Animism.7530

Sounds like something out of Destiny 2. It just doesn't really fit, and things like "soundwaves" are already synonymous with shockwaves. It's trying to make it sound more important than it is. Like saying the four elements are already controlling gravity, soundwaves, light and darkness..

Btw that's what my comment says.

Is there really a 3-page discussion over whether an evade is a dodge, and certain dodges gain unnecessary advantages? Crikey...

No Staff Ele changes? -_-

Not everyone was asking for LWS1, it's pandering to loudest voices; as with most politics these days. The reason why I wouldn't want them to go back is because the story from the original story all the way through to EoD was a continual improvement. The original story had horrible presentation, while LWS1 was an awful story. It's sort of like comparing a proper Final Fantasy game vs Crystal Chronicles.

0. Season 1 was an awful story; plus Marjory and Kasmeer were overbearing. Scarlet wasn't a great villain.

The meta culture is really just the culture of MMOs and how group content is designed. The same issue wasn't really present in GW1 until you came to Speedclear parties, which was a remarkably small aspect of the game as most content could be solo'd with heroes; and as such there was great variety and personal build designs. You can take this idea of metas and apply it to other types of games, like FPS', Warzone loadouts for instance, but you can literally play with anything there. Even Runescape you can solo most content and play how you want. The problem is group content. I remember grouping up with people for Hell's Precipice back in Prophecies, because the henchmen were so poor and we needed to group up together; pretty much anything at that point in the game was a boon and our choices were limited, which gave an impression that it was always a benefit to play with others. This is what I'd call the core perception issue - people need to feel that the people they are playing with are a value in some way, around an equal footing to a slightly greater or lesser extent. We could bring up running a third healer for example; you'll have practically absolute support but be wasting time, and most groups in any MMO will not want perceived unnecessary time waste. My own personal reasons to recommend certain builds over others is that you'll become accustomed to a style of gameplay that doesn't translate well to different situations, often you'll be shooting yourself in the foot. You can literally play glass cannon builds everywhere in this game and succeed where you're supposed to (though Ele will struggle by far the most, to stay on topic). A good comparison here would be attempting to solo a difficult group event champion; the glass cannon build would often be near impossible, whereas a tanky build may be possible but would ultimately be a time waste, as the content wasn't designed to be solo'd and the rewards will be skewed the same way. However in contrast, a tanky build might struggle to take down a veteran mob, or take far too long to do it; whereas a glass cannon build will have the ability to burst it down and will learn the individual skills to a greater degree when they struggle (like the value of blinds). It's fairly obvious to the reader I dislike where Ele is in the game - and to sum up my views neatly, I don't even dislike Mechanist, I just wish I could play as an Elementalist and achieve similar results to what Mech is doing; as I simply like the idea of playing an Ele. You can find many on the forums who like playing Reaper and want a little bit more DPS to not feel they're wasting their own time; which I completely sympathise with. It's not an idea that everything has to perform the same, but be competitive; and simultaneously I would rather things have niche benefits than be completely homogenised. I can't think of a single benefit for me to play Ele, not even the minor DPS numbers that I could achieve for a few more presses as a pianist where dexterity is in no way an issue; being aware that the difference amounts to mere seconds and I'm not usually interested in the idea of record runs. I don't mind low intensity builds; but I don't like that my favourite archetypal class and weapon has been destroyed in favour of others taking its place; that's my own personal gripe with Ele at the moment. It has its own problems with survivability as you mention, a lack of comparably LI builds and ranged combat (to Mechanist, for example), while barely outpacing its DPS; and that is just sad for one of the core professions of the series. There is too much we can discuss about the topic really and I could be here all night happily writing about it; but it'd almost be endless and I hope the game designers listen to all feedback and look through it carefully. Essentially, to new players I couldn't recommend anything but playing the easiest and most versatile builds that are available; and that just happens to be the likes of Mech at the moment and not one is on Ele; unless we start blurring the lines of what I mentioned above.

Compared to mechanist spamming 4 skills up to max range with more survivability and casual utility.

They are all useable, even Reaper. The problem is not everyone will like you using the latter, and in the case of Ele; it's a lot of effort for little to no benefit, if it's not literally crippling your performance. I've been playing Mech because it is strong, versatile and incredibly easy to play. Contrasting this with the fact the somewhat counterpart Ele build (Ranged staff Ele PDPS) was nerfed into the ground and, in a sense, replaced by this build; you have a recipe for serious annoyance amongst fans of the former. That's only one part of the issue also. I don't mean to place my annoyance on others, but I'm also being deliberately blunt as I honestly don't have time for pleasantries and meandering around topics. Hopefully in the coming weeks Anet buffs Ele up to a similar level; though there are people on the forums who would claim it is impossible, so I won't get my hopes up.

In principle, yes; in reality no. The meta dictates how groups form - I could say if raids can be cleared with brand new players learning as they go, is it possible that they're all fine joining experienced groups? I half agree with you, but half disagree.

Do you really? That's not how your comments read. Which are you? A new Elementalist or suddenly really experienced on the subject? The Cele build will not outperform a DPS build. There, does that answer it?

I edited it immediately, check again. Why don't you look around this subreddit instead of asking everyone to summarise what's already been mentioned a million times? Here's an interesting point for you re: the celestial tempest build. Go to 1:56:00. Notice Teapots health on Mechanist? Notice the Tempest on ArcDPS? Yeah... Do you need me to point out what's going on there as well? They are all on Celestial and that doesn't translate well in reality. The reason the Tempest is higher than the others is because the Ele bars benefit more from a mix of Power and Condition. That build is not good. Period. Just because you can do raid bosses in full Traveller runes and Cele gear on any class, doesn't make it a good build. Nor is Teapot being honest. It wouldn't be anywhere near the top DPS if they weren't messing around with rubbish builds. But did you really need me to tell you that? If anything, this just shows me how suggestible people are and how little they understand about builds.

Because it isn't viable? Not disagreeing with the fact Mechanist is overly simplistic. Don't act like you didn't just sarcastically comment to me in the first place. There was no reason for me to give you any reasons, as you didn't even ask What do you want me to do, write a summary for every snide comment?

Fine - then you said what you want to say, and I said what I want to say. Don't bother trying to sum it up further and just continue writing snarky comments all over the forums. We aren't developers, moderators or journalists; this is a place for feedback by players to the developers. Neither of our comments here are particularly relevant and the only reason I comment directly to you is out of a feeling that I understand and need to directly combat what you do on the forums constantly; as you are subtly attacking people on here. ... Aand you edited your post. Let's just leave it. Hopefully a mod sees this and removes it all; seeing my point.

Your argument is that complete balance is impossible and everyone and their reasons to play other classes given through feedback is automatically incorrect. Yet you're here trying to undermine everyone at every step, even when people have very reasonable feedback. Contrasted with your forum signature about baiting people for the sake of argument, I'm surprised you aren't banned from the forums. You think you sound clever but that sentence is just complete nonsense. It's like the Andies from Hot Fuzz. Please stop writing such diatribe. Just say your opinion and move on. You aren't the developer and you aren't an authority here. There's no need for you to constantly battle every other person on every other thread.

Then why are you here debating on a topic about balance and divisions in the community? If you don't think anything can be done, stop making contrarian denigrating arguments for the sake of it. It's no value to anyone. Let people give their opinion about why they'd play another class other than the ones that are propped up and promoted by Anet balance patch after balance patch... It's not as if Ele used to be the meta right?..... Right????

The answer to this is so obvious it's beggars belief you even ask it. Because people want to play what they are interested in, though simultaneously they don't want to feel it's functionally underwhelming. Listen - I want to play Elementalist, though I barely ever play it anymore due to other classes being far more efficient in every way. You can't argue with that unless you're just going to bring up "yer but, no but". Like another commenter above - you should read my previous comment and point out that it's a subjective line between DPS, support or ease of use. This is where Mechanist is a problem, because it's so freakishly easy to play and undermines the value of other classes. It's also incredibly versatile. I don't need to be reminded of the benchmarks on the SC website - or the likes of a certain Condition Weaver benchmark that's so out of touch with reality that if you can't identify why it's irrelevant yourself, I'll simply think you're trying to derail conversation.

You say, to a long-standing main Elementalist.

Stop telling other people what they think. The complex builds barely outperform the likes of Mechanist and it does impact why you choose to play builds. Efficiency is the whole reason we have meta builds to begin with. That is literally what it is. You trying to tell anyone here otherwise is completely disingenuous. That involves everything from ease of use to damage numbers, to support capability. It's funny you bring up jealousy, and also deeply inappropriate and unfair; so I'll just swing a similar sentiment back towards you. You constantly give contrarian arguments that are devoid of logic and are mostly self obsession.

It's bad and you're better off playing something else.

Following feedback we found that there is a further issue with the area of meteor shower and have reduced the radius of the skill to 120. We also felt there were too many meteors and we have reduced this to a single projectile. Additionally; we don't believe that the autoattack of Staff Elementalist is fitting for our vision of gameplay, and so we have reduced the projectile speed by half. We believe this is more in line with the other classes.

I half agree with you and half disagree. The CC skills are outright bad compared with other classes abilities. It's not that they are entirely functionally useless, but it's limited benefit. Essentially I think these skills should be buffed in some way if not removed entirely. I still think the staff should have way more AOE DPS than it currently has, replacing a few skills; and that meteor shower is far too weak for its cast time and as a major DPS ability. I do go into PVP. I'm aware of what it is like and how weak the weapon is compared to others. WvW is slightly different. This is really indisputable. Ele has way too many problems which is compounded by the fact that the weapon the majority of people want to play with as a typical archetype, is awful. I base this on the fact that I play with all the different caveats in mind - and I will always keep relating things to Mechanist, as it is the sole reason I started playing an Engineer. The rotation is absurdly easy while the DPS is above others in many situations due to its ranged ability. I mean just think about that - the Mechanist has better ranged ability, easier DPS, better survivability, better access to boons; so what is the point in me playing Ele (my favourite class since GW1 Prophecies trailer)? I want to play it, but Anet have literally forced me off of it by nerfing and promoting other classes that tower over it.

This should be how it works. Agreed.

Mind answering why you believe an AOE chill, and a couple poor movement blocks are valuable in PvE? Are you aware they were made before changes to CC, back when the effects would work on all enemies, not just weak enemies?

Those skills are only useful in WvW. I think it's fair to suggest there are more people playing PvE than WvW, and so I'm sorry to undermine your argument by relegating WvW, but that is the reality of the situation. PvE comes first. You wouldn't be complaining if Staff Ele was still viable in WvW, but also in PvE, you're just saying that it's fine in WvW so there's no need to care about PvE changes. I'm also not suggesting the vice versa.