Do you believe the devs are so disconnected with ele community to make ANOTHER melee spec?

[BlackBeard.2873]

I am so disappointed with ANOTHER melee/bruiser spec. We already have melee playstyles with dagger (short-medium range) and, more recently tempest sword (short range only), another spec in melee range doesn't open up new options. The past two elite specs have introduced mechanics that honestly push you towards melee (overloads + shouts on tempest, and sword + barriers on weaver), and from the beginning d/d was one of the most popular playstyles.

 

Meanwhile, ele ranged options have gotten more and more outdated, and the ranged weapons are honestly pretty bad. Scepter does no damage (outside of abuse lighting-strike procs) and in PvE REQUIRES conjures to avoid having to use scepter skills. Both scepter and staff are littered with skills that have huge wind-ups AND huge delays/animations before they start damaging (dragon's tooth, shatterstone lol, lava font, eruption, ice spike, etc.). The payoff for this handicap is nil. The ranged weapons NEED to be updated against enemies that move rather than balanced for big, stationary golems, but they NEVER WILL BE.

 

So getting another melee spec, which will end up just playing like a variant of what ele already does, is such a missed opportunity. Its the same experience we already have, just with new animations.

 

Now, my prediction: Catalyst WILL NOT be a DPS oriented spec. I would bet money there is a trait like the one on Willbender that gives power in exchange for toughness, except for ele it will ADD toughness but take away power. Willbender will not have the plethora of blocks and aegis that scrapper/guard have that allows those specs to continue to DPS while also mitigating damage. The spec won't have enough burst to go glass cannon, and will thus end up being almost a copy of D/D ele.

 

Missed opportunities - oh well.

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

Wow you're about as salty as us warriors. I get it though. ✊

[SlaYer.2138]

Ah yes, another melee specialization. Why not? At this rate, I'm expecting a shield for the 4th one. Why stop there? How about a mace at 5th? Axe at 6th? Greatsword at 7th? I'm sure when we finally get a "ranged" weapon, it will be used as a melee too. How about melee bow uh? Or melee rifle? I'm sure whacking enemies with a rifle stock will be so much fun.

[Ezikeo.5047]

Enchantress with a Long Bow shooting elemental arrows would have been perfect.

[Srolo.5208]

37 minutes ago, ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:

Lelwut, since when? If we had the last word, where's Ranged Elementalist? 

Yes, Ele needs at least another ranged weapon, I made my point on that on the Catalyst Thread, but there are also people who literally prefer melee Elementalist, and that's a fact. They got what they wanted, so they're happy with what they're getting, yet they're getting attacked because people keep shouting "muh ranged E-Spec" at them... 

The issue with the people who "literally prefer melee Elementalist" is that they've already had BOTH previous expansions dedicated to them with Tempest and Weaver being melee. And all of a sudden it's too much to ask for some actual variety and to give the other half something that they want and have been desperate for for YEARS?

This thread is just a whole lot of selfishness from everybody who wants melee ele because Tempest and Weaver wasn't exactly the melee spec they wanted. Now they have A THIRD CHANCE to try out ANOTHER melee spec to see if they prefer that over any of the multitude of others available to the class. Meanwhile here we are, the rest of the people that play ele and don't care about stacking in a melee ball wailing on a raid boss' left ankle getting told to suck it up because we have Staff and Scepter. The same kitten we've had since LAUNCH and have had to deal with. Staff being the ONLY actual long range weapon usable and the same weapon that's been constantly kitten on and nerfed with ZERO indication of anything good ever happening to it in the future. 

 

Core game started out with melee and ranged options available. HoT released with tempest and ele got another melee centered spec. PoF released with Weaver and ele got another melee centered spec. EoD is now releasing with, you guessed it, ANOTHER MELEE CENTERED SPEC, and we're being told WELL U HAVE STAFF WHY DO U WANT MORE.

[Downstate.4697]

Its worth noting that fire and air are mid range and the augments themselves appear to shoot at the target when the end.

[Lighter.5631]

warhorn is not melee, and ele only has dagger and sword..(dagger is mid ranged, not pure melee)

while scepter, staff, focus all ranged, including warhorn.

 

also i'm 100% sure its gonna be a mix of range/melee..like rev has hammer as ranged..

with 20 weapon skills on ele, it's no way pure melee, dagger is mid ranged, even sword has ranged attacks)

Edited September 16, 2021 by Lighter.5631

[fuzzyp.6295]

8 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

The issue with the people who "literally prefer melee Elementalist" is that they've already had BOTH previous expansions dedicated to them with Tempest and Weaver being melee. And all of a sudden it's too much to ask for some actual variety and to give the other half something that they want and have been desperate for for YEARS?

This thread is just a whole lot of selfishness from everybody who wants melee ele because Tempest and Weaver wasn't exactly the melee spec they wanted. Now they have A THIRD CHANCE to try out ANOTHER melee spec to see if they prefer that over any of the multitude of others available to the class. Meanwhile here we are, the rest of the people that play ele and don't care about stacking in a melee ball wailing on a raid boss' left ankle getting told to suck it up because we have Staff and Scepter. The same kitten we've had since LAUNCH and have had to deal with. Staff being the ONLY actual long range weapon usable and the same weapon that's been constantly kitten on and nerfed with ZERO indication of anything good ever happening to it in the future. 

 

Core game started out with melee and ranged options available. HoT released with tempest and ele got another melee centered spec. PoF released with Weaver and ele got another melee centered spec. EoD is now releasing with, you guessed it, ANOTHER MELEE CENTERED SPEC, and we're being told WELL U HAVE STAFF WHY DO U WANT MORE.

To be fair though, the melee options for Elementalist are locked behind their Elite Spec. I can't use Sword on Tempest and I can't use Hammer on Weaver. But Staff and Scepter can be used freely on all the Specs, meaning there is a lot of variety in how you play those Weapons. If they release a ranged focused elite spec,  then the only melee option for Elementalist would be Dagger on that class. So really, Catalyst has four weapons to choose from: Two Ranged and Two Melee.

I also don't think anyone is being selfish here. People are upset and people are happy, its fine.

[Orimidu.9604]

This looks like more of a defensive melee spec opposed to weaver which was more offensive melee. Some area control with elemental wells but clearly not suitable for facing ranged foes, who will of course simply escape the wells and fight from afar. Just because hammer is the new weapon though doesn't mean Catalyst will be awful. Weaver is actually pretty good on staff. As a trailblazer d/wh main I'm hopeful for some new play options with my current weapon set.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

11 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

The issue with the people who "literally prefer melee Elementalist" is that they've already had BOTH previous expansions dedicated to them with Tempest and Weaver being melee. And all of a sudden it's too much to ask for some actual variety and to give the other half something that they want and have been desperate for for YEARS?

Last I check I supported the idea of a ranged weapon E-Spec for Elementalist, so I have no idea where you people keep assuming I'm literally against the idea. It's not too much to ask, it's fine, but to constantly disregard and attack the people who actually want the melee Hammer weapon this E-Spec offers is the real selfish responses I've been seeing in this thread.

11 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

This thread is just a whole lot of selfishness from everybody who wants melee ele because Tempest and Weaver wasn't exactly the melee spec they wanted. Now they have A THIRD CHANCE to try out ANOTHER melee spec to see if they prefer that over any of the multitude of others available to the class. Meanwhile here we are, the rest of the people that play ele and don't care about stacking in a melee ball wailing on a raid boss' left ankle getting told to suck it up because we have Staff and Scepter. The same kitten we've had since LAUNCH and have had to deal with. Staff being the ONLY actual long range weapon usable and the same weapon that's been constantly kitten on and nerfed with ZERO indication of anything good ever happening to it in the future. 

Where is that melee weapon Tempest offers in this game? People literally keep shouting that Tempest offered a melee weapon, where is it? Last I checked it was Warhorn it offered, not a melee weapon. Any issues Ele has in general over long range play is a balancing issue and one that I agree ANet hasn't exactly been good at, but that's different problem in and of itself. 

21 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

HoT released with tempest and ele got another melee centered spec. 

No it didn't... people just decided to play it melee, that's literally an issue of playstyle, not the E-Spec. Unless I'm missing this mysterious melee weapon Tempest offered, this point is absolutely moot. 

[Srolo.5208]

1 minute ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

To be fair though, the melee options for Elementalist are locked behind their Elite Spec. I can't use Sword on Tempest and I can't use Hammer on Weaver. But Staff and Scepter can be used freely on all the Specs, meaning there is a lot of variety in how you play those Weapons. If they release a ranged focused elite spec,  then the only melee option for Elementalist would be Dagger on that class. So really, Catalyst has four weapons to choose from: Two Ranged and Two Melee.

I also don't think anyone is being selfish here. People are upset and people are happy, its fine.

The point being every time a new spec has been released the melee crowd has been catered to and has had new "toys" to play with and use to change things up if they so choose. They get variety. They get new things. All of us that want something new are told too bad. You know what it's like using the same weapon for the past 9 years because it's literally the ONLY option? On top of the fact that in that time it hasn't even had QoL updates or any improvements but instead constant nerfs? And here we are STILL stuck with it and people are acting like we're being unfair.

[Kiyo Reiryu.8703]

6 hours ago, iKeostuKen.2738 said:

You do realize a greatsword doesnt have to be melee right? 😕 

This is facts. Mesmer GS is ranged 

[Puck.3697]

1 hour ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

You really just argue just to argue.
A-net can decide on anything they want, doesn't change a fact that playerbase ultimately will have last word in it.
The classes in core days operated on different rules and were based on different concepts and had clear vision with strong/weak points than what was released in HoT, in other words they've thrown the core concept and on top of that they didn't keep their word about e-speces being new playstyles and not straight upgrades to core.

 

but if hammer ele, is a Brawler I.E Tanky with Defensive Utility its Effectively completely different to ele...

[Eddbopkins.2630]

Mm idk about hammer on ele. Hammer on most classes is a 300 range weapon, except rev that decided to make a heavy as heck weapon range with magic and rev kinda has a magic system with its energy. In gw2 there is no magic/mana system, just a cooldown system making nearly all class play styles alike no matter what weapon they use, rev and thf are the exception to this with their initiative and energy system. 

 ele gets hammer it just another mele spec with a mix of mid to long range attacks, but overall it does NOT fit the ideal of a magic casting class. I dont think i will have fun at all wielding a hammer as a elementalist.

[fuzzyp.6295]

10 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

The point being every time a new spec has been released the melee crowd has been catered to and has had new "toys" to play with and use to change things up if they so choose. They get variety. They get new things. All of us that want something new are told too bad. You know what it's like using the same weapon for the past 9 years because it's literally the ONLY option? On top of the fact that in that time it hasn't even had QoL updates or any improvements but instead constant nerfs? And here we are STILL stuck with it and people are acting like we're being unfair.

Out of curiosity, what kind of variety would a ranged weapon bring to Elementalist that isn't already provided by Scepter and Staff? And I'm talking about the weapon itself, not the elite spec mechanic like overloads or dual attunements. Staff covers the AoE department and Scepter has both single target burst and ranged condi damage. I suppose maybe a ranged condi focused spec could have worked, but the nature of elementalist means its never going to be purely focused on either power or condi damage.

Honestly, a new elite ranged spec would probably play more like Weaver than Catalyst actually will, being that it will be a glass spec that needs to play extremely high risk, high reward in order to get anything done. Catalyst looks like its going to bring a new way to play Elementalist: defensive and control based. Like how Weaver syngerized well with Scepter, I have a feeling Catalyst is going to work pretty good with Staff and its control abilities.

We should be more angry at ANet not updating Staff and Scepter to be more effective weapons in 2021 for a class that SHOULD have power ranged options as opposed to being upset that they've added another melee weapon. After all Catalyst will still have access to range weapons, they just need to be updated and buffed so they can compete in todays meta.

Edited September 16, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295
angry at anet, spelling error

[BlackBeard.2873]

27 minutes ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Its worth noting that fire and air are mid range and the augments themselves appear to shoot at the target when the end.

 

I did notice that the fire skills have a leap in smash, followed by an up-smash skill that looks like it launches. So...they just copied the conjure lightning hammer skills over the fire attunement and called it a day? lol

 

[Srolo.5208]

Just now, fuzzyp.6295 said:

snip

How about one that doesn't lock us in place while casting. One that doesn't have slow projectile skills that can be reflected, evaded or dodged by somebody tapping the A or D keys. One that doesn't take 3-5 seconds after hitting the button for damage to START being delivered let alone the full skills worth?

[fuzzyp.6295]

Just now, Srolo.5208 said:

How about one that doesn't lock us in place while casting. One that doesn't have slow projectile skills that can be reflected, evaded or dodged by somebody tapping the A or D keys. One that doesn't take 3-5 seconds after hitting the button for damage to START being delivered let alone the full skills worth?

It kinda sounds like you're kinda describing Scepter? At least for the first two points. The third one, Scepter does have some pretty slow skills. But (at least on Weaver) it has plenty of skills that hit really hard and fast too.

[BlackBeard.2873]

3 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

Out of curiosity, what kind of variety would a ranged weapon bring to Elementalist that isn't already provided by Scepter and Staff? And I'm talking about the weapon itself, not the elite spec mechanic like overloads or dual attunements. Staff covers the AoE department and Scepter has both single target burst and ranged condi damage. I suppose maybe a ranged condi focused spec could have worked, but the nature of elementalist means its never going to be purely focused on either power or condi damage.

 

Scepter is mid-range (900 range) compared to a truly single-target dps weapon (see ranger longbow reaches 1500 with autos, mesmer GS, thief rifle reach 1200). Scepter is also god-awful sustained damage - you can burst by blowing your load and abusing air-swap procs, then you just kind durdle around until you can swap back out of air to try again. Scepter can't try to play like a ranger axe or shortbow which has pretty decent sustained dps, because so many of its attacks are slow and clunky (dragon's tooth, shatterstone is still a meme, dust devil does no damage and gives you a single blind?). The condi version of scepter is also just bad and can't really keep up due to Anet refusing to mix condis between attunements and 2 attunements that do NO condi damage at all.

 

3 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

We should be more angry at ANet not updating Staff and Scepter to be more effective weapons in 2021 for a class that SHOULD have power ranged options as opposed to being upset that they've added another melee weapon. After all Catalyst will still have access to range weapons, they just need to be updated and buffed so they can compete in todays meta.

 

This is true, but it is NEVER going to happen. The desire for a ranged spec is really a desire to have a modern, working ranged weapon, and people qqing about having another redundant melee or mid-range/melee option have resigned that the only hope for that to happen is via elite spec.

[Srolo.5208]

2 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

It kinda sounds like you're kinda describing Scepter? At least for the first two points. The third one, Scepter does have some pretty slow skills. But (at least on Weaver) it has plenty of skills that hit really hard and fast too.

And scepter is also useless for WvW outside of roaming applications with FA. Which is a notoriously tricky spec to play and has severe limitations. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll tool around doing story and open world PvE stuff with hammer just fine, but this was a great chance for them to do something with hammer that could have made people pick between it and staff for WvW. Trade the high potential damage from the staff for lower guaranteed damage with more options for CC. Walls, and reflects etc. You know how the forge casters can create those fire walls? Things like that.

[Doggie.3184]

I can understand the disappointment since Weaver was basically made to do the same thing this is. Although I guess the only weapon type Ele was missing was a 2handed melee so I guess that was their reason. They think 1h and 2h are a large difference/different archetype when it comes to melee.

But it woulda been nice to create more main hand pistol, long/shortbow and rifle users though so it's a missed opprotunity here. Barely any classes use those types of weapons~ only 3 classes each. We'll have 6 Hammer users naow.

[Obtena.7952]

17 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

How about one that doesn't lock us in place while casting. One that doesn't have slow projectile skills that can be reflected, evaded or dodged by somebody tapping the A or D keys. One that doesn't take 3-5 seconds after hitting the button for damage to START being delivered let alone the full skills worth?

Hold on ... even if you got a ranged espec, what makes you think these problems are solved by it? Let's use some critical thinking here ... problems related to current ranged options are NOT necessarily solved by Anet creating another espec. 

If your issue here is that current ranged options have performance issues, that's got nothing to do with Catalyst being range or melee weaponed. It might even be entirely the case some of these issues are addressed by the Catalyst spec itself and not the weapon. 

Just to be succinct ... you can't disapprove of a design choice just because you hope a different design choice could fix problems on a class. That doesn't make sense. 

Edited September 16, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Caid.4932]

5 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

How about one that doesn't lock us in place while casting. One that doesn't have slow projectile skills that can be reflected, evaded or dodged by somebody tapping the A or D keys. One that doesn't take 3-5 seconds after hitting the button for damage to START being delivered let alone the full skills worth?

Your kind of describing every ranged weapon in the game in one way or another. Your want a range weapon because you hate the ranged weapons available to you. I get it to some extent, ranged damage is in a bad place but i dont know why you think a new ranged weapon wont have them problems - virtuoso does, harbinger does, the new thief spec almost certainly will just as deadeye does.

If they gave you a longbow ele or ranged hammer (really staff though in use) ele then everyone who wanted a greatsword tanky melee spec would be making threads about how out of touch devs are with ele community. They weren't going to please both groups. Theres other directions they could have taken but it kind of is what it is.

I'd like to see buffs and reworks for core weapons on every class. Get warriors using hammers, engineers using rifles, make staff stronger, undo some dagger nerfs. Most classes have a couple of weapons and a trait line or two that have become redundant and were good fun once upon a time

[fuzzyp.6295]

25 minutes ago, BlackBeard.2873 said:

 

Scepter is mid-range (900 range) compared to a truly single-target dps weapon (see ranger longbow reaches 1500 with autos, mesmer GS, thief rifle reach 1200). Scepter is also god-awful sustained damage - you can burst by blowing your load and abusing air-swap procs, then you just kind durdle around until you can swap back out of air to try again. Scepter can't try to play like a ranger axe or shortbow which has pretty decent sustained dps, because so many of its attacks are slow and clunky (dragon's tooth, shatterstone is still a meme, dust devil does no damage and gives you a single blind?). The condi version of scepter is also just bad and can't really keep up due to Anet refusing to mix condis between attunements and 2 attunements that do NO condi damage at all.

 

 

This is true, but it is NEVER going to happen. The desire for a ranged spec is really a desire to have a modern, working ranged weapon, and people qqing about having another redundant melee or mid-range/melee option have resigned that the only hope for that to happen is via elite spec.

 

So then, if we made a Longbow our single target burst weapon, what happens to Scepter? And now this elite spec has two weapons that basically do the same thing, albeit one more effectively, so no one ever uses Scepter, which means they actually only have three weapons now to choose from in total, possibly realistically only two because a range focused spec would likely not syngerize well with dagger but who knows.

It would have to be a heavy condi ranged spec for it to be truly stand out different. But I don't think that will ever happen because of the nature of Elementalists.

EDIT: Misread, so you suggest the new ranged weapon will be just single target sustained damage? I guess that could work, although it would still be very similar to Scepter and the actual gameplay of the spec would likely still be ranged/glassy since ranged classes tend to not be defensive or control based, their main defense comes from their range.

Like, don't get me wrong, you are absolutely right that Scepter is garbage and needs TLC. I'm just struggling to see this argument of variety of adding yet another glassy range spec would bring to the game. There isn't anything particularly distinct between what a buffed 2021 Scepter could provide and what a shiny brand new Long Bow could offer other than a slight increase in range.

Also Shatterstone hits like a truck nowadays, people who treat it like a meme do so at their own peril lol

Edited September 16, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295

[Srolo.5208]

2 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Hold on ... even if you got a ranged espec, what makes you think these problems are solved by it? Let's use some critical thinking here ... problems related to current ranged options are NOT necessarily solved by Anet creating another espec. 

If your issue here is that current ranged options have performance issues, that's got noting to do with Catalyst being range or melee weaponed. 

Say what you want, but the problems with staff will never be fixed. It won't happen. The second point being that it does matter about Catalyst coming with a ranged or melee weapon because there were already MORE melee options available for people to choose than there were any useful ranged options. People keep saying well what's stopping you from using the current ranged options with Catalyst? Nothing, but we're sick of having to use the same thing for the past 9 years. That argument goes both ways, what would be stopping people from using melee options with Catalyst if hammer was ranged? Nothing, and the upside to that is that the current melee options don't have the same issues that the ranged options have. So not only are we getting shafted out of what could have potentially been a good ranged option, we're still stuck with using the same crap we have been for the past 9 years that won't ever be in a good place because of how it's designed.