[Swords Necro is all I ever wanted for Ele.]

On 3/2/2024 at 2:59 AM, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

It's actually not a bad idea, Sword/Shield sounds fun as a mage knight-ish fantasy. Plus it's a good combo for fashion wars.

Although we need something ranged first.

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

[Enough with the Gimmicks]

4 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

  

You really shouldn't be moving the goal post this much. So it has gone from "active players" to "copies sold" and now to "active subscriptions".

This all still really boils down to only being able to know estimates, and those estimates even then still do not fall within the range of active players at peak times in a day that you asserted earlier, again "big games of today have 10-20x the numbers" is what you said, seemingly comparing the GW2 daily peak population to that of WoW and FFXIV, or even other games not within the same genre. That is not accurate based on these estimates you are referencing, and also copies sold still does not equate to peak concurrent player population within a 24 hour period. Also there are platforms like Steam which do show play counts on games, where things like Elden Ring, Lost Ark, Baldur's Gate 3 and others have shown numbers hitting the 1 million, or close to, players active at peak times during the day.

You are conflating things that are not the same thing, at least by my understanding of what you're trying to convey here.

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

[Enough with the Gimmicks]

9 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Those balance changes were direct results of player complaints of "I don't get to play my class in content XYZ". Now we can agree on that how this balance or change was achieved was not ideal, given maybe a new set of elite specializations with certain boons in mind could have been better, but that would have taken years at best.

As to gimmicky, the support roster has increased drastically. You might not mind as "hi dps", but many players that enjoy playing supports might.

As far as balance, the game is in some of the best balance it has been in years, as far as PvE is concerned. Well except for open world content which just gets annihilated by now with any type of semi sensible build, but that's what many players were complaining about too, so fixed (pages upon pages upon pages of Dragon's End being to hard, open world content should be easy, etc).

I fail to recall a single time where profession forums for this game were right on anything. Ever.

The best and most fun example I always like to remember is the Signet of Inspiration "nerf" where it was not subject to boon duration any longer. Two days of cheering and jubilee by most players on these boards about how chrono was finally nerfed. Followed by the realization that now pink class was being run exclusively (because no boon duration means NO BOON DURATION).

Was the perfect example of how limited most players understanding of this games mechanics are. I could name dozens more btw.

So, who should the developers listen to exactly? Because different understanding and priorities make for very different recommendations and expectations. Another great example: power mech and how some players were vehement in arguing that it was balanced at the time.

That's a decent retention rate tbh. It's not as good as expanding numbers, which is always the ideal, 35% is above average retention. We also don't know how many of those players might have moved from switch to the stand alone client (probably just a few).

That said, MMORPGs usually take time to attract new players, most often with hype cycles. FF14 is a great example here, for anyone who wants to check that games steam numbers. Oh I am not referring to the Hype and exploding numbers with Shadowbringers. I'm talking about the YEARS before that from 2014-2019.

You are correct though in that GW2 might be lacking those big expansion moments due to their new development model. So we will have to wait and see if any of their new mini expansions make big headlines.

I'm in agreement that a lot of focus is on gimmicks since IBS and EoD. More importantly the main gimmick being legendary gear. As to listening to player feedback, again, you seem to believe any player feedback is of value, when in fact the reality is more likely: the feedback which was listened to is/was not to your liking.

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. 

[Enough with the Gimmicks]

On 3/4/2024 at 7:20 AM, Tanachi.3951 said:

They listened to the feedback, not OUR feedback, mind you, but the feedback of some benchmark guild or some subreddit group or whatever. But it's the expected consequence, to be honest. Since EoD the current balance team has been taken on even harder ordeals. They couldn't even make a decent elite spec for each class and now they tried to balance giving every spec not only a new weapon, but other spec's weapons too. And they're completely lost, that's why they need this group of select elite players to literally tell them what to do. Because we have to maintain the sacred 40k dps on unrealistic golem setup, or whatever.

Getting back on topic, new weapons used to make sense because they were literally made for the elite spec. Now that there will never be an elite spec weapon, all new weapons will be gimmicky garbage. For the rest of this game's lifetime.

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.

[Swords Necro is all I ever wanted for Ele.]

22 hours ago, Aedil.1296 said:

Almost 40 now, I was in my 20s when GW1 was the game 🤣 my mind is not that fresh anymore especially after work 

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... 

[Enough with the Gimmicks]

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.

[Pistol failure]

1 hour ago, bluberblasen.9684 said:

pistol is NOT a bad weapon! ( WvW view )

its a boring weapon with boring animation and boring mechanic but it is a STRONG weapon.

As a solo / small scale Roamer ( dueller ) this weapon is great for "standard" catalyst players. I Won EVERY 1 on 1 and some 1 vs 2.

It is a little bit better than scepter in everything. ( shorter cooldowns, more damage, much more burning, area frost aura ) It has the same perma might, aura stacking and poison on skill 3 + you get a free interrupt in skill 2 + vulnerability + interrupt in skill 3  + much more bleeding ( like 20 stacks + )

but.. it is a very boring  weapon ! And you should remove that boring bullet mechanic, it is useless, just remove it and make the skills a little bit stronger ...and make air skill 3 a "normal 600er range leap" instead of this confusing and random interrupting skill ... 😕

 

 

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. 

[Pistol failure]

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 

[My thoughts on updated pistol for elementalist]

1 hour ago, Faebe.7341 said:

• Scorching Shot: Reduced the burning duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds in PvE only. Reduced the power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.3 in PvE only.
• Raging Ricochet: Reduced the burning from 2 stacks for 7 seconds to 1 stack for 8 seconds in PvE only.
• Searing Salvo: Reduced the initial burning from 2 stacks for 8 seconds to 1 stack for 7 seconds in PvE only. Reduced the secondary burning from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvE only. Increased the missile velocity.

Nuked before even released xD. Why only for pve? I dont get it, the weapon is useless for every role^^

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 

[Catalyst hammer...undecided]

8 hours ago, Sythus.2396 said:

Pretty much this but unfortunately it keeps falling on deaf ears. I genuinely want to know what went on internally for them to decide on Hammer. 
I've given up on expecting a decent range option on Ele, like many others probably. Bet the next weapon after pistol will be off-hand Sword.

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. 

[Catalyst hammer...undecided]

On 2/25/2024 at 5:56 AM, raykor.6723 said:

I know it's been out for quite a while but just getting around to trying it. My first two observations are:

1. The hammer's fire and air skills are ranged but then earth and water are melee. Every other weapon is either all melee or all range. Very strange.
2. The hammer's swirls are a primary mechanic with powerful effects but what a pain trying to keep them active. Fun for a short time but gets tiring.

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. 

[Every Class Got a New Weapon But Ele Just Got a New Thing To Complain About]

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. 

[Elementalist is so disappointing, it's sad to see]

13 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

The good thing it really doesn't matter if you like my take or not because that seems to be the take Anet has taken as well with the profession. So, it stinks to be those who don't like it then. Oh well, I guess it's time they move on to another class that does suit their needs. 🙂

Okay boomer 

[Elementalist is so disappointing, it's sad to see]

9 minutes ago, RazieL.5684 said:

"yeah ele is worse than everyone else but since i tortured myself with it through the years they shouldn't fix it to be on the same level as the rest but leave it as it is for everyone else to go through the same torture i did"

JEEEEEEESUS CHRIST!!!....

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." 

[Where does Elementalist shine?]

1 hour ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

You know what I meant. If you are asking for a specific role, and someone brings something else then of course you can kick them for that. I was not referring to that, and you knew it. There is more scenarios than that when it comes to elistism. If it is an open group and all they ask for is just dps, a person is more than freely allowed to join as an ele because Ele is good at dps despite some of your nay saying. It does the job quite well in capable hands. I also couldn't care less for the support side argument you presented because I don't care to play support. I only play pure dps professions here. 

And most people don't give two kittens if an Ele is brought when they are asking for just dps classes. The someone brought any other class than I requested applies to most all the other professions in the game. It is not just an Ele specific thing.

Edit:  A lot of you nay sayers are just making mountains out of mole hills. It is not that bad of a state for its intended purpose on the dps side. You can claim all you want with your "not" elitism that it needs to change and re define itself to fit the groups will, but it doesn't need to that as well since it is not that big of a problem. Most people don't care that much and will take an Ele because they know it can get the job done. A dps is still a dps at the end of the day.

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. 

[Where does Elementalist shine?]

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. 

[Pistols Grant Elementalists the Choice between Greater Damage and Defense]

On 11/15/2023 at 8:05 AM, Helgaley.3619 said:

Noooo it's condi focused and not power 😭

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. 

[Pistols Grant Elementalists the Choice between Greater Damage and Defense]

Noooo it's condi focused and not power 😭

[Are we really getting pistol, and not greatsword or some kind of bow??]

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. 

[Elementalist is so disappointing, it's sad to see]

16 minutes ago, Joncal.9623 said:

Which can easily be fixed/bypassed with an increase range of all boons (and/or heals).  The lazy route is the easiest tho. 

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. 

[Elementalist is so disappointing, it's sad to see]

22 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Allowing ele weapon swaps would lead to really stupid rotations, though.  It's already bad enough with the meta condi scepter and power sword just rotating back and forth between fire and earth or fire and air.  If you add another weapon set they'll probably end up rotating fire on one set back to fire on another set while paying a stupid price for using any utility outside of fire, of which they'll have twice as many as they're supposed to have so they'll just nerf everything to be half as effective.

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. 

[Elementalist is so disappointing, it's sad to see]

On 10/30/2023 at 6:00 PM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Ele currently sits below a 5% combined play rate (according to wingman stats) - the lowest of any class.  This despite having the current top DPS benchmark along with two other builds listed in the top 10 on snowcrows.

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. 

 

[I have too high hopes for Pistol...even knowing I will be disappointed]

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. 

[Catalyst Spheres Clunky]

On 8/1/2023 at 3:44 PM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

My take as a game designer is that energy is an almost pointless resource. it doesn't need to exist because the only balance function it achieves is preventing too many fields being dropped in succession, and this could be done with simple cooldowns. 

Simple fix:

• remove energy
• add a CD to each element's F5 of 10sec (to match attunement CD, also affected by arcane attunement CD reduction)
• dropping a new field makes any previously-dropped fields expire 2sec later (ie: 5sec default duration -> 3sec)
• F5 fields drop at the catalyst's location, are no longer manually placed (QOL change to remove clunkiness)

 

these changes remove the annoyance of having to farm energy before encounters but continue to limit the ability to spam endless F5 fields.

 

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. 

[New Mesmer Weapon: Rifle]

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.