eMKay.4028

Bumping this! Recently I tried both infusions and it is crazy that they have such a low resolution, especially compared to astral mounts and the new outfit! It needs to upgraded! Imagine people getting the infusion only to realize that it looks that bad, on border of actually being non wearable.

Thats right - especially since there were actuall Ministry of Purity ZEALOTS in Cantha. Other names could be Initiate, Inquisitor, whatever... but Willbender? 🤣

During Friday 13th livestream we were shown three new elite specs for Mesmer, Necro and Guardian - Virtuoso, Harbinger and Willbender, along with their respective skills and traitlines. What struck me immediately is how out of place the new skills and tratline background look! GW@ artstyle has always been this amazing watercolor style painting and it was prominent everywhere - personal story cutscenes, menu's, skill, traitline artstyles. For a very long time we have also had this cool painting like, splashed screen borders that were removed at some point. Now back to skills. As I said GW2 artstyle is very specific. For two expansions - Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire - all skills and traitlines were made according to that style. However, during yesterday's livestream we saw new skills with icons that look completely out of place. They look like they are made in some cheap 3d digital art that do not resemble paintings at all. In addition they look plain and simple and completely DO NOT match the existing icons - it is prominent when old skills are matched with the new ones and it goes for every new elite spec. It is especially visible with Harbingers elixirs that look very cheap and with Willbender skills - they just look like they were made on a budget. The same goes for traitline background. Previously they were lush, full of style and colors - now they look plain and again - CHEAP! I really hope it's a work in progress... Oh, and why the Necro Elite Spec is called Harbinger instead of ALCHEMIST and Guardian Elite Spec is called Willbender instead of, I don't know, ZEALOT, as was in Ministry of Purity?

Was about to do more achievements and play again this week... Then I see this. Well, quite out of breath. I do believe that the developers have completely no idea what to do with this class. Elementalist is a victim of it's design - it was to be the jack of all trades and it was - in vanilla. Now enter expansions and elite specializations - it all changed. Since HoT, since 2015 developers have basically no idea how to develop and where to go with Elementalist class. At this moment I'm quite sure that Elementalist will stay what it is - a flashy, nice looking and eye catching class. Something the developers can say "look, we have this completely unique take on mage archetype - go buy our game!". And people do, falsely lured by what seems to be cool class only to realize that it's barely playable. And it's been like that for almost 6 years. Who plays Ele? People that have played it for a long time. People that love the idea behind. However each and every one of them has REAL, USABLE classes ready for actual game content. What does ele have? Nothing, literally nothing. Not event good, consistent damage. In order to perform, elemetalist has to leech buffs from other party members. It's on permament life support. Support? Heal? Every competent player knows that a class has to bring something else besides heal and ele has only that. Support? Where do you find aurasher strong? Bunky PvP meta has been one of the most boring metas in the game, and thats only use for ele aura share. Ele has no usefull party wide buffs, no means of actual, usefull active or passive sustain and no consistent damage. Don't look at Snow Crows - a kitten boss will not sit there like a sponge doing nothing. In Fractals/Raid, even PvE you have to move and play. React. Once that happens then look at the numbers. And that is why no one wants Ele in parties - because even in good hasnds it underperforms. I am not even talking about staff which has basically been a meme for years. Why I know ArenaNet doesn't care about the class? Beacause they don't even talk about it and explain the changed in a reasonable way. Just a bunch of general sentences. Nothing in depth. Every change is like: "let's switch some numbers, move some texts, so it looks like we do something". And then every balance patch is a nerf. Don't get me wrong - I'm not against them. But when it comes to this class it looks as if an intern has a chance to switch things around. It just doesn't make any sense, none at all. And ArenaNet doesn't explain those changes because even they don't know what they just did! Yay. They don't know what to do with it. They know it needs a serious look at and even a redesign. However, my guess is that they don't have resources to do that or it just doesn't calculate. So ele stays what it is - a good advertisement, a stir in a pot of mmo mage archetype to lure new players to buy the game only for them to switch later on to an easy, high rewarding class for casual play. But hey, "we think that Ele is in a good spot"! Something about this sentence from ArenaNet puts me of, to say the least. It's like I live in a alternate reality from the developers. For a gaming comany that rose to prominence for it's fantastic work on balance in Guidl Wars 1, this is really incomprehensible. And it's been like that for years with this class. Well, I guess I need a break :)

Elementalist and basically no way to mitigate damage?I don't think that is a fair statement. Elementalist has 3 evade skills on dagger (fire, earth, and air attunements).1 evade skill on staff.With weaver another evade skill on sword. You have blocks: stone sheath (earth shield 2), arcane shield. You have invulnerability: fortify (earth shield 5), mist form, obsidian flesh You have damage reduction effects: frost aura, protection, geomancer's training (earth minor trait), weave self, stone flesh (another earth minor trait) You have blinds. Elementalist has alot of active defense. Less facetanking and more preventing or reducing damage of incoming attacks with skills which require timing. I was speaking from PvE perspective only. Ele vs. high level (expansions and beyond) mobs. The enemies that lift a finger and you're down. There is no possibility to facetank on Ele, coz you will die. That's not a bad thing. Actually the main selling point of Elementalist was to be able to kite and blast your enemies before they kill you. With each balance iteration it becomes more and more difficult to a point where you are no longer nimble spellcaster but rather a glass statue poking mobs with a stick, going down with every sneeze. The skills that you listed are only situational and likely to be used in PvP and WvW. Earth shield - who uses that conjure? Not mentioning conjures are a clunky mess that you use on occasion to maybe run away (FGS), freeze a target (IB) or up that dps a bit in raids? Almost every person in raid scenario would rather not take conjures but hey, that dps meter gotta go up! Arcane shield - well, maybe, but it's still a loss of utility slot whereas other classes can bring usefull utilities without sacrificing one just for defence - again, PvE perspective. Mist Form - again, WvW and PvP skill, on high cooldown so a loss of utility. You will hardly take dagger into PvE content because of lackluster dmg and close proximity. Focus is a defensive weapon and if youre not playing condi weaver you would rather not take it just for that 60s cooldown obsidian flesh, that also locks you out of your other skills. You are talking about lackluster skills that only see usage in competitive modes. The idea of PvE is to kill before they kill you. There are too many enemies running around to play a defensive build practising for a PvP match. The Lesser Lava Font was one of Elementalists specific get out of jail cards - imagine kiting 5+ veterans. You have no passive defense, nothing. You dont run defensive stats coz it's not optimal in PvE. Imagine the last veteran downed you but you still had a chance of killing it with the Lava Font. Now you have nothing. In downed state you can poje mobs with lightning, mist form away but still within mobs aggro. Nothing else. I'm not even talking about the fact that Necromancers can get themselves up with #1 downed state attack. If have to take defensive route with an Elementalist to survive in PvE content that means it's time to switch classes . NO other class needs that.

While I can cope with other changes, this one (if it is not a BUG) is a complete hinderance of Elementalist in Open World. Not only Ele has the lowest armor and the lowest hp pool. Now it also has basically NO possibilites of mitigating the damage.Lesser Lava font on DOWNED STATE was one of the last resort options to kill the enemies after they sneezed at you. With it gone you have to basically dance around like a mad man, poking them with your attacks in an endless carnival of frustration. Then you basically go onto another class (ANY ONE OF THEM) and see, how actually fun they are. With so many possibilies. Elementalist has none. A shadow of what is was supposed to be. Thanks.

Same thing happens to me on some maps - whenever I engage in combat, my backpiece dissapears. It comes back after gliding or using mount's attack but goes missing again after going into combat.

Well I am bringing up this long since since, well, nothing has been actually changed.It's June 2019, we are 2 balance patches further and barely any of mentioned problems with elementalist has been touched.Here's how it is - the Elementalist is, by design, supposed to be the sort of "master of all" type of class, being able to swiftly cycle through attunements to surprise it's enemy. This design, however, is very 2012 and by that I mean it didn't stand the test of time in the game. With the dawn of elite specializations every class has been given special mechanics that alter its playstyle while providing unique mechanics and effects that it can use on the enemies or provide for the party. That makes the classes excel at PVE content, PVP or WvW, depending on the spec. The attunement mechanic is about, as i sai, being user of all, master of noneUnfortunately the Elementalist is still lowest tier in most of the game modes. While it can be a good dps class in raids or fractals, its all it does - DPS. Nothing more and its not even consistent in that matter - more like a one hit KO type for DPS. It has the lowest health pool and lowest armor rating making it the most vulnarable class - that makes it extremely dependant on other classes to survive. For example Guardian, Mesmer or Thief can also deal huge damage while providing usefull utilities and boons for the party. To add an insult to injury the Elementalist's DPS is based around one of the clunkiest and hardly usable mechanics in the game - conjures. Not only it feels sluggish when you summon them, but you need to pick them up the second time t even stand in competent DPS frame. Don't have to remind you of constant need to position it well or people stealing your conjures.In PVP and WvW the Ele is also considered one of the lowest tier classes - in pvp it currently only ONE viable bruiser build, while other classes have several playstyles. Same in WVW - only one roaming bruiser build that requires ultra reflexes to event stay on par with others and one zerg build based around staff.Last year elementalist has received severe nerfs to its damage. I agree - it was to high compared to other classes. However while bringing the damage down to more mortal area the balance team didnt provide the ele with other things to make up for it - no reliable survivability in pve, no consistent damage in pvp.The attunements are an old design, that currently handicaps the ele - it is easy to overtune the class but in its current stat the ele is just underwhelming... completely.Why do people still play the class though? Well, because it's fun to play - the last thing we get, it's actually really fun to play despite it's many drawbacks.