benefit for a certain period so groups would need to plan out when they actually need to stack to share boons for like 20ish seconds to push a phase or something, then they can spread back out to wherever they are least likely to get one shot. They'd definitely need to fix staff for elementalist, though, otherwise we're still stuck in melee hoping the boss doesn't fart in our general direction.

Maybe. Ele needs a way to deal with phases where you have to weapon swap from melee to ranged and vice versa. Redesigning conjured weapons to function like engineer kits would be nice, but that's another idea that has been floating around for years without Anet acknowledging it. Lol.

Wingman doesn't account for pvp, wvw, and open world, though, and according to gw2efficiency, it's actually number 5 for playtime: https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics I think ele is numerically balanced in terms of output relative to the other professions, but it has a lot of design issues that Anet hasn't really acknowledged as far as I'm aware. It's squishy, the rotations are complex, it has to use melee weapons to have competitive DPS in instanced content, and as many others have said, ele just takes more effort for the same or even less results than other professions in similar roles. Lots of people (myself included) play ele because it fulfills the staff wielding mage archetype, but for instanced content, why would the average player take a profession that takes is high risk+ high effort but can't do anything better than any other profession? The average player is not going to achieve the DPS benchmark in instanced, but since the class is so squishy and unforgiving, they're probably going to end up in downstate. It almost incentivizes players to bring other professions because not only can they achieve the same results for less effort, there isn't as much risk of them becoming a burden to the group because they made one mistake and got one shot. It doesn't matter how many small adjustments Anet makes to the numbers because that doesn't address the design issues. Even when they added quickness and alacrity, doesn't it seem like alacrity would have more synergy with the catalyst orb mechanic while tying quickness to shouts would be far less cumbersome and forgiving for tempest? And why does such a squishy class have to use melee weapons to have competitive DPS? Is it really still necessary for the ele to not be able to change weapons in PVE content at this point in the game? The design issues are just so asinine and glaringly obvious that it's frustrating Anet hasn't even acknowledged their existence.

Ele players spend years begging for longbow or rifle and get a pistol that will just compete with scepter while Mesmer players spend years begging for MH pistol and get a rifle that will most likely compete with GS and staff for 1200 range weapon options. Anet is just trolling at this point.

Yeah I think the issue is that already has a cooldown. It has a cooldown AND the energy mechanic, and we've been asking for one or the other to be removed since the EOD specialization betas. What's worse is that you can't build energy when a sphere is already down, so it's basically multiple limiting mechanics layered on top of each other when 1 would be more than sufficient. To me it's just further evidence that most of the EOD specializations were just cobbled together at the last minute without any thought as to whether they were fun or even made sense.

I feel like Mesmer players have been wanting a MH pistol to go with the OH pistol, but instead they get a rifle, and ele players have been wanting a longbow or rifle, but instead ele is getting the MH pistol... Anet pls.