Arheundel.6451

We had this discussion years ago and the consensus was :" remove all heal bursts skills from ele and replace them with something that doesn't scale as well with healing power, but remains equally as effective in providing sustain to the class" I don't blame people for being afraid of buffing ele sustain because they are right!, you would end up creating stupid cheese unkillable bunkers that everybody hates but at the same time....they gave melee weapons to a low stats class and now everybody expect ele to survive at melee range in GW2 20018 with specs like holosmith and spellbreaker, or boon soulbeast etc etc... I have no solution atm to suggest

They're afraid of overload dps....

I don't know why you keep going on about ele being good in WvW when it's currently one of the worst class in WvW. It's bottom tier in roaming on par with necros and also not that great in zerging, though better than top roaming classes such as mesmers/thieves/rangers for sure. It's only good at killing siege and doing high dps on undefended lords/guards but in a zerg fight it pretty much gets hard countered by firebrands and spellbreaker bubbles. So many times I'll meteor shower a blob and see bunch of big numbers pop up but nobody goes down thanks to fb giving protection and sustaining through them. Scourge's barriers also work pretty well against meteor shower too . All of your good ccs gets also gets countered by fb who has easily access to stab. In fights where there's a lot of moving and neither zerg wipes to 1 or 2 pushes, I've pretty much came to realize that I just can't move with the tag because I pretty much cant do any counter pressure when there's bubble and stability flying around and I have to be off to the sides channeling my MS hoping nobody sees me and interrupt it much less have a hammer rev one shot me. With this many fb running around I've pretty much given up on playing ele in WvW and switched to scourge and guess what? I actually feel like I'm doing a lot -- removing boons, especially stability and then ccing enemies with fear and I'm also keeping my squad alive through barriers. So many times I see bunch of red circles on choke coming from meteor shower I just laugh and put on my barrier and run right through, and if the ele is trying to channel it without stab I just put a fear mark on him for immediate cancel. This all hoping I dont die to retail too and i dont understand what you mean by tempest and chrono being unkillable? invulnerable? guardian and engi have invuls too and mirages have something close to an invul with choice for free action. Let's use this opportunity to discuss and propose changes for eles hoping for the best, anything else would just derail everything...let's move on

Even if we take the SC benchmarks, you can see that they are using huge hitbox so they basically megate the most RNG that comes from Meteor Shower and Lightning Hammer hits, and even with those things negated you are still left with the weapon stat RNG, but okey, lets say that those numbers are 100% accurate even on small hitbox. Scroll down? The numbers for small hitboxes are there...I meant that lets ignore the hitbox size and look at it that wayEle still has some of the best dps builds in the game? You can put all the restrictions you want, there's classes that need a rework 10x more than elementalist. Im not really into Raidar so yes maybe but we should use that for balance changes, becase as i experienced, if you upload your log after the balance patch it will take it as you did that kind of DPS/boon uptime after the balance patch not sure if its relevant or noEven so, it's been over a month since the latest patch, it'll be hard to skew the data with that. It'll probably be more than evened out by the number of "pro" elementalists that copy the build from snowcrows and then die every 5 seconds while cursing at their team mates for not keeping him alive when he fails to dodge a mechanic. Your basicalyl saying that ele should keep the max damage build, and still have more utiliity... Well that doesn't happen. A Guardian to keep up with ele damage needs to take everything, even their healing skill (the "meta" max damage build takes the crappiest healing possible, simply because it has the lowest cooldown, thus allowing to spam it for retaliation) with damage in mind.That's not to even mention that unlike elementalist who can take a few different approaches to power damage, if they ever change Righteous Instincts, power builds for guardians instantly die. The same with revenants, they're hanging by a single gimmick, which is an unhealthy state. While Elementalists, no matter the elite spec, they can still have at least 2 different builds in terms of traits and be near the top in dps. Yes ele should keep the max damage, because(lets take guardian for example) you have a healing skill that block everything when you use it, while ele only has a trait that gives you Arcane Shield when you would die and even that on a 40s or something CD, guardian has F2 and F3 for the "oh snap, i screwed up" plus guardian has heavy armor compared to light.And just for so i see things clearly, tell me what kind of "utiliities" are you talking about what ele has? Because the ones that i can think about is protection share while switching to earth and might when to fire, and maybe regen in water, maybe fire field and also ele dies just as fast as a guardian does maybe even faster because you can choose from die to mechanics cuz rooted in Meteor Shower or dodge for a major DPS lossAnd again i dont want anyone to get sore i just want to understand why some people think that elementalist is doing good while getting one shot by any mob and not even doing that god like damage No class is doing good. GW2 balance is non-existant. But there are classes much worse than Elementalist, and ones that weren't the top dps for 5+ continuous years. It's all i'm saying, elementalist isn't that much worse than it was 2 months ago, or 6 months ago. It does 10k less damage, but that's not a bad thing necessarily. Maybe start trying new, different builds, try to get a support build going... Pretty much do what Revenant had to do, what Necro still has to do, what thief had to do for a looong time since HoT. Chrono, Druid, Warrior and Elementalist were the only classes that never fell out of PvE Raid meta since HoT. All others had ebbs and flows. Now it's your turn. It's not a good thing, but it isn't a bad one either. Metas are supposed to change.Enough of this! This thread is not about yet another DPS raid contest!This thread is about improving elementalist as class, if you have anything constructive to say about the subject be it positive or negative...DO SO, we can't have every blasted thread on ele subforum be derailed by yet another raid dps talk. People have pointed out the same flaws in your arguments more than once but you keep coming down with the same chant over and over and over again while ignoring what people trying to say, we need to keep the thread as clear as possible and as short as possible for the devs to digest, we can't have 2-3 pages of you going back and forward with the same bloody argument. Go on and make your own thread in the raid subforum.. I won't have people attempting to derail yet another ele thread , especially not now when we spent months/years trying to grab the devs attention

Hard to answer...there doesn't seem a single dev passionate enough about ele to invest time on it...most nerfs are based on public perception, personal bias and whatnot ..buffs are based on internal testing...on golems I presume, take warrior for example....you can see how whoever behind it want the class to be viable at melee range at all cost and against all odds.

I personally think there's nothing wrong with ele's skills being "clunky" to use (channeled/long animation...etc). It's a big part of what makes it a hard class and distinguishes itself from other classes this way. Eles can have several slow attacks but they just need to do huge impact (big damage, big cc...etc) when they land. Currently a ton of ele's slow skills don't do enough (eg. all staff autos except Fireball, Eruption, Ice spike, Pressure Blast, Shatterstone, Dragon's Tooth, Phoenix, all Overloads, and the list goes on, even many of sword weaver's skills with its 3/4s cast time everywhere). Even Churning Earth is bad. I mean come on, an immovable skill with that huge of a telegraph and no innate protection such as evade or stability should instantly bring glass builds like most thieves' HP from 100% down to 10% when it hits, not do some bad bleeds that take forever to tick and gets instantly cleansed. I think out of every single slow ele skills, currently only Meteor Shower correctly matches its risk with reward. Some of the nerfs (eg. lava font, air overload) are what's making many of the ele's slow skills useless, so imo they should be reverted. Conjures are a whole another beast though and definitely needs rework. Currently basically all of its skills are bad and it locks eles from their more useful skills so people only pick them up, use 1 or 2 skills, and immediately drop them. The 180s cd on FGS also don't make much sense to me given the impact it brings. With that long of cd it should be like Sohothin from pof story (with numbers against down so you dont just wipe everything) I think. You bring up a good point..a skill needing 2s+ cast time should do huge bloody dmg..but not..it barely tickle the enemy like wtf really...if that must be the case then the 2s+ cast time should be removed as suggested several times already.

Personal bias and factual analysis are used to describe the situation , this creates feedbacks and skewed perceptions tend to lead to reality where 2-3 professions dominate in everything and everywhere. Before coming down with any evaluation, you're supposed to take in consideration both the PRO and the CONS...not just one while conveniently forgetting about the other. I don't know precisely to what you're referring to when you talk about "ele being high" and that now ele players are simply having a childish tantrum for this "small nerf" as described by you. So may you be talking about pve?....I am not a PvEr but from what I observed there : ele was doing the biggest dmg in a coordinated group and that huge dmg came at the cost of any resemblance of sustain , "kindly" provided by the group, if I remember correctly ele was doing 10k or so dmg more than next class and this apparently was/is considered broken by the community Putting your personal bias aside ....care to explain why ele should have the same dmg as the next profession, while having none of the sustain? Where is the balance in that? Talk about personal bias! Maybe the bias is on your court? I don't have any stakes in this, i play all professions, not really playing favourites. Ele is the one i play the least for two factors: Staff ele, which is the most viable build, is too static for my tastes, and i never really liked the "mage" archetype. But i still enjoy the class, and weaver is a fun change. I think it would benefit the class to have specializations that specialize in a single element or a smaller combination of elements (like a earth/fire only lavamancer, or a air/water Stormancer), that would provide the much needed focus, instead of keeping Ele as a jack of all trades. Also, note that i never said there wasn't an issue, i just said that it was getting more attention than it merits, with classes like necromancer and revenant having a ton of mechanical issues to sort out, and only a couple of gimmicky builds viable. Now answering your question, ele does have a lot of sustain, it just happens to fall out of the beaten path. I haven't played PvP in a while, but last time i did (just after PoF) there were still bunker specs able to hold a scourge and a Spellbreaker by themselves. In fact, there lies the problem with elementalist, it's a jack of all trades, but if you focus on one aspect it is capable of outperforming a lot of other classes in that aspect. Earth provides a lot of defensive options, including the OP obsidian flesh. Water has a lot of heals and regen as well. Air, earth and water all have some soft or hard ccs available as stuns, knock backs, crillples and slow. Etc. That aside, ele doesn't have the same damage as the next profession, it has more than most!Look at snowcrows, you'll find elementalist in the second place for large hitbox (after consecutive years of being uncontested in first), and you'll find all of their tested elementalist builds far above the top damaging necromancer build, for example. Their strongest build is above the strongest warrior and mesmer builds for small hitboxes.https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/ Looking at GW2 Raidar (which is a collection of "regular player" dps), you'll find an elementalist build in the top 10 of each category (including support), again outperforming all necromancer builds even in the condition damage category.Ele ranks above Ranger, necromancer, mesmer and warrior in power builds. It ranks above Ranger, guardian and necromancer in condition builds.And this is for "average" players... This even despite the fact that ranger, guardian and necro have much simpler rotations, so it's more common to find an elementalist not doing their optimal rotation than a ranger, guardian and necro. And still with the higher skill threshold it still outperforms the easier classes. If you have played any end-game content you'll see how wide the gap is between a good elementalist player and a bad one. While a bad guardian can still pull it off more or less ok. Then, there's the thing to consider, basically the most used elementalist builds are evolutions of pretty much the same archetype build being used since the dawn of GW2. It's normal that after a big shake up, people still haven't found the best interactions for the new status quo. So it's probable that those numbers will rise. Again you blame others of personal bias while you're the one with a clear personal problem about eles, to a point where I ask myself why do you even bother saying that you play all classes.....everybody can play all classes...I have a ranger and a warrior with which I am just as proficient as with ele, I have legendary armor on ranger and not eles, legendary weapons on warrior and not ele....I still love ele. I have asked you a direct question...you didn't answer...... I am using simple logic here and I still fail to get the message across..possibly because it's being ignored for convenience : you keep saying that ele does the biggest DPS and everybody already told you that ele sacrifice everything for that dmg, it would make no sense to sacrifice all sustain on a class that naturally has no sustain only to do as much dmg as the next guy that swom in self-sustain while having more base HP/armor. You're comparing a full zerk staff ele to a power soulbeast like...are you for real? The staff ele full zerk will explode if you sniff in their direction compare to anything else..I mean zerker ele on anything explode on visual contact but you still claim that not enough reason to have bigger dmg...right...... Now... we want to even agree with you and I repeat : we want to agree with you and bring ele dps down to other class levels...can we have the same sustain also now?.Instead than answering another simple question, you again go on a different tangent saying that ele has great sustain...yeah if he goes full bunker with bunker stats : healing/toughness and vitality because ele has got no innate defensive mechanisms...and now really it hasn't got the dmg to justify this anymore. Unless I am wrong there never existed an ele build with great sustain doing 36k dmg like a core guardian...but feel free to post a video proving otherwise, I believe here there is a problem with communication because nobody here is asking explicitly to be OP /broken on any level, people are only asking for a competitive class: -if you want ele to do as much dmg as the rest...then give eles that base sustain they never had [ base sustain is not sustain gained through stats which is available to all classes] ...it's that simple

From a balance point of view, what benefits would have another 1200 range option over longbow? Any possible variant has been covered already by warrior and engi rifle so...

It seems majority of people vote based on what skin/lore they like instead than actually trying to improve ranger in gamemodes where it's not represented well like wvw zerg fights. Rifle would be useless on ranger....unless it would be given aoe capabilities

Core elementalist weapon changes I'd like to see : -Auras- I suggest additional effects to each aura 1) Fire Aura : reduce condition damage by 10%2) Shocking aura : unblockable3) Magnetic aura : absorb 25% damage -Dagger Main Hand- more ability to stick to target1)Frozen burst gain 2nd skill called Frozen embrace , pull back enemies hit by frozen burst within 600 radius for the duration of the chill applied (3s)2) Magnetic grasp CD reduced by 2s -Dagger Off hand- more mobility, utility and damage 1) Ride the Lightning base CD reduced to 20s, halved CD effect reduced to 10s2)Updraft CD reduced to 30s3) Churning earth gains an effect aura Sliver armor - block next 2 attacks while channeling4) Frost aura CD reduced to 25s from 30s -Focus- Increase efficiency and map presence 1) Firewall additional skill on usage : Liquid Flame - detonate firewall in aoe radius of 320 for 400 base dmg and applies liquid flame on 5 targets max and deal 2x the base dmg if the enemy attack/cast spell for 4s; cast time is huge, reduce to 1/2s while removing aftercast2) Frozen gust - Chill replaced with Slow lasting 4s3) Obsidian flesh base CD reduced to 40s from 50s -Scepter- Make it finally playable 1) Dragon's Tooth : base dmg reduced to 600 from 800 and base burning from 10s to 6s, cast time reduced to 1/2s from 1s and moving animation same speed as comet2) Phoenix CD reduced to 15s from 20s3) Water's trident knockback foes 240 distance in a PBaoe burst4) Blinding flash renamed Weakening Flash , applies 3s weakness on 10s CD -Staff- Make it harder for enemies to catch up and easier for eles to survive on their own 1) Burning retreat : added a 2 count recharges same cd of 20s2) Meteor storm : removed the root3) Lava font : revert the nerfs4) Gust : increased radius , CD reduced to 20s from 25s5) Unsteady ground : duration increased to 5s from 4s swap place with shockwave6) Shockwave : becomes PBaoe , base dmg increased to 450 from 190, removed bleeding, 2x immobilize last 4 and CD reduced to 25s These changes are minor respect to the power creep other professions have received for years, they would only make ele that much harder to kill and make it able to reclaim their rightful place in the competitive environment

Personal bias and factual analysis are used to describe the situation , this creates feedbacks and skewed perceptions tend to lead to reality where 2-3 professions dominate in everything and everywhere. Before coming down with any evaluation, you're supposed to take in consideration both the PRO and the CONS...not just one while conveniently forgetting about the other. I don't know precisely to what you're referring to when you talk about "ele being high" and that now ele players are simply having a childish tantrum for this "small nerf" as described by you. So may you be talking about pve?....I am not a PvEr but from what I observed there : ele was doing the biggest dmg in a coordinated group and that huge dmg came at the cost of any resemblance of sustain , "kindly" provided by the group, if I remember correctly ele was doing 10k or so dmg more than next class and this apparently was/is considered broken by the community Putting your personal bias aside ....care to explain why ele should have the same dmg as the next profession, while having none of the sustain? Where is the balance in that? If you want all professions to have same level of dmg...they should have also the same level of sustain more or less..this is a sound, logic argument. May you be talking about PvP/WvW?..honestly I would be too tired of typing the same arguments again so....maybe you should just tell us how ele is strong and how players are exaggerating for a "small nerf"

Look no further than GW1 if you want to give back that special vibe to the elementalist as a class, in GW1 we were far from being the meme class that we're now on the contrary, elementalist was one of the most feared classes : a plethora of devastating aoe/single dmg skill with competitive casting animation and not the insulting joke of GW2 where you have skills that not only root the players but also require 1s+ casting time plus 1s+ of casting animation which is bloody absurd. We need structural changes aka light rework and not the usual number crunching , we need to give that control/dmg combo back to the class, this was the basis of the elementalist in GW1, check the earth line: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Earth_MagicIt gives control, offers non strippable defense against direct dmg, it made ele , one tough cookie to digest for anybody...no heal burst monkey "strategy"...pure control/disable to sustain yourself and that principle should be given back to eles We need to give that intimidating aura back to the class, how is even possible that a midget armed with a rifle scare people more than somebody who manipulate the very force of lightning ? I don't see any other MMO where people laugh/ignore a burst elementalist/mage...https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Air_Magic How is possible that there are other classes in game that can manipulate fire/burning better than an elementalist? The fire line used to offer so many effects, control and devastating stacks of burninghttps://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fire_Magic There are different ways to manipulate the water : create frost armors, blur the vision of enemies, slow their movements, heal allies...but in GW2 all ele does in water is heal burst trying to stay alivehttps://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Water_Magic We need changes that matter and that improve ele competitiveness in all parts of the game, the design has been left behind while other professions can easily keep up with the ever increasing power creep

Elementalist in PVP is supposed to be a meme. There are some support builds that kind of work. The problem is other builds are doing what the Elementalist does, but better.I don't play Elementalist in WvW to comment on that.Elementalists in more general PVe, like exploration and story instances was already suffering. Harder boss fights can be a pain as an Elementalist while they are a breeze for nearly every other profession out there. Now it will only become even harder, because reasons.Elementalists in instanced PVE, Fractals and Raids will suffer because their rotation is more complicated than others, but I'm positive they will remain strong there. After all Elementalists shine when they have babysitters to revive them, heal them and buff them. And by shine I mean do good damage because that's all Elementalists are good for. It's sad really. Arenanet only balances around the Elementalist being with enough allies to keep them alive. While in any situation that you won't have such allies available, WvW roaming, most cases in PVP, solo story instances and so on Elementalists keep getting worse and worse. And because some Necromancer/Scourge will pop in, they always do when Elementalists get nerfed, quick reminder that Scourge is meta and Necromancer was meta, in nearly every aspect of the game outside Raids and high-end Fractals, while having the easiest time when going solo in any type of content. Well said, I couldn't put my finger on it but it does feel like ele does the best when there is a babysitter who does what ele does, just better @Chasind.3128 said: Elementalist in PVP is supposed to be a meme. There are some support builds that kind of work. The problem is other builds are doing what the Elementalist does, but better.I don't play Elementalist in WvW to comment on that.Elementalists in more general PVe, like exploration and story instances was already suffering. Harder boss fights can be a pain as an Elementalist while they are a breeze for nearly every other profession out there. Now it will only become even harder, because reasons.Elementalists in instanced PVE, Fractals and Raids will suffer because their rotation is more complicated than others, but I'm positive they will remain strong there. After all Elementalists shine when they have babysitters to revive them, heal them and buff them. And by shine I mean do good damage because that's all Elementalists are good for. It's sad really. Arenanet only balances around the Elementalist being with enough allies to keep them alive. While in any situation that you won't have such allies available, WvW roaming, most cases in PVP, solo story instances and so on Elementalists keep getting worse and worse. And because some Necromancer/Scourge will pop in, they always do when Elementalists get nerfed, quick reminder that Scourge is meta and Necromancer was meta, in nearly every aspect of the game outside Raids and high-end Fractals, while having the easiest time when going solo in any type of content. Well said, I couldn't put my finger on it but it does feel like ele does the best when there is a babysitter who does what ele does, just betterBut...why must ele be reduced to this? The sustain is there when built for it...dunno why the player should be forced to play an unsuitable role better done by other specialized classes, who even decided that ele must be pocket dps bot for the rest? I am starting to like the direction the devs are taking with ele. Every weapon on ele has support/CC and dps option that display the hybrid nature of the class...but somehow the playerbase decided that ele must be full zerk no sustain DPS bot...you can't go against the design of the class

Look at all thieves running to the defense...sad game indeed

can you make a guide on how to carry even the most hopeless bunch of drones?...I suspect it's virtually impossible but worth a try asking anyway

Need more aoe on ranger for zerg fights, a hammer could provide those

Out of curiosity...are people asking for a melee oriented greatsword or ranged one?...

The class has been changed dramatically since launch , it has gone through a tough cycle of nerfs and subpar buffs that did nothing to fix the fundamental issues of the class : heal gear or die instantly - heal burst or die. The playstyle is the same since launch : water/arcana or die....but at the same time other professions have evolved , their traitlines overhauled and weak weapon skills buffed....people only want to see a fair treatment for this class

Years ago many players tried to warn the community about the cancer of raids...we were not listened Don't let the GW2 Reddit hear you say that. You will get down voted into oblivion and flamed. If there was a downvote button here I'd downvote him anyway not because of his opinion but because of the fundamentally wrong perception raids did anything to the game that wasn't already there. People used to kick necros and rangers on sight when dungeons were the "endgame" and ask for X amounts of AP. People will always seek to optimize their time on any game. Time is a finite thing, you know?...why add time constraints to game content available 24/7 all year long? There is no logical explanation.....

Years ago many players tried to warn the community about the cancer of raids...we were not listened

Oh boy...people in 2-3 years time will play a super glass glass glassiest melee greatsword ele with 3/4s casting time AA doing 300 dmg using a zerker amulet and aoe skill with 140 radius...Calling it now! but who care ?! Now you get to sit and admire your ele wielding twilight for fashion wars and speed fractal clear..or and the raids galore with golem training as teached by qt