Ram.5981

ANet, Please fix the mechanics on Firebrand, Mesmer and Thief so that their skills (tomes, clones/daggers/ initiative) can be tracked in the highly superior buff bar location, to be on par with Ele pistol bullets. The bullets were obviously well thought out with how to track them over the already existing mechanics those other classes use. This would help improve QoL for FBs, Mes, and Thiefs to be able to track their class mechanics better. https://drive.proton.me/urls/FY4ZJYF6AC#YkQR3tNicuF9

This isn't really a bad idea. I think I want to add to this thought. Make bullets universal. It makes sense to be able to have a stack of bullets and imbue it with what ever element you're attuned to. The current bullet mechanic is gimmicky, clunky and not very effective. Make bullets accumulate like Vit daggers or Thief initiative. This mechanic already exists in the game, so it should not be hard to add it to ele for bullet management. Creating this whole new ele bullet mechanic was rather silly. Skill 1 auto-attack replenishes bullets Skills 2 & 3 consume a bullet if available If the max bullets are available, allow a special action to unleash some type of powerful elemental blast. Don't limit each attunement to 1 condition, let them apply more than one if appropriate. This will allow a better spread of condi's to apply and makes it harder to easily counter in competitive modes with simple condi cleanses, also brings it more on par with other condi builds that apply multiple condis very easily. Also allow using skills 2/3 to apply boons, since they currently don't Example: (just a quick thought here, didn't really think them through much) Fire: Condis- burning, weakness; Boons: Might, Vigor Air: Condis- Confusion, vulnerability; Boons: Swiftness, Fury Earth: Condis- Bleeding, immobilized; Boons: Stability/Protection/Aegis Water: Condis- Poisoned, chilled; Boons: Regeneration/

Overall the changes look pretty nice for ele. I'm confused about the change on Lucid Singularity to provide might instead of alac. Tempest can already easily provide 25 stacks of might, so this seems like might overload. why not make it provide stab or something more usefull to help reduce the need for FB's in every group?

This. I am rarely not the top 1 or 2 DPS in wvw zerg fights. Running full zerk staff. the difficulty is staying alive, but that comes with practice and skill (and some times luck when you're planting your meteor storm if the zerg goes the other direction..). Being top dps (usually by a large margin) in wvw zerg fights and being super glassy is an acceptable trade off. Outside of that, ele in general doesn't compete much with other classes when it comes to dps and group support in one build.

It's hard to play an ele in end game PVE content, especially in full-glass. It is possible. I do it just fine. You have to be VERY aware of the mechanics and what to do to 'succeed' them (avoiding AOEs, standing behind the boss, getting to the 'safe' circles, etc etc). Failing these as a zerk ele will almost always kill you. With a lot of practice and solid knowledge of the mechanics and skills (memorizing the rotation is a good start, but you need to learn to be flexible and adapt). While it's unfortunate that ele is a high-risk, low-reward class, I do enjoy it the most (85% of my game hours are on my ele). I love the challenge and push myself to be the top of the (dps) charts as much as I can. I find other classes I've played too easy (yes, I get close to the same dps as my ele, but I don't like just pressing 2 buttons).

Agreed. Even without taking into consideration the MS damage reduction per hit, Barrage does nearly 3x more damage (Looking at just the raw numbers from wvw) MS: 1098dmg x 3targerts x 24 impacts 79,056 damage (then there is the damage reduction per hit, which I didn't feel like figuring out) Barrage: 5172dmg x 5targets x 12hits (guessing this is what the "Damage(x12): 5172" means) 310,320 damage Barrage also has a faster cast time (3.75s for MS, 2.25s for Barrage), and a faster recharge time (24s for MS, 20s for Barrage), applies a condi (cripple) and has a longer range. https://imgur.com/a/aCpGo5D

Give MS the ability to cast without line of sight, just like barrage. Give MS the same range as barrage. And give MS the same ammo count as barrage. IMO: being line of sight locked on all skills (a couple of exceptions) is horrible, when Ranger doesn't have that restriction. The only difference between MS and barrage is meteors and arrows. Their function and purpose is the same.

Reading hard? never said I was using a SA build. I did say I have played thief, but I'm not good at it. It is not my main and probably my least fav class to play. But the ease to be able to one-shot others (not everyone, and probably not relatively good players) without really knowing what I'm doing is a problem. Same with necro builds: with little knowledge of the class, you do very well on it just mashing buttons. This is also a problem.

Imagine playing wvw before there was gliding, or mounts. But, yes. ANET doesn't want to do the easy fix and disable a money-making skin, they'll just disable a game mechanic that forces everyone to alter their play style. This is totally normal ANET behavior.

you totally missed the sarcasm and stated over-simplification. I have played thief, while I'm not great at it, it's disgusting at how easy it is to stealth one-shot other classes and give them very little chance to counter. (not as disgusting as a cele harb though, but for different reasons). My partner plays thief as one of his mains, doesn't use SA, and does a kitten good job. So it is possible for you skill-less SA dependent thiefs to learn to be a skilled player.

You can't. We are unbeatable!! Muahahaha... kidding... just like many other classes, Ele's have a few meme builds available. Unlike some other classes, it can be countered. It really depends on what you're playing/skill level vs. their build/skill level.

I play SA thief so I can just shut my brain off and press 2 to win!!! (yes.. over simplification.. and other classes do have OP 1-shot easy mode) I play SA thief because I don't want to bother myself with actually learning to be a skilled player. I just want to press 2 to win! Anyway, I am generally ok with thieves and their stupid OP stealth abilities. The most annoying thing is playing against the troll builds who camp stealth in fights, port out of range, range attack, stealth and port, repeat. With this amount of stupidity with stealth, either adjust stealth as suggested, or give every class a reveal ability. Having to rely on having your inventory open to be able to use an item to mark/reveal someone who likely ported out of range anyway is not a good viable counter to stealth campers. If you could hot-key an inventory item it could work, but otherwise it doesn't.

This reminds me of the elementalist 'god-mode' bug awhile ago, which took them 2 weeks? to fix. It was just 1-2 traits causing the problem with the use of a tonic, so they decided to nuke the entire class instead of disabling the tonic. 'Cause, you know, god forbid you prevent a novelty item from being used by everyone instead of actual class mechanics by a few,

A few initial thoughts from a wvw weaver perspective: Pistol has some potential with some tweaking I like that the stored bullets persist and do not time out like the hammer orbs. However, mounting removes the bullets. They should persist through this as well, to allow being able to do an initial attack of the unload. Disappointed with the range, but is on par with most other classes (except warrior with it's melee range, and mesmer with it's long range). You'd expect being magically enhanced bullets, it would give it extra range, and make it unique to the ele. The #3 dual attunements needs finishers added to them. having to dual attune to get any kind of a finisher is a hinderance. More finishers in general would be nice to be added. Make an auto-attack chain for #1 and make the unload skill the F5, like how the catalyst bot is setup. This can give more utility/damage to the weapon. Edit #1: Bullets need a better visual. they easily get lost with other effects (sublime mistforged chest effect, if you leave the trinkets visuals on, etc) Perhaps higher over the character instead of hovering over the shoulders?

Yay Ele nerfs! I'm not surprised. One of the most difficult classes to play well, and no reward for being able to master the finger gymnastics required to effectively play it. I main ele, I have over 6.5k hours playing my ele (I know.. small compared to some), but my next highest class has 300 hours, that's how much I love ele! lol Just for kicks, I have been playing a necro, specifically a harb cele build. I have been playing in WvW and PvE, and the ease I am able to do things compared to my main weaver is disguising. Killing elites/champs in PvE? No problem. Solo roaming, capping tiered up camps, etc? Piece of cake. While I can do this on my main weaver build, I am doing this on harb with only playing it for 15 hours, and I don't really know what I'm doing on necro.