Where are the Elementalist balance changes?

[Avatara.1042]

Elementalist is also the worst profession for lowering break-bars, with zero utilities doing this.  PLEASE ADD SOME!

[Arheundel.6451]

17 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

   Remember the August Mechanist nerf? Mechanist remains as the most popular spec for instanced content...

   Post patch FB will be a easier to play FB, which is the reason why Mech and FB are popular. For the average player how much dps a Bladesworn, Catalyst or Virtuoso can aouput is irrelevant if they require complex rotations or are clunky to use.

Thank you! Jesus it doesn't matter how hard you shout at these people...they just don't get it....nobody gives a kitten about your golem rotation, if the class overall is kitten to play...nobody will play it regardless of how much you bench on that kitten golem!

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Thank you! Jesus it doesn't matter how hard you shout at these people...they just don't get it....nobody gives a kitten about your golem rotation, if the class overall is kitten to play...nobody will play it regardless of how much you bench on that kitten golem!

 

That's your opinion and it is not shared universally by the community.  For example, here's a reddit thread from a few days ago asking which class is the most well-designed in terms of pure fun to play.  If you skim through the thread, weaver is mentioned repeatedly (40+ times, in fact) and has hundreds of upvotes.  I'm not about to run a thorough analysis on all the comments (the thread is rather large), but it's plain to see that weaver stands out as a crowd favorite there.  

Just because you hate it doesn't mean everyone else agrees with you.  Likewise for your focus on PvP.  PvE is far more popular in this game and PvE players absolutely care about how well their spec of choice performs in that game mode.

[Avatara.1042]

8 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

That's your opinion and it is not shared universally by the community.  For example, here's a reddit thread from a few days ago asking which class is the most well-designed in terms of pure fun to play.  If you skim through the thread, weaver is mentioned repeatedly (40+ times, in fact) and has hundreds of upvotes.  I'm not about to run a thorough analysis on all the comments (the thread is rather large), but it's plain to see that weaver stands out as a crowd favorite there.  

Just because you hate it doesn't mean everyone else agrees with you.  Likewise for your focus on PvP.  PvE is far more popular in this game and PvE players absolutely care about how well their spec of choice performs in that game mode.

Weaver is fun to play, and not too hard.  Catalyst and its 400 timers and trackers is the problem.

 

Also, Elementalist is the least played profession in raids, strikes and fractals.

[AliamRationem.5172]

19 minutes ago, Avatara.1042 said:

Weaver is fun to play, and not too hard.  Catalyst and its 400 timers and trackers is the problem.

 

Also, Elementalist is the least played profession in raids, strikes and fractals.

If they make it competitive it should see better representation.  The easiest way to do that is to do what has been suggested: buff sword damage and make alacrity pulse per second on overload instead of being backloaded following a 4 second channel. 

There's more they could do, of course.  Not making tempest choose between healing and alacrity when their competitors don't have to make that choice, for instance.  Reworking weave self to make it less of a pain in the kitten to use.  Fixing elementals so they function like the summons other classes get.  Doing a deep dive into ele utilities, especially conjured weapons.  

I think scepter weaver is going to see weaver numbers increase as it is.  Just bring sword up to where it should be, make tempest a first-rate pick for alacrity healer instead of something you never see anyone play.  As for catalyst, I think they should get rid of the stupid energy mechanics.

[Infusion.7149]

Just my opinion:
The answer to that reddit thread should have been "mechanist is the worst spec ever designed" as number tweaks won't fix it. To this day it still doesn't have anything underwater except for the J-Drive triggers and one skill worse than grenade barrage, making it worse than core engineer. It's a spec where an entire traitline is fluff to give you a pet, has the least interaction with the game itself due to autocasts, and the only saving grace is that it makes condi engineer not require 4 kits. We could have had a mainstream heal scrapper that does no damage while healing but has above average heals and quickness output (as opposed to the predominantly DPS quickness) but instead we got a heal alac mech.

Honorable mentions for worst spec designed: bladesworn in an expansion in which there is emphasis on movement while DT has less than core burst damage in competitive modes at a time people wanted a heal spec for warrior; virtuoso which is nearly all projectile no matter which weapon you use (making it a PVE spec , why it is projectile even if you are in melee range I don't know) when people expected a heal support; maybe deadeye (same problem as bladesworn but in competitive modes it also leads to people raging)

I'm still of the opinion chrono is the best spec designed before Arenanet gutted it completely as it is essentially nonlinear gameplay that requires knowledge of your skills usage and of the encounter. It actually was rewarding for how well you played it (see elementalist), unlike say firebrand (the loss of aegis on PVE version of mantra of solace means you just spam it) ... I'd say renegade is an overall well-designed spec for PVE but in competitive modes it isn't because of the inherent drawback of loss of crit when you dodge: it can't do everything but depending on how you trait and equip you can CC, cDPS, heal, or alacrity DPS. If you look at the F skills there is "purity of purpose" and they also work underwater. With renegade even if you want to just camp a weapon you still need to swap legends for energy which is why PvE players that played poorly were putting out extremely poor results. I'd put ECSU holosmith in this category as well as it is blatantly obvious if you are playing it incorrectly and overheat but ECSU holo doesn't have heat tiers on rifles. The difference is ECSU holo is purely DPS in PVE while in PVP/WVW prot holo exists.

Other specs class by class , solely my opinion:
* Guardian specs overall are quite linear (DH relies on resolution and the spear of justice buff), firebrand exists with tomes locked out once you use them although this will change on Nov 29 , willbender is kind of meme in PVE due to mobility focus --- they aren't the worst designed just paladin style tropes
* Berserker and spellbreaker are quite linear (Attacker's Insight and Berserk Mode) --- they aren't the worst design but the warrior spec is quite common in gaming and trying to range on warrior consists of condi berserker more or less
* Herald is very linear (you use consume skills) as is vindicator sans Alliance Stance (you dodge for a DPS buff) --- without the F skills on renegade it isn't that dynamic or complex as the only profession mechanic is energy and ranged versions of the other revenant specs are quite poor in PVE
* Mechanist is afk mode ; DPS scrapper is relatively linear (you only swap into grenade kit as a replacement for weapon swap) --- without the heat mechanic and lack of cooldown on kits it is actually not a difficult class
* Thief in general is spam 3 in most cases and dodging, specter breaks this mold with well spam --- "assassin" spec's lack of cooldown in general means you spam your best skill typically due to initiative
* Druid is quite boring to me due to spirit spam and still hasn't had pet stow in WVW (why?), soulbeast is quite linear as you burst into sic em and OWP (note dealing with trash mobs means "Sic Em" isn't applicable most of the time), untamed playing condi seems unintuitive as the lower complexity Ferocious Symbiosis hammer type of build is more or less core Greatsword ranger with boon rips and more CC --- "hunter" spec is overdone in gaming 
* Scourge boils down to spam all the things, harbinger plays linearly due to shroud and so does reaper --- reaper is terrible in instanced PVE but is sort of balanced off by the fact that it is quite common in openworld by people not using harbinger or scourges ; necromancer spec is common in gaming
* Mirage is more about positioning and ambushes (the main profession mechanic) and virtuoso is easy mode mesmer in general while being horrible in competitive --- mesmer as a class is less cookiecutter than other specs

---

As far as ele goes: For PvE purposes if Overload Air and lightning orb weren't so RNG based and alacrity pulsed on overloads I'm fairly certain a DPS alacrity tempest could work okay even if not meta. For heal alacrity tempest the playstyle remains sort of janky because you are not healing as much due to constantly overloading on attunements other than water attunement. The only way I see around this is Soothing Mist scaling for more in addition to Healing Ripple along with perhaps a base heal on "Flash Freeze" (Signet of Water works here instead). (Imagine if alacrity were as effortless as Soothing Mist or "Elemental Attunement now applies alacrity in AoE"...) There's so many ways tempest could have output alacrity that don't involve overloading.

For weaver Pyromancer's Puissance could use some work as opposed to just sword as the trait is nearly melee ranged (240). Sword weaver has zero might generation in comparison to other power specs due to Pyromancer's Puissance functionality. You could drop air traitline for arcane at a DPS loss but then you still are at a disadvantage due to Bountiful Power scaling with boons. Maybe Fire Swipe (sword auto 2nd hit) could apply might. If Stormsoul had a change such that it also worked against chilled targets it would have major implications for power elementalists but that is wishful thinking. Most often nobody cares about the damage on water attunement but due to how condi sword builds work, an improvement to water attunement's autoattack to be on par with other classes' melee ranged "heal weapons" (guardian mace, revenant staff for example) at the very least would make it less penalizing if you don't swap attunements fast enough. This is one reason why condi weaver builds using scepter are favored currently as you only need fire+earth which makes it on par with a two weapon class.

Catalyst needs to be tested but people claim 45K DPS benchmark post patch due to the increased DPS from hammer orbs so if you are even able to get 75% of that it would be okay. In addition, the orbs doing actual damage means major improvements to melee cleave. One major thing that affects people that aren't benchmarkers is elemental empowerment and the Empowered Empowerment trait: it is rare people will be maxed stats meaning quickness catalyst may actually be more attractive than DPS catalyst. Personally I feel the energy mechanic is still convoluted and should be removed but one of the largest painpoints of hammer is the orb mechanic. There are too many resources on catalyst right now: you have Elemental Empowerment regardless of your weapon and build, energy, hammer orbs if you play hammer, Power Overwhelming acting as an all or nothing trait on power builds and Persisting Flames timers on top of that for power builds. If Catalyst ran fresh air it would probably be even worse in terms of managing all the buffs. 

People claim untamed is high APM, but Catalyst revolves around buffs and relies on 4 attunements for damage which makes it more susceptible to drop off in damage whereas if you swap from Fervent Force untamed builds to a power Ferocious Symbiosis Hammer build you could do respectable damage after patch most likely. At the end of the day without all the convoluted damage modifiers on Catalyst what you have is a core ele with a hammer and a F5 jade sphere (as opposed to tempest which has overload on the same key as the attunement).

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Infusion.7149