Power Budget needs to include intrinsic stats

[Jski.6180]

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The boon protocols, fast res, and a lot of the other stuff associated with the mastery is disabled, but the vitality increase from the core is not (at least I'm fairly certain my health goes up in raids when I remember to slot the tier 10 core - not in a position to verify right now).

Healing power doesn't vary between professions, but things like base healing value, healing power coefficient, availability of other sources of healing in other skills and traits, and availability of measures to decrease or even prevent damage from occurring in the first place absolutely does vary. Well-played elementalists are hard to take down in sPvP without significant focus despite their low health and armour (and don't overestimate that armour, the difference between light and heavy isn't a big difference in damage taken) because it rarely takes long for them to go from 'nearly dead' to 'back to full health', and they're often slippery enough to buy themselves that time. Problem is, that's an advantage that often fails to translate into elementalist performance in PvE.

That the thing about coefficient they are always getting updated and over all "blanding" at one point you had low hp low def classes with high coefficients with healing effects but over time they keep getting nerfed and classes with "weaker" healing effects often get buffed. Its just a bad way to balance the game. 

It comes down to why dose high armor and high hp classes have better counter coefficients when it comes to getting hit build in just for being that class? It will always be an issues. You cant even do the coefficient balancing that they do with power or healing power skills because they are set in stone effects for classes. In a way one class having higher hp / def is un-balanceable for gw2.

Pve is kind of a joke to balance beyond bechmakes for rolls this is mostly about spvp and wvw balancing (most effect dont realy meany thing in pve you need every effect in the game to work in an balanced way in an more pvp environment.)

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

22 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The boon protocols, fast res, and a lot of the other stuff associated with the mastery is disabled, but the vitality increase from the core is not (at least I'm fairly certain my health goes up in raids when I remember to slot the tier 10 core - not in a position to verify right now).

Healing power doesn't vary between professions, but things like base healing value, healing power coefficient, availability of other sources of healing in other skills and traits, and availability of measures to decrease or even prevent damage from occurring in the first place absolutely does vary. Well-played elementalists are hard to take down in sPvP without significant focus despite their low health and armour (and don't overestimate that armour, the difference between light and heavy isn't a big difference in damage taken) because it rarely takes long for them to go from 'nearly dead' to 'back to full health', and they're often slippery enough to buy themselves that time. Problem is, that's an advantage that often fails to translate into elementalist performance in PvE.

The last line is the most important. Ele is a very strong class in PvP, but it falls apart very easily in PvE. The biggest issue is that there's just too many tradeoffs, so you can't keep up with other classes even with half the defense. (And yes, the combination of Toughness and Vitality drop is roughly equivalent to half the survivability of a Warrior).

 

Higher healing coefficients don't make up for it if you die in one hit anyway, in fact I'd say one-hit KO's on Ele DPS builds are one of the major drawbacks of alot of PvE instanced content. Yes, they have the active defenses to avoid it, but a handful of other classes don't even need to bother, once you have about 15k HP you will survive most of them without doing anything, and Ele and Thief can only do that by sacrificing stats on their gear.

 

The only reason it works for Guardian is having even more active defenses than both of them combined.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

56 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

The last line is the most important. Ele is a very strong class in PvP, but it falls apart very easily in PvE. The biggest issue is that there's just too many tradeoffs, so you can't keep up with other classes even with half the defense. (And yes, the combination of Toughness and Vitality drop is roughly equivalent to half the survivability of a Warrior).

 

Higher healing coefficients don't make up for it if you die in one hit anyway, in fact I'd say one-hit KO's on Ele DPS builds are one of the major drawbacks of alot of PvE instanced content. Yes, they have the active defenses to avoid it, but a handful of other classes don't even need to bother, once you have about 15k HP you will survive most of them without doing anything, and Ele and Thief can only do that by sacrificing stats on their gear.

 

The only reason it works for Guardian is having even more active defenses than both of them combined.

That's a failing on the ele's part for not knowing mechanics though, and such things also tend to leave many professions in downstate or very close to it if they also don't know the mechanic.

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

That the thing about coefficient they are always getting updated and over all "blanding" at one point you had low hp low def classes with high coefficients with healing effects but over time they keep getting nerfed and classes with "weaker" healing effects often get buffed. Its just a bad way to balance the game. 

It comes down to why dose high armor and high hp classes have better counter coefficients when it comes to getting hit build in just for being that class? It will always be an issues. You cant even do the coefficient balancing that they do with power or healing power skills because they are set in stone effects for classes. In a way one class having higher hp / def is un-balanceable for gw2.

Pve is kind of a joke to balance beyond bechmakes for rolls this is mostly about spvp and wvw balancing (most effect dont realy meany thing in pve you need every effect in the game to work in an balanced way in an more pvp environment.)

And yet, elementalist still has two meta builds in sPvP, while warrior, the profession with the best 'intrinsic stats', is still struggling a bit in that mode despite getting a lot of attention in the last patch (apart from the bladesworn nerf which, let's face it, happened because they realised they'd allowed one warrior build to have too much sustain). The principle works... in sPvP. But not in PvE.

1 hour ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

The last line is the most important. Ele is a very strong class in PvP, but it falls apart very easily in PvE. The biggest issue is that there's just too many tradeoffs, so you can't keep up with other classes even with half the defense. (And yes, the combination of Toughness and Vitality drop is roughly equivalent to half the survivability of a Warrior).

 

Higher healing coefficients don't make up for it if you die in one hit anyway, in fact I'd say one-hit KO's on Ele DPS builds are one of the major drawbacks of alot of PvE instanced content. Yes, they have the active defenses to avoid it, but a handful of other classes don't even need to bother, once you have about 15k HP you will survive most of them without doing anything, and Ele and Thief can only do that by sacrificing stats on their gear.

 

The only reason it works for Guardian is having even more active defenses than both of them combined.

Similarly, the last line is important. Guardian does compensate for low health by having a ton of active defence. No barrier (but barrier is less valuable on low health professions to begin with), but just about everything else.

Which is, I think, ultimately where the answer is likely to lie - improving elementalist active defence in PvE to a similar level.

43 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

That's a failing on the ele's part for not knowing mechanics though, and such things also tend to leave many professions in downstate or very close to it if they also don't know the mechanic.

This feels like it's basically an 'if you play perfectly you'll have no problems' argument. Most people aren't playing at a level where they're guaranteed to never miss anything ever, though, and the difference between being downed or not can be huge. The low health of elementalist means that you're just that much less likely to survive a mistake. Even percentage-based damage leaves elementalist more prone to succumbing to any other damage that's flying around.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

7 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

This feels like it's basically an 'if you play perfectly you'll have no problems' argument. Most people aren't playing at a level where they're guaranteed to never miss anything ever, though, and the difference between being downed or not can be huge. The low health of elementalist means that you're just that much less likely to survive a mistake. Even percentage-based damage leaves elementalist more prone to succumbing to any other damage that's flying around.

More like there are plenty of things that will instadown even a warrior, it's incumbent on the player to know the mechanics and know how to avoid them with their CDs or dodges.  Even with the percentage based damage mechanics, yes there other other non percentage based damage packets flying around, but that is something that all players need to account for not just ele, who just so happens to also have built in damage mitigation on every weapon set so that they can handle such things. Not every class has that luxury.

As has been said, the 'intrinsic' stats part has already been covered for ele based on how their attunements work. If you could only have the attunements that you slot the traitline for, then that would be different. But every ele has water attunement on hand and water attunement brings good sustain to the table. 

[Jski.6180]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And yet, elementalist still has two meta builds in sPvP, while warrior, the profession with the best 'intrinsic stats', is still struggling a bit in that mode despite getting a lot of attention in the last patch (apart from the bladesworn nerf which, let's face it, happened because they realised they'd allowed one warrior build to have too much sustain). The principle works... in sPvP. But not in PvE.

 

And because war has higher def / hp it can never be balanced right and there by missing effects that you would see ele having. See the issues this is not just being op and needing nerfs its also about being unable to be buffed right.

[draxynnic.3719]

18 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

More like there are plenty of things that will instadown even a warrior, it's incumbent on the player to know the mechanics and know how to avoid them with their CDs or dodges.  Even with the percentage based damage mechanics, yes there other other non percentage based damage packets flying around, but that is something that all players need to account for not just ele, who just so happens to also have built in damage mitigation on every weapon set so that they can handle such things. Not every class has that luxury.

As has been said, the 'intrinsic' stats part has already been covered for ele based on how their attunements work. If you could only have the attunements that you slot the traitline for, then that would be different. But every ele has water attunement on hand and water attunement brings good sustain to the table. 

Sure, there are some things that can instadown anyone - but not everything in the "instadowns ele" category is also in the "instadowns warrior" category. When you have roughly half the effective health, you're going to be easier to knock down.

In sPvP, this is offset by elementalist being able to self-generate a wide variety of means of mitigation and self-sustain. In PvE, however, a lot of this is granted by the group. When you have a dedicated healer (yes, I know supports exist in sPvP, but it's a lot more reliable in group PvE), your own self-sustain and condition removal is made significantly less important. If you have supports providing defensive effects like protection, resolution, aegis, and barrier, then your ability to generate your own is also less important. 8K less health, however, is 8K less health regardless of what the support is providing.

Which means that things like water elementalist always having sustain from water attunement doesn't matter. Unless the elementalist is already statted as a healer, the relatively small amount of extra healing from going to water (and if you're not a support role, you probably don't have water traited) is so small compared to what the dedicated healer is doing, and costs you so much damage, that it'd take pretty marginal circumstances to be worthwhile.

I don't think normalising health is the answer due to how it would affect PvP balance, but I think there is space, and need, for improved active defences on ele in PvE.

 

16 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

And because war has higher def / hp it can never be balanced right and there by missing effects that you would see ele having. See the issues this is not just being op and needing nerfs its also about being unable to be buffed right.

Nah. There's space for both approaches. The previous balance team just wasn't even trying to balance warrior properly.

[Hashberry.4510]

What a distorted environment small group instanced combat is. All the neat, subtle game play aspects of the classes are perceived as useless and therefore unbalanced. This is really a crimped view.

[Jski.6180]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

 

Nah. There's space for both approaches. The previous balance team just wasn't even trying to balance warrior properly.

I think in a game where they are allways updating numbers cd %+ of power and healing power on effects having an set of number that they are unable to change at "all cost" (as it has cost them every thing to keep hp / def the same for classes) is foolish at best.

You cant balance warrior properly if you forces ppl into using a set of skills that make up for "well its an tankly base class" to be viable in melee for a time. Nor can you balance ele properly if you forces ppl into using a set of skill because the class is not tankly to be viable on some vage level in melee. All because you cant changes hp / def of classes build in.

[Infusion.7149]

30 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

I think in a game where they are allways updating numbers cd %+ of power and healing power on effects having an set of number that they are unable to change at "all cost" (as it has cost them every thing to keep hp / def the same for classes) is foolish at best.

You cant balance warrior properly if you forces ppl into using a set of skills that make up for "well its an tankly base class" to be viable in melee for a time. Nor can you balance ele properly if you forces ppl into using a set of skill because the class is not tankly to be viable on some vage level in melee. All because you cant changes hp / def of classes build in.

I know this is going to probably going to fall on deaf ears since you're so biased in favor of elementalist it is even in your signature...
However, you can just look at what Arenanet tried to do with scrapper and berserker by taking away the tradeoffs. It did close to nothing for the viability of those classes in PVE and both were used in WVW.  The main benefit was for PVP. Similarly untamed has a health bonus and so does harbinger (to rectify the loss of health from blight) while catalyst has a percentage health bonus from the elemental empowerment trait.

So long as a ranged warrior is not a strong archetype it is almost inherently balanced, even more so since there's a resource buildup of adrenaline in order to burst or use Dragon Trigger. It also has few evades or barriers unless you use warhorn and your utility skills which loses quite a bit of damage off your weaponset.

Instead of tunnel vision on elementalist's lack of health or ~200 less armor the best way Arenanet could rectify that is by providing more barrier and personal block options (realistically party aegis is not going to happen outside of "Eye of the Storm" in PVE) and stronger traits that don't rely on upkeeping 3-5 different buffs. There's a severe usability improvement to be had on Rock Barrier for example ; likewise if Signet of Earth were to have damage reduction instead of toughness it would see far more use outside of solo scenarios.
 

Edited November 5, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Jski.6180]

51 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I know this is going to probably going to fall on deaf ears since you're so biased in favor of elementalist it is even in your signature...
However, you can just look at what Arenanet tried to do with scrapper and berserker by taking away the tradeoffs. It did close to nothing for the viability of those classes in PVE and both were used in WVW.  The main benefit was for PVP. Similarly untamed has a health bonus and so does harbinger (to rectify the loss of health from blight) while catalyst has a percentage health bonus from the elemental empowerment trait.

So long as a ranged warrior is not a strong archetype it is almost inherently balanced, even more so since there's a resource buildup of adrenaline in order to burst or use Dragon Trigger. It also has few evades or barriers unless you use warhorn and your utility skills which loses quite a bit of damage off your weaponset.

Instead of tunnel vision on elementalist's lack of health or ~200 less armor the best way Arenanet could rectify that is by providing more barrier and personal block options (realistically party aegis is not going to happen outside of "Eye of the Storm" in PVE) and stronger traits that don't rely on upkeeping 3-5 different buffs. There's a severe usability improvement to be had on Rock Barrier for example ; likewise if Signet of Earth were to have damage reduction instead of toughness it would see far more use outside of solo scenarios.
 

But why not remove the last bit of an know old system we may have effects that can boost or even take hp away though these effect do take time or need requirements. It just seems like a lot of added work that seems pointless for one class to have more armor and def then others classes. We are even at the point where armor types look the same or we even have out fits that simply cover over the armor "ID" of its type.

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I know this is going to probably going to fall on deaf ears since you're so biased in favor of elementalist it is even in your signature...
However, you can just look at what Arenanet tried to do with scrapper and berserker by taking away the tradeoffs. It did close to nothing for the viability of those classes in PVE and both were used in WVW.  The main benefit was for PVP. Similarly untamed has a health bonus and so does harbinger (to rectify the loss of health from blight) while catalyst has a percentage health bonus from the elemental empowerment trait.

So long as a ranged warrior is not a strong archetype it is almost inherently balanced, even more so since there's a resource buildup of adrenaline in order to burst or use Dragon Trigger. It also has few evades or barriers unless you use warhorn and your utility skills which loses quite a bit of damage off your weaponset.

Instead of tunnel vision on elementalist's lack of health or ~200 less armor the best way Arenanet could rectify that is by providing more barrier and personal block options (realistically party aegis is not going to happen outside of "Eye of the Storm" in PVE) and stronger traits that don't rely on upkeeping 3-5 different buffs. There's a severe usability improvement to be had on Rock Barrier for example ; likewise if Signet of Earth were to have damage reduction instead of toughness it would see far more use outside of solo scenarios.
 

This.

I wonder if Jski would enjoy the amount of self-sustain and active defence that would have to be taken off elementalist in competitive modes in order to balance it if health and armour were to be normalised as Jski appears to propose.

There's proof of concept there, the thing is that elementalist needs more defences in PvE that aren't simply a boon or effect that you could expect to get from your support anyway. Things like the damage reduction from ice aura (granted, one could get that from another elementalist, but that would generally mean already having an elementalist in the subsquad) or tempest getting extra damage reduction from protection. 

If Arenanet recognises that extra difficulty on playing a build could be rewarded with more damage, too, elementalist might be able to afford bringing some extra defensive traits and/or skills, although this would require finding a balance which doesn't become 'all DPS roles are eles'.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think someone brought up a really important point here: Because of the role of supports in PvE, the health of a class doesn't matter in end-game, instanced content.

 

It just allows some classes to survive insta-downs, that's it. This creates a severe power imbalance when some classes are balanced around that health which is very important in all other content (open-world PvE, WvW, PvP, etc.). Both an Elementalist and Warrior in a group are expected to be exactly the same for say, strike missions. They're expected to survive the same and to do the same damage despite wildly different class mechanics.

 

This is why Warrior damage can't be too high (it can surivve one-shots and more constant pressure), and Ele damage can't be too low (it goes down easily even with a healer). The risk/reward ratio just isn't there. Both of them do garbage damage and bring garbage utility outside of Alacrity and Quickness builds, one just has twice the effective health.

 

Classes having different health levels in PvE is probably bad for the game, and should likely be replaced with more extreme armor diffrences leading to favoring melee, mid-ranged, or ranged damage. But given the devs gave Ele hammer in their last elite spec, they're clearly out of touch with this concept entirely.

 

Plus, you know, almost every support skill only having an area of like, 240 units.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Dr Meta.3158]

At the highest tiers of play catalyst is stronger overall than anything warrior has although catalyst specifically loses the matchup vs defense spellbreaker.

On the notion of active defenses. With conjure earth shield, elementalist has a lot of long duration active defenses to pair with their high regenerative ability so long as they're not going into glass cannon builds. Catalyst itself is the premier side noding class right now and is likely to be nerfed soon.

Warrior itself has pretty low active defenses in regard for their higher armor and health values... well except spellbreaker. Both Defense and Strength spellbreaker builds have a lot of active defenses to weave inbetween stuns and if played well can win a lot of fights against most people without taking any major hit.  It is an absolute powerhouse in 1v1s.

The problem with both elementalist and warrior is that they're both high skill ceiling and high skill floor classes. Making them ineffective to everyone except the most proficient before becoming incredibly powerful in their hands. They need their own "mechanist build" for lower levels of play. Maybe signet rifle for warrior and signet staff for elementalist would be a good place to start for some reworks for effective low effort builds that don't break high end play but makes more of the warrior and ele mains happy.

[Jski.6180]

What it comes down to is the ability for a class to go into melee and not get one shot. If you have melee weapons and melee skills you need to be able to at least for a time go into melee and use skills (def skills that lock you out of skills is NOT an viable way to make this happen). The weapons them self should allow you to do this not utility and not the class it self. By keeping an hp / def system base off of classes you will always run into some classes being more able to use there class weapons then other classes. At that point why even have an wepon for a class if you cant even realty use it beyond an simple place holder wepon.

Ele has a dagger mostly melee (what ranged it has is an joke of an effect) but to use that dagger cost the ele class every thing because of the need to build for the lack of hp / def. If you need to use utility and utility along to make that wepon usable then the utility is the wepon and not the wepon of dagger in this example.

Maybe even making the weapons fill the armor roll more then the armor and class hp should be a more balance-able effect for the game over all.

BUT if that class has already high hp/def build in then its ranged weapons whom should not be tankly have an build in advantages over melee weapons. So your ranged weapons may need to have an build in light class armor and hp for balance.

Elite spec has kind of made an mess of things for this type of balancing mind set of ranged classes vs melee classes so keeping things as is not just going to work.

[draxynnic.3719]

20 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I think someone brought up a really important point here: Because of the role of supports in PvE, the health of a class doesn't matter in end-game, instanced content.

 

Base armour and base health are actually two of the things that still matter, even if it's primarily a matter of avoiding insta-downs. The problem is that the things that normally compensate for low such scores are minimised. The balancers historically haven't allowed anything to stay over 40k damage, so you don't get compensated by dishing out high damage. You'll typically be getting healing, boons, and barrier from supports, so your ability to provide your own, something that typically compensates for low base health and armour in other areas of the game, becomes marginalised.

Which is why I've been proposing adding more active defences (including things like damage reduction effects) to PvE elementalist. The tricky part is that they need to be able to work those in while still doing appropriate DPS for their role.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

On 11/6/2022 at 3:06 PM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I think someone brought up a really important point here: Because of the role of supports in PvE, the health of a class doesn't matter in end-game, instanced content.

Although the amount of health/armor matter alot less in instanced PvE compared to open world/pvp/WvW it 100% still matters. Just try out playing boneskinner on a dps ele and you'll quickly realize that every single tiny mistake you make will result in you getting downed (even with competent healers). 

But even on boss encounters such as slothasor it can make a big difference. Coconuts/ground slam can easily down you due to your low health and toxic spores can be very deadly on ele+wipe the raid whenever the ele player gets downed on the group. 

[Hallow.7368]

On 10/28/2022 at 9:34 PM, Sunshine.5014 said:

Ele will forever be a bottom class.

y-i-k-e-s

tempest, catalyst and weaver are very powerful right now in their respective best builds

if anything the elite specs just lack diversity. weaver, tempest and catalyst can all be played as both condi and power dps, but why would you play power tempest or weaver when power catalyst is better or why would you play condi catalyst or condi tempest (unless your goal is an offensive alac support) over condi weaver? just like you wouldn't play a healing catalyst build over a healing tempest build because tempest is a better healer/support due to heatsync and sand squall. It's hard not to make the builds all be able to do the same things since they all have access to 4 elements which means they all already have condis, power damage and healing/supportive utility in their kit baseline.

But like someone else said these things already are factored into their power budgets. As described in the description for condi weaver by snowcrows "Condition Weaver is currently one of the hardest rotations in the game however it probably is verging on the build with the highest condition burst. One of the benefits of Condition Weaver is that it is very effective against bosses which move a lot as you barely have any skills that root you in a place." Lowest health and armor -> animations don't lock you in place allowing you to be mobile. Guess what bladesworn has to deal with as a trade off for having the highest hp and armor along with a couple utility skills that provide some mobility? The ability that makes up the majority of their damage literally roots them in place while they charge it up making them actually one of the least mobile and most punishing classes to screw up on in the game.

Idk why ele players try to portray themselves as masochists like sure ur class is harder than average and isn't the literal best class in the game, but there is no such thing as a "bottom tier class" and if there was I'd be more inclined to give that title to chrono or honestly willbender than any ele spec lol. Willbender is literally just weaver, but worse. Especially considering power willbender is worse than power DH (which is already not in a great spot) and the condi variant competes with firebrand which does more damage while still having access to a whole suite of defensive and offensive utility/boons literally just because tome 2 and tome 3 exist baseline.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

3 hours ago, Hallow.7368 said:

y-i-k-e-s

tempest, catalyst and weaver are very powerful right now in their respective best builds

if anything the elite specs just lack diversity. weaver, tempest and catalyst can all be played as both condi and power dps, but why would you play power tempest or weaver when power catalyst is better or why would you play condi catalyst or condi tempest (unless your goal is an offensive alac support) over condi weaver? just like you wouldn't play a healing catalyst build over a healing tempest build because tempest is a better healer/support due to heatsync and sand squall. It's hard not to make the builds all be able to do the same things since they all have access to 4 elements which means they all already have condis, power damage and healing/supportive utility in their kit baseline.

But like someone else said these things already are factored into their power budgets. As described in the description for condi weaver by snowcrows "Condition Weaver is currently one of the hardest rotations in the game however it probably is verging on the build with the highest condition burst. One of the benefits of Condition Weaver is that it is very effective against bosses which move a lot as you barely have any skills that root you in a place." Lowest health and armor -> animations don't lock you in place allowing you to be mobile. Guess what bladesworn has to deal with as a trade off for having the highest hp and armor along with a couple utility skills that provide some mobility? The ability that makes up the majority of their damage literally roots them in place while they charge it up making them actually one of the least mobile and most punishing classes to screw up on in the game.

Idk why ele players try to portray themselves as masochists like sure ur class is harder than average and isn't the literal best class in the game, but there is no such thing as a "bottom tier class" and if there was I'd be more inclined to give that title to chrono or honestly willbender than any ele spec lol. Willbender is literally just weaver, but worse. Especially considering power willbender is worse than power DH (which is already not in a great spot) and the condi variant competes with firebrand which does more damage while still having access to a whole suite of defensive and offensive utility/boons literally just because tome 2 and tome 3 exist baseline.

Maybe you should play the hours actually trying Weaver instead of looking at the snowcrows website. Sure some ele mains tend to exaggerate the position of ele abit, but in general its simply not in a good spot right now. Although i could reiterate some of the flaws, you could probably take a look on the forums aswell. Just take a quick look at wingman to look at the overall playrate in instanced PvE. Im not saying that other professions/Especs dont have any similar problems right now but the scale of the problems of ele and the lack of proper actions by Anet to solve these problems have made its current status really problematic. 

With a severe lack of proper support, utilities and surviveability the elementalist simply needs to do a real proper job to be relevant compared to other classes. Currently in PvE the dps elementalist is just a worse version of a mesmer. 

[Hallow.7368]

3 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Maybe you should play the hours actually trying Weaver instead of looking at the snowcrows website. Sure some ele mains tend to exaggerate the position of ele abit, but in general its simply not in a good spot right now. Although i could reiterate some of the flaws, you could probably take a look on the forums aswell. Just take a quick look at wingman to look at the overall playrate in instanced PvE. Im not saying that other professions/Especs dont have any similar problems right now but the scale of the problems of ele and the lack of proper actions by Anet to solve these problems have made its current status really problematic. 

With a severe lack of proper support, utilities and surviveability the elementalist simply needs to do a real proper job to be relevant compared to other classes. Currently in PvE the dps elementalist is just a worse version of a mesmer. 

It's also a class that has to balance around the power budget of having 20 weapon abilities and the various things that come with them as well as conjure kits. Wingman as far as I'm aware works on uploaded parses so the low pick rate has very little to do with uncoordinated groups because pugs especially ones containing bad players likely won't be included. I think the better explanation is more that a class having depth doesn't correlate with it being fun. Condi untamed is ridiculously strong right now with the highest DPS in the game for both roles (full DPS and offensive support) with it's only pitfall is if the boss is cc immune (qadim having stability for example). It's pickrate is also pretty much non-existent across the bored. The reason is simply that high apm just feel tedious to play. The high apm "complex" playstyle is only fun for a niche group so it's not really a surprise that everyone else takes the opportunity to play literally anything else even if it's not the "highest" DPS option. I personally feel likes ele's issue are just fundamental ones and the only way to fix it would to be completely reworking the profession mechanic at it's core level which is probably just not reasonable. I feel like the best thing anyone can hope for is just that the next espec is something that can "specialize" in 2 elements so the other 2 don't take up space in the class power budget and that maybe going forward the current especs overtime could possibly get reworks to how their elite specs modify the profession mechanic to make them less obnoxious. The only non tempest spec I'd be willing to play is power sword Weaver with it's current reason where you just go between fire and air. I'd absolutely never be interested in something akin to what the old staff Weaver build or current condi Weaver build are requiring.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

2 hours ago, Hallow.7368 said:

It's also a class that has to balance around the power budget of having 20 weapon abilities and the various things that come with them as well as conjure kits. Wingman as far as I'm aware works on uploaded parses so the low pick rate has very little to do with uncoordinated groups because pugs especially ones containing bad players likely won't be included. I think the better explanation is more that a class having depth doesn't correlate with it being fun. Condi untamed is ridiculously strong right now with the highest DPS in the game for both roles (full DPS and offensive support) with it's only pitfall is if the boss is cc immune (qadim having stability for example). It's pickrate is also pretty much non-existent across the bored. The reason is simply that high apm just feel tedious to play. The high apm "complex" playstyle is only fun for a niche group so it's not really a surprise that everyone else takes the opportunity to play literally anything else even if it's not the "highest" DPS option. I personally feel likes ele's issue are just fundamental ones and the only way to fix it would to be completely reworking the profession mechanic at it's core level which is probably just not reasonable. I feel like the best thing anyone can hope for is just that the next espec is something that can "specialize" in 2 elements so the other 2 don't take up space in the class power budget and that maybe going forward the current especs overtime could possibly get reworks to how their elite specs modify the profession mechanic to make them less obnoxious. The only non tempest spec I'd be willing to play is power sword Weaver with it's current reason where you just go between fire and air. I'd absolutely never be interested in something akin to what the old staff Weaver build or current condi Weaver build are requiring.

Just take a look at any fractal/strike/raid groups, ele's are barely present at all and whenever you see one around hes been slacking around most of the time compared to its team members. Even though ele has base access to 20 skills, the amount of relevant skills is pretty low and the amount of support/utility/self defence/defiance break is horrible. Utility skills are often objectively worse then any other profession 

 

The problem with elementalist/untamed isn't necessarily the high apm, but in general the high efficiency dropoff when not perfectly excecuted and its lack of natural support/utilities. (Like losing ~100k dmge upon failing a placement of exploding spores/boss moves out of the AoE).