I simply cannot take it anymore

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

No it doesn't ignore that point at all, though it is important to note that performance balance has never been this game's priority anyways and that at least ONE class has to be least useful. 

Here is a question: do you see anything exceptional about Catalyst as a spec and it's performance given the history of the game? Like somehow we had all these amazingly balanced specs and classes ... and then Catalyst comes by? That's not what I see. I see that this is par for the course ... that Anet is developing a spec based on a theme to give variation in gameplay, not because it's 'useful' or 'balanced'. If it's not played at a level Anet is happy with, they will change it. We see this in balance patches. I mean, THAT is what is real here. 

 

Okay.

[Jski.6180]

The lack of having a set of skills and boon types realty hold the class back from every being meta. Even if you can do dmg and support due to the lack of these effects means your always going to be out side of that wanted class.

Its the oddest chose on anet end too ele is the class that should be doing every thing but is mostly defined by the lack of what it can do for groups. In a very weird way ele is the opposite of what it should be yet its still unable to go all in beyond what other classes can do.

Till ele can gives see all boons at a near perma level and or useful level base off of builds as well as have unblockale dmg and boon strip ele will never be meta. This has a lot to do with just how much added effect these effect have in a game like gw2 sadly no amount of dmg +% done and dmg -% will make up for the lack of these effects.

Look at Alacrity alone how do you translate that balancing for ele NOT to have this boon vs classes who do have this boon (having a self version only is weaker then having an support version for your over all group keep this in mind). Its beyond balance to say one class cant have this by its own means.

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Is it really objectively true that elementalist is less useful or just harder to pull off?

I repeatedly read that tempest, for example, is one of the most potent healers in the game and also provides quite a good boon uptime. Weaver seems to have reasonably high damage to fill the dps role decently well. Yeah, condition firebrand is strong and more useful because of utility, but this is a problem about firebrands being overpowered, not elementalist being not useful enough as a dps...

I think that the one problem is just that elementalist generally is harder to play at full potential, so the average elementalist is perceived less useful than the average player of another class. But I don't think elementalist really is less useful if played at full potential compared to another class played on full potential.

Still means that we have to nerf outliers which are providing strong utility on top of top dps, like firebrand and scourges are doing, tho.

Unique or critical support is pretty much zero.  Ele can heal or dps, but there's no reason to choose it over another class. This is not the case for most classes.

[Serephen.3420]

15 hours ago, BunjiKugashira.9754 said:

I've been an ele main since 2013 (played my first confused year as a thief because I was hoping it would feel like GW1 assassin).

Ele used to be the class that can most reliably provide a group with boons. Nowadays every elite spec has better and easier boon uptime than ele.

Conjured weapons used to be a dps boost for anyone who picked them up. Then they were all nerfed into oblivion the domain of anguish.

By putting in a lot of effort, eles used to be able to dominate the dps charts. It was selfish, it was risky and it was rarer than seeing an ele absolutely struggle and fail. Then the nerf hammer struck.

Now eles received said hammer as a reminder of what happens, should the class ever rise to relevance again.

 

Every other class has received something useful over the years. Something that makes the class desirable to have in a party. What did ele get? Auras. Who the hell thought "hey, this class has the lowest base-health and the lowest armor in the game, let's give them a mechanic that requires getting hit!"? Who even thought "yeah, getting hit is something that high-lvl parties do all the time. I'm sure auras make ele a desirable party member."? I'm sure the other ele-mains here can confirm this: As an ele you learn to dodge or you die. I always dodge attacks that I would easily tank on another class, even if it means interrupting a strong skill to do so.

The truth has been spoken.

[otto.5684]

Ele is in a weird position. It preforms alright in most inctensed  pve content, but the risk not balanced with the return in most situations. None of ele ranged weapons are reliable against a semi moving target. Surely the weakest class in open world.  
 

The combination of low hp pool, low armor and relying on water for sustain, really hurts ele’s versatility.

[Jski.6180]

1 hour ago, otto.5684 said:

Ele is in a weird position. It preforms alright in most inctensed  pve content, but the risk not balanced with the return in most situations. None of ele ranged weapons are reliable against a semi moving target. Surely the weakest class in open world.  
 

The combination of low hp pool, low armor and relying on water for sustain, really hurts ele’s versatility.

That still a misunderstanding of what wrong with the ele class. Any class can do dmg in pve it may not be the best in the game but it will always be the amount that is needed. So ele doing good dmg if not the best in pve is worthless. There is no amount of dmg in the game that lets you bypass the dmg out put from having quickness or alacrity and sadly ele is the one class that can only get effective amounts from other classes (even cata dose not look like its going to have good quickness).

HP and sustain is nothing in pve in a group it has more use in open world solo pve and massive amounts in pvp/wvw.

Things like boon strips soft cc (slow the only one ele is missing) and unblockables is where ele lacks for pvp/wvw. Even the "one shot" FA scepter builds are a joke in real pvp/wvw combat up vs classes who have these effects that ele lacks. Your only hope is that some one else plays a class that brings these effects for you or often you are foced by your group to play another class that has these effects over all with out that much dmg lost and often more hp / sustain to boot.

Over all ele is a class that lacks too much to every be viable the gw2 world. It needs too much from its team mates and gives too little back. The dmg that it seems to be the "ele thing" is not enofe and will never be enofe on its own to be of use for a group. Even its support builds makes the ele go all in def more so then support effects as well as the lack of powerfully support boons on-top of the nerfs to its stander boons (even auras are bad for ele as auras only work when some one fails at dodging something that is never a good point of balancing.) All made even sadder when other classes can get there own auras though runes and combos comply removing the need for an aura support to start with as an class roll.

Ele IS the worst class in gw2. It is the npc class of the game that is only on par with npc that have no true class beyond holding a stick to hit targets during an event.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

On 11/10/2021 at 7:33 AM, Kodama.6453 said:

Is it really objectively true that elementalist is less useful or just harder to pull off?

Those are... very similar.  If another profession can do the same things, but more easily, more reliably, with less risk, and so on that makes the ele less useful.  Now, I know a bunch of people have already quoted you on this, but they haven't given a satisfying answer.  I wrote about this on another thread, but the short version is that most of the ele's utilities and skills are incredibly selfish.  The ele was originally designed when combo fields were a big deal, which made consistent fire and occasional water fields actually useful.  However, as the game moved on and the combo system largely became trivial, ele's skills were never updated.  The heals and occasional cleanse in core require heavy stat and trait investment to make good use of, which is why the water skills are generally ignored.  This is why the standard ele loadout for PVE is the 3 highest damaging utilities, and for PVP/WvW it is Lightning Flash, a Stun Break, and then 1 DPS skill.

The notable exception to this is the Tempest.  The shouts and overloads give a meaningful amount of boons on nearly any build, and a few trait changes make the aura spam quite useful as well.  This is... somewhat useful as a replacement for Druid on encounters that don't rely on druid to do a "unqiue" thing, but a large number of bosses will require something the Druid has and nobody else.  Also something to note is that in small scale WvW the Ele's group support skills are far more valuable.  My own Air/Water/Weaver Celestial build throws out some heals and cleanses, but a Water/Arcane build is able to give any team decent boons, heals and cleanses.  

Edited November 12, 2021 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[Loke.1429]

@Josh Davis.7865: Could you please reply here and comment about the current state of the elementalist and its specializations? You promised regular balance updates with dedicated devtime. Here I am asking a few months later: Is there an upcoming balance patch that doesn't nerf ele further in the next 2 months?

[Loke.1429]

Devs not touching balance when it is like this is kind of shocking to me, downright disrespectful to the player base of wvw

[Puck.3697]

On 11/10/2021 at 3:33 PM, Kodama.6453 said:

Is it really objectively true that elementalist is less useful or just harder to pull off?

I repeatedly read that tempest, for example, is one of the most potent healers in the game and also provides quite a good boon uptime. Weaver seems to have reasonably high damage to fill the dps role decently well. Yeah, condition firebrand is strong and more useful because of utility, but this is a problem about firebrands being overpowered, not elementalist being not useful enough as a dps...

I think that the one problem is just that elementalist generally is harder to play at full potential, so the average elementalist is perceived less useful than the average player of another class. But I don't think elementalist really is less useful if played at full potential compared to another class played on full potential.

Still means that we have to nerf outliers which are providing strong utility on top of top dps, like firebrand and scourges are doing, tho.

meta wise. Tempest isnt that Desired .. however it is a Strong support option. the problem is its the closest Ele gets to being wanted. but in a high level Organized group... The additional healing isnt really needed (ofcourse ur walking into Top % of the playerbase here)

i think a major issue currently would be simply The power of hybrid Speccs overall nowadays, Weavers DPS Isnt Low and tbh im pretty new to the game and can manage pretty decent DPS with Weaver ontop of that i can survive encounters once i know the encounter atleast... although its Sustain defintly has no pay off for it as of current really.

When u have people Stacking 2x Condi RR Renegades because it outputs like 36.5k DPS Each while upholding 100% Alacrity, you have the issues with condi burst in Fractals just being overall Dominant which makes things like Scourge, Firebrand and Rengade so highly demanded in the content and ontop of that These bring Utility options to the group where weaver simply does not. it makes it feel Much less Rewarding.

Elementalist isnt bad in a sense of "it cannot do content" but it has a Extremely Negative Perception by the community due to how easy it is to flop over dead sheerly from Active Sustain has a higher skill floor then Passive Sustain... i think hybrid weaver is like 38k DPS with S/F, (I think its Offical bench is much closer to 40k but... golem benchs arent always reliable)

hybrid weaver is a Specc i'd recommend to most. Its the highest DPS Sword weaver can do (As Dagger condi is soo situational in its success) but it doesnt have the same Reliance on Alacrity as Condi has and it Out DPS's Power Weaver by quite Abit. the problem is.. the stats required for hybrid Weaver are not easily obtained for the average player its Pretty hard to put that set together realistically Grieving isnt the easiest one to get together really prior Ascended ofcourse where u can just pick it.

but yeah.. 0 Utility... with several Options Equalling it in DPS... ontop of that, Active Sustain Naturally comes at a DPS Cost in Organized PvE Enviroments.... Mistakes tend to cost more DPS because of this in the Average Raiders hands its easy to feel Unrewarding realistically. imho Weaver realistically needs to go uptoo 42k DPS with Sword build

but yeah. weaver would shine more if Anet would nerf down the hybrid builds doing a ton of DPS Ontop of bloated Skillsets which offer soo much utility to the group simultaniously.

PvP Wise, Weaver would be ALOT stronger if Thief wasnt soo Dominanting in the field.. as Duelists arent needed in that enviroment which warrants weaver without a role but thats another discussion.

Weavers Problem is Currently it feels "Fair" when alot of options Simply do not. Weaver isnt bloated in what it offers Like scourge / Firebrand / Renegade but thats a problem multiple speccs can be stated with. I think all 3 speccs of elementalist need quite abit of help in distinguishing them positional wise, Tempest offering a Role which isnt needed Meta wise and Weaver Being a "normal level of DPS" with lower sustain Utility and CC Doesnt create a Demand for the proffession as of current.

 

[Puck.3697]

12 hours ago, Loke.1429 said:

Devs not touching balance when it is like this is kind of shocking to me, downright disrespectful to the player base of wvw

As far as I know, grouch stated there won't be any balancing to come til EoD launch and then after. I'm guessing it's all hands on deck regarding getting the expansion ready to launch in 2 months. 

Guessing their banking on most taking breaks away from the game til launch which is likely. 

Aslong as their decent patch notes to come j guess the wait isn't too bad.... If we see a bunch of tooltip fixs and a few changes to a couple of proffessions however. That'd be a P*sstake 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Daddy.8125

[greedywholesome.9081]

To the OP - congratulations for choosing to play the most difficult, underserved class in the entire game. If you manage to excel in PVE, WvW and PvP as elementalist, I suggest you try other classes and I assure you will be G*d like. 

[Mell.4873]

My suggestion for fixing Elementalist is buffing combo fields since ele has access to most of them. If a lighting combo field could somehow give everyone quickness, that would be awesome for sustain

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

My suggestion for fixing Elementalist is buffing combo fields since ele has access to most of them. If a lighting combo field could somehow give everyone quickness, that would be awesome for sustain

How does quickness = sustain?

[AliamRationem.5172]

17 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

How does quickness = sustain?

It gets you into down state faster, at which point you spring into action!  What are you new to the class or something?

[Jski.6180]

30 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

How does quickness = sustain?

Faster skills usage something that out of all classes ele needs. Its beyond me ele needs 1+ sec to land any real dmg and effect and often you have necro classes (known to do be slower cast class over all in "other games") are often 1/4 cast time and have no root tide to them.

Anyway if ele can use skill faster then ele can use more skills which is more sustain. As well as a lot of ele self support skills do need cast time and the ele class over all has no real means of coving for the cast (no usefully stab or blocks beyond long cd) so speed often in the only way to get things off.

[Infusion.7149]

5 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

Faster skills usage something that out of all classes ele needs. Its beyond me ele needs 1+ sec to land any real dmg and effect and often you have necro classes (known to do be slower cast class over all in "other games") are often 1/4 cast time and have no root tide to them.

Anyway if ele can use skill faster then ele can use more skills which is more sustain. As well as a lot of ele self support skills do need cast time and the ele class over all has no real means of coving for the cast (no usefully stab or blocks beyond long cd) so speed often in the only way to get things off.

Unless you're using meteor which self-roots there is pretty much no skill that "needs" quickness.

[Jski.6180]

9 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Unless you're using meteor which self-roots there is pretty much no skill that "needs" quickness.

So a good example of this would be water 1 staff you cast it faster when you have quickness much like med kit 1 for eng. So quickness is an sustain booster sadly ele dose not have quickness and eng dose.

All of the healing skills have a cast time and quickness would help you cast them more to do with the lack of "cover" effects it is much more needed.

There are other root skills that ele has that could use quickness then just meteor. Its about more then just roots of casting too not being able to dodge roll during a channel skill is a massive risk for very low reward with agen the lack of good cover skills and effects.

[Infusion.7149]

29 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

So a good example of this would be water 1 staff you cast it faster when you have quickness much like med kit 1 for eng. So quickness is an sustain booster sadly ele dose not have quickness and eng dose.

All of the healing skills have a cast time and quickness would help you cast them more to do with the lack of "cover" effects it is much more needed.

There are other root skills that ele has that could use quickness then just meteor. Its about more then just roots of casting too not being able to dodge roll during a channel skill is a massive risk for very low reward with agen the lack of good cover skills and effects.

ele is getting quickness with catalyst so this is moot anyway
That's like saying druid needs quickness to spam staff auto faster...

Edited December 19, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Jski.6180]

14 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

ele is getting quickness with catalyst so this is moot anyway
That's like saying druid needs quickness to spam staff auto faster...

From that point of view ele gets quickness from lighting hammer so catalyst is moot!

Its not like druid not getting quickness during a fight and druid is not weaker for getting it. Why not spread the boon arond to all of the classes. Druid can get quickness thought a 1 button utility too Quickening Zephyr.

[Kodama.6453]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

How does quickness = sustain?

Use staff, go into water attunement, keep spamming auto attack while being close to your target.

Congratulations, having quickness on you now increases your sustain.

[OliverIngram.8729]

I feel like, what needs to be done, is to completely rework Elementalist because, like you, I really wanted to enjoy and play Elementalist but it's such a MASSIVE PAIN to play that I just cannot do it, you have to do like 50x the work than other classes just to be relevant at all and it annoys me so kitten much. It's really a shame because I want to play Elementalist since it's the closest thing I got to a traditional mage. I actually swapped to Thief because well.. Specter seems really fun and I want to try it when EoD's out and I do like Necro but Harbinger just seems like one of the biggest disappointments for a specialization I have seen for EoD. Just feels like a wannabe Engineer.

[Infusion.7149]

Realistically they aren't reworking ele completely as some people have been asking. It would not ROI in the slightest and the only people that think that everything needs to be torn down are people that only play elementalist.

There's two major things that need to be fixed IMO:
* Weaver needs to be top sustained DPS on sword in PVE, no questions asked as the burst is not chart topping. Every single spec now and incoming will either have more damage or more range/DPS uptime and far less complexity. The fact that it has 40K DPS on condi is lame when you need to be melee to do it with 4 attunements ; dagger has the top bench at 42K which makes sword irrelevant in cases you can use dagger instead. Power is at 37K sustained DPS with ~45K peak burst which is worse than a power scrapper.
--- If dual attacks on sword need to be upped in power damage, then do it. There's plenty of potential for improvement on Twin Strike (which is melee ranged) or Shearing Edge.
--- It should be definitively sword > dagger > scepter (39.2K condi right now) > staff damage due to range limits and support output (dagger heals others in an appreciable amount should you need it). It currently isn't especially if you need to resustain on water or earth.
--- A good first step for average players would be to make water attunement's auto attack actually do damage on sword. Seiche has 0.33 damage coefficient , Clapotis has 0.45 damage coefficient, Breaking Wave has 0.66 coefficient. Looking at something that does a similar function, guardian mace ( 0.8/1.0/1.55 PVE coefficients for ~1.028 coefficient/second) or revenant staff (0.65/0.75/1.0 PvE coefficients on a weapon with higher weapon strength , ~ 1.09 coefficient / second) and there is no comparison. In order for the auto chain in water to be on par it would need to be around 2.5 coefficient total for the entire chain since it requires 2.44s to execute.  This affects people that are not familiar with the rotation more than expert players (who would rotate out of water or use dual and swap out), raising the DPS floor. The coefficients from earth attunement could be used for example (0.66/0.77/1.0) which total 2.43 power coefficient for the chain. At the very least it should have 0.72 coefficient per second on par with scepter auto.
--- Primordial Stance , which is weaver specific, could have easily double the power damage. Else, shattering ice on catalyst (which can be run as a support) may outpace weaver damage especially on power variants since it has 0.25s interval. It currently accounts for 880DPS in the BttH version of power weaver, so doubling this puts it closer to 38K DPS as a power DPS.
--- It's absolutely ridiculous that Pyromancer's Puissance removes that many (10) stacks of might on weaver when it needs to swap out of fire attunement. Might removed should be 10 stacks when overloading only and at most 5 stacks (150 power) otherwise as Power Overwhelming gives +150 additional power. Most skills apply 5 might at a time.

* Tempest overloads need to not have extreme RNG when there is only one target in the AOE. Tempest DPS is more than fine at 36.6K / 38K with allies and 37.4K condi builds. What isn't fine is when lightning orb and overload air make up about half the damage and are contingent on favorable hitboxes.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Jski.6180]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Realistically they aren't reworking ele completely as some people have been asking. It would not ROI in the slightest and the only people that think that everything needs to be torn down are people that only play elementalist.

There's two major things that need to be fixed IMO:
* Weaver needs to be top sustained DPS on sword in PVE, no questions asked as the burst is not chart topping. Every single spec now and incoming will either have more damage or more range/DPS uptime and far less complexity. The fact that it has 40K DPS on condi is lame when you need to be melee to do it with 4 attunements ; dagger has the top bench at 42K which makes sword irrelevant in cases you can use dagger instead. Power is at 37K sustained DPS with ~45K peak burst which is worse than a power scrapper.
--- If dual attacks on sword need to be upped in power damage, then do it. There's plenty of potential for improvement on Twin Strike (which is melee ranged) or Shearing Edge.
--- It should be definitively sword > dagger > scepter (39.2K condi right now) > staff damage due to range limits and support output (dagger heals others in an appreciable amount should you need it). It currently isn't especially if you need to resustain on water or earth.
--- A good first step for average players would be to make water attunement's auto attack actually do damage on sword. Seiche has 0.33 damage coefficient , Clapotis has 0.45 damage coefficient, Breaking Wave has 0.66 coefficient. Looking at something that does a similar function, guardian mace ( 0.8/1.0/1.55 PVE coefficients for ~1.028 coefficient/second) or revenant staff (0.65/0.75/1.0 PvE coefficients on a weapon with higher weapon strength , ~ 1.09 coefficient / second) and there is no comparison. In order for the auto chain in water to be on par it would need to be around 2.5 coefficient total for the entire chain since it requires 2.44s to execute.  This affects people that are not familiar with the rotation more than expert players (who would rotate out of water or use dual and swap out), raising the DPS floor. The coefficients from earth attunement could be used for example (0.66/0.77/1.0) which total 2.43 power coefficient for the chain. At the very least it should have 0.72 coefficient per second on par with scepter auto.
--- Primordial Stance , which is weaver specific, could have easily double the power damage. Else, shattering ice on catalyst (which can be run as a support) may outpace weaver damage especially on power variants since it has 0.25s interval.
--- It's absolutely ridiculous that Pyromancer's Puissance removes that many (10) stacks of might on weaver when it needs to swap out of fire attunement. Might removed should be 10 stacks when overloading only and at most 5 stacks (150 power) otherwise as Power Overwhelming gives +150 additional power. Most skills apply 5 might at a time.

* Tempest overloads need to not have extreme RNG when there is only one target in the AOE. Tempest DPS is more than fine at 36.6K / 38K with allies and 37.4K condi builds. What isn't fine is when lightning orb and overload air make up about half the damage and are contingent on favorable hitboxes.

Right but you cant get over the fact of what a simple boon like quickness or alacrity can do to a class something witch is not part of the current kit of ele. All the dmg numbers are worthless with out it. If you could chose an ele who may do more dps but cant give these boons vs a class who may do less dps but can give these boons why would ele be a real chose.

Its like your trying to overwhelm ppl with info.

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Jski.6180 said:

Right but you cant get over the fact of what a simple boon like quickness or alacrity can do to a class something witch is not part of the current kit of ele. All the dmg numbers are worthless with out it. If you could chose an ele who may do more dps but cant give these boons vs a class who may do less dps but can give these boons why would ele be a real chose.

Its like your trying to overwhelm ppl with info.

Quickness is on catalyst so your point is moot.

First time catalyst bench with quickness and the original jade sphere was 27K + already which is on par with StM chrono / quick scrapper ; the new one with jade sphere revamp and not counting power damage from orbs is 30K+

Edited December 19, 2021 by Infusion.7149