FrozenEve.6875

Thank you so much for this reply. This really touches on a class philosophy that I've had issue with elementalist as a profession for so long. It necessitates the piano playing playstyle of the profession which for some is rewarding but for others frustrating and it invalidates the use of certain elements by design given that certain attunements will result in drastic lowering of dps. The profession just seems so kitten when it has 4 elemental attunements but only really 2 elemental skill sets it can use at a time to put damage out. I'm not really an elementalist. I'm a pyromancer dabbling in some earth or lightening.

Anyone else disappointed by the balance update for ele?

Redacted

Some love for ele pistol and some more trait changes to set up a complete restructure of our outdated traitlines (looking at you, Water).

I feel like this is slightly reductive. It's clear many ele players play ele because of the class fantasy. Asking them to reroll defeats the whole purpose of why they were drawn to elementalist originally. It isn't unreasonable to be asking for a simple variant of an elementalist playstyle given the breadth of opportunity the design team has had for new weapons and elite specialisations.

I love this idea. Borrowing ideas from Thief initiative for skill augments!

Water elementalists had respectable damage and were capable of some fantastic AoE and CC in GW1 and that is a class fantasy still missing from our current elementalist class in GW2. With the introduction of bleed conditions in the water attunement for pistols, I'm huffing copium that the design team might be slowly working in the back to allow for single or dual attunement options in the future that aren't pigeon holed by role. Just let me throw tsunami waves and ice shards in end game content without it hamstringing my squad, @Cal Cohen.2358!

Your final line definitely resonated with me as a long time GW1 Elementalist and how I have bemoaned the loss of specialising in an element such as Water attunement for the class fantasy. The forcing of having to almost always use fire and earth as damaging attunements is getting boring after so long.

Thanks everyone for the wonderful comments on this post. Some really creative discussions and I was taken aback by how easy it could be to male the water traitline more interesting. Reaper was able to functionally utilise chill as a damage applying condition. Why can't elementalist have something similar or play into vulnerability a bit more. The core fact is that playing attunement swap elementalist feels bad because of how overspecialised the attunements are. There are so many ideas the devs could get looking at how water attunement skills from GW1 performed. Why not have water weapon skills that deal bonus AoE damage if a target is already inflicted with chill à la fire ele's bonus damage with burning. The class fantasy of a water elementalist being able to perform respectable damage is just one that I feel is sorely missing from the game.

I do think these are some excellent patch notes - especially from an Ele perspective so there's nothing but respect from me here. That being said I do feel as if this patch doesn't quite fix some of the major issues Elementalist has as a profession. Namely, I find it strange that still to this day, elemental attunements are focused on specifically one type of function. This seems to be part of the core philosophy that the elementalist needs to cycle through different attunements unlike in GW2 where elementalists usually specialised. This is at odds then with builds that are of a specific function such as DPS where attuning to Water in most cases represents a sizeable DPS loss (and removes a class fantasy where a water elementalist is just as equally capable of damaging foes as fire elementalists but I digress). Or consider Heal Support builds which currently only Tempest contains viable endgame builds where there is a natural pressure to stay within Water attunement to benefit from sustained healing yet Elementalists are punished for camping the Water attunement. I think each attunement should have clear DPS and support skills in each of the attunements if the philosophy of Elementalists being forced to switch between all the attunements is to stay. Or there needs to be a fundamental change in the trait lines (which all mostly provide their benefits only within respective attunements) to allow for for universally enjoyable play around attunement swapping or camping. I just want me kitten water mage using Mirror of Ice, Shatterstone, Glowing Ice and Mind Freeze. So many fond memories of being a specialised Elementalist!

This is mostly just a post inspired the latest bunch of changes for elementalist which has deadened my resolve to continue my favourite flavoured class. Can we please stop with the trope of each element having a particular combat niche such as water being associated with healing? It reduces the amount of fun the class has access to and with gorgeous and deadly water animations from Soo-Won, it just seems so old fashioned and conceptually flawed. Locking damage and healing around particular attunements seems to be doing more harm than good when players are then forced to only spend time in certain attunements.

Hey John, I really love the effort put into this. I particularly love the flipping of support/damage between fire and water attunements which is something I've been craving for years now. The concept of avatars is a really awesome one - i'd love to be able to channel some of the Djinn magic that we've come to see.

As a long time water elementalist player from GW1, it's so frustrating for me to see how disparate the traits for the water line are. I understand that developers have tried to make water the "support/healing/utility" attunement but even then, most of this utility and support comes from runes and stats rather than skills themselves. I'd genuinely be ecstatic if the developers brought back the ice dps themes from GW1 which made water such a wonderful attunement to play and could be so easily implemented with water traitlines that allow dps to occur on inflicting conditions like chill or vulnerability. If reaper can get some frost-themed love, I'm sure water elementalists can get that too!