Mascarun.7910

Anything but Aquatic Ruins CM, not that I beg you. But I agree. We are going to have 5 daily CMs, and Lonely Tower CM might be even more gross to pug than Silent Surf CM.

Obligatory ele should have never been designed the way it is; these suggestions of having an elite spec with a one role, one element focus only highlight how limited elementalist is by its unintuitive design... Can people not seriously envision or imagine a one-element spec that isn't just hyperfocused on the same "dedicated role" BS that it already does? Not that I want a master-of-one elementalist spec, but we could easily have water as power dps (tidal waves, floods etc.) and condi dps (blizzards, frostbite, trait that applies torment whenever chilled is applied like how reaper can apply bleed on chill). Fire can also be used as healing (warmth, phoenix fire, burning to cauterise a wound and stop bleeding etc.). Class fantasy aside, a one element spec wouldn't even work for a healer build because might generation is usually locked to fire, protection to earth and fury to air, to name a few examples. Ok then, let's say water can give all those boons by itself; as a healer, would you ever want to go back to playing other ele specs then? Overall, I would like to see a spec that pushes away from the general: power = fire + air, condi = fire + earth, support = water + everything. I want to see some flexibility in attunement choice and forgiveness for not swapping to another element as soon as you hit your one or two skills in a given element. One thing I do agree with is perhaps the concept of an already existing weapon, like staff, getting new skills exclusive to the elite spec, because the lack of exclusivity of weaponskills has led to the current balance dilemma. Let's say we do get a " elemental specialist" specialisation and a weapon that allows for one element to potentially cover more roles; this would cause the other ele elite specs to shoot out crazy numbers again due to their high multipliers, leading us back to square 1 i.e. weapon gets nerfed and becomes the same kitten as everything else. If weapon selection is already dictating what our role is, then why do we also have attunement selection doing the same thing? Anyway, I've been thinking of an elementalist spec that uses draconic magic as a substitute for elements, with the ultimate goal of unlocking an "Avatar of Aurene" shroud or holoforge mode with some strong skills. The main issue with this though is that there are six elder dragons, excluding Aurene, and only four elements to the elementalist, even if we can lump Soo Won and Jormag together as water (and Zhaitan and Mordremoth together as earth). Since we are so fascinated by "role purity", I propose that: Primordus = Fire, power + condi; Jormag = Water, condi + CC; Soo Won = Water, power + boon removal + support; Zhaitan = Earth, condi + boon corruption; Mordremoth = Earth, power + support; Kralkatorrik = Air, power/condi + CC; Aurene = All. The main idea behind this is to have both damage types (condi and power) covered by all elements potentially, and no single element must be relied upon for a specific thing. Other idea probably mentioned a million times already: ->Transmute aura as an elite specialisation mechanic. Having to have a very specific weapon for one, maybe two transmute auras is so stupid. This mechanic deserves better.

My post only focused on PvE since I don't touch the other modes. Possible solution: use a different damage calculation vs enemy players in PvP/WvW modes. Should not have to hold back PvE gameplay changes for PvP/WvW and viceversa. Currently, I feel that there isn't enough of a distinction even with skills having separate cooldowns, durations, coefficients, etc. in different modes and we should just have full on segregation like there is in something like FFXIV, but that is a different topic altogether and I'm sure it's not a popular opinion.

Remove most/all multiplicative damage bonuses from traits, even elite ones. Things like do 20% more damage when target is under 50% HP, do 10% more damage to enemies within range, 10% more damage to enemies with X condition, etc. are all unnecessary and sometimes needlessly restrictive. Most DPS specs have like 5-7 of these and do we really need that many? Can also drop the effectiveness of might stack/vulnerability stacks to lower damage more. On that note, those same effects can be removed from relics (relic of fireworks) and sigils (force, bursting, etc.). Since this would take out a lot of damage from the game, just make adjustments to the coefficients of weapon/utility skills themselves, that way we can't fault specific traits for overperforming/underperforming DPS-wise.

Anet should completely rework elementalist before they add new elite specs or god forbid new professions. I want new things too, but their conceptualisation, design and balance for existing content all leave a lot to be desired.

Shouldn't have nerfed hammer at all if in the end they were just going to nerf a elite spec trait to lower damage for tempest. Seriously they want pistol to be the only condi weapon? kitten that hodgepodge. Undo the hammer nerf entirely and it will still be in line while feeling better to play IMO.

Weird to see an old thread revived, but I want to give my opinion on this without relating it to GW1 which I never played: I understand that the game is 10+ years old and would never allow such a drastic change, but I believe elementalist's elements should have never been pigeonholed into the roles they are in now. Water, for example, has anyone seen the destructive force of water? Tsunamis? Floods? Including ice, avalanches and blizzards? We could never have a class fantasy that properly utilises water as a physically powerful force because no one is willing to move past the mindset of "water should be healing and support only". If I were to redesign elementalist, I would focus the core specialisations such that they would strengthen the properties of all elements to allow for them to potentially "do anything", i.e. Power damage, Condition damage, Support, Self-defence and Arcane. In this case, further thought should be given to how the elements interact so that there would still be purpose for swapping attunements aside from having the equivalent of 4 weapons: for example, using water (ice) attacks makes enemies vulnerable to fire and viceversa. There's so much more that could have been done, but now there's nothing more than can be done because they aren't going to change how a spec works fundamentally after so many years 😔

Visually unsatisfying projectiles, hard to keep track of bullets, niche that didn't need to be covered at all (ranged condi, that's what scepter is for). Waiting for next weapon update where hopefully we can have a ranged power weapon (staff revamp/longbow/rifle). Benchmark DPS number might save it, but I'm still not convinced it's fun to play. Wouldn't be surprised if someone got 44k damage with it and then they say: "numbers for elementalist pistol are a little higher than what we wanted to see" and subsequently release a patch with bullet points such as: Scorching Shot: Reduced the burning duration from 1.5 seconds to 0.5 seconds in PvE only. Raging Ricochet: Reduced the burning from 1 stacks for 8 seconds to 1 stack for 3 seconds in PvE only. What a treat... Unnerf condi hammer tempest pls.

My wishes and delusions (this is with PvE type content in mind only): Staff revamp to become ranged power weapon In lieu of complete revamp, Catalyst can now generate energy while jade spheres are out (everyone hates energy Anet please stop) Trait added that lets jade spheres pulse minor healing and possibly give 1 stability on first pulse (let's make heal Catalyst more accessible/better) Elemental empowerment now refreshes all stacks when gained Conjured weapons work like engineering kits (remove passive bonus from holding them) Glyph of Lesser Elementals and Glyph of Elementals summons are permanent like necro (tweak all summons to be balanced around this) Water attunement gets Torment and Air attunement gets Confusion added to some damaging skills as their damaging condition to spice up condi builds. Can make the case for lightning causing confusion, and cold temperatures causing torment. Better cantrips Better elite skills More purpose for Arcane traitline/better traits Finally, throwing out this never-in-a-million-years idea: Staff gets a spellbook mechanic and elementalist becomes a real wizard. So like, assuming 1 is an auto attack that doesnt change, 2-5 for each element become skills you can select (prepare) from a larger pool. Staff so versatile it becomes the only weapon you will ever need as compensation for years of kitten. I want to be the powerful spellcaster I was promised I would be!

Take the damage out of elementalist and you are left with a sad elementalist. A lot of nuance to elementalist must have been purposefully ignored for them to consider a nerf this big for condi hammer tempests/weavers. Even if they nerfed virtuoso, the future is bleak for hammer; it will become a weapon with no purpose in instanced PvE, or at best very niche.

Hi, first time here sharing my opinion (don't come for me or for this block of text that no one will read anyway🥺) about the changes to hammer: Please reconsider a nerf that is not so harsh to current condi elementalist builds. My experience is playing condition tempest (not super familiar with Weaver), which is in fact the easiest of the three specs, but I do not believe that doing these changes would be healthy for hammer or for state of balance for elementalist. If the estimated DPS post-nerf of hammer on condition builds (according to the website we all use, 41k for Tempest and 40k Weaver) is accurate, then there would be no real point in using hammer anymore at all. As it stands, it is worse for power builds than Sword/Warhorn, and post-nerf it would be worse for condition builds than Scepter/Dagger(?)+Warhorn with the possibility of also being worse than Pistol/Warhorn once Pistol is released. The only thing Hammer would excel at after being nerfed is defence, but in comparison to other condi weapons for elementalist, it comes at a hefty cost to range (Fire only 600 and Earth 240 for Hammer while Scepter/Pistol get 900 range) and utility (see: Warhorn 4 in fire/earth). And it only makes sense for a melee weapon to have more defence than a ranged weapon anyway. If we want to compare the impact of these changes in relation to specs from other classes, we just need to remember that elementalist lacks impactful utility options and gives up a lot of damage to slot something else, while also being light on CC. And while tempest also has an easy rotation, in comparison to our DPS outlier Virtuoso, it is forced into melee range due to overloads, which can be disrupted and therefore cause us to lose significant damage due to losing Transcendent Tempest. I propose that, instead of severely nerfing the duration of conditions on those skills, that the increase in condition damage granted by Flame Wheel be reduced from 15% back to 10%, which should result in bringing hammer cTempest back down to 43k. If you don't mind an ugly number, drop it down further to 7.5% if you want a 42k benchmark, but I believe the damage should not be any lower than that for any pure DPS elementalist spec given the inconvenience of playing elementalist in melee range as a CONDI DPS class. Not only would this nerf not be as harsh, but it would preserve hammer as a proper condition weapon instead of as a Flame Wheel stat stick. And on paper, it just looks like a less drastic change than 40-66% REDUCTION TO BURNING/BLEEDING DURATION. There is no reason for Surging Flames to be as pathetic as the current Singeing Strike in terms of damage, and for post-nerf Singeing Strike to do tickle damage when Scepter and presumably Pistol (if unchanged) have good duration on Burning. Even an auto attack should feel minimally rewarding. Finally, as a side note, I feel that the randomness of Glyph of Lesser Elementals for condi builds should be revised. In practice, Glyph of Lesser Elementals produces higher damage than what the benchmark provides (because for some reason they neglect to provide an expected DPS with it on), but I do not believe that we should use the problematic randomness of damage as a justification to nerf other aspects of a build. And again, we go back to: using all the utility skills for damage and not for something else that could be needed. So many things that are bad or feel clunky and unfun with elementalist overall (conjures, summoning elementals, mostly unimpactful utilities, the Catalyst specialisation in general), yet none of those things are getting revised; instead, a perfectly good weapon is going to be nerfed to the ground. Will the rotation be the same with hammer post-nerf? Yes, but the DPS does matter a lot, because if there isn't the proper feeling of reward in comparison to other specs then it will just push more people out of playing any elementalist spec and right into the all powerful condition Virtuoso, or back to the same tired builds before condi hammer was even a thing. I was hoping to see more possibility for build variety with the addition of new weapons and the unlocking of elite spec weapons, but now I feel like I'm seeing the opposite. Ele staff revamp when? TL;DR Think again. Loosen your grip a bit on the nerfhammer for elementalist's Hammer. Make it make sense.