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November 29 Balance Update Preview - Elementalist


thetwothousand.5049

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Balance preview notes are live. Lets discuss the upcoming changes to Elementalist.

 

I'll start by saying this patch is at best disappointing, realistically its a joke. Out of all the things that Ele needs help with and they devoted all their time to reworking scepter of all things??? While the changes to scepter do look interesting, they will not change the class in any meaningful way in pvp, and does nothing to address any of the actual concerns that Ele players have spent MONTHS talking about.

 

Tempest - Why does alacrity still come at the end of the overload in one burst? This really needs to be a pulse over the course of your overload, or atleast trigger at the start of the skill.

Catalyst - One step forward, two steps back. The increase to Empowering Auras is nice, but with the change to self applied auras only the whole class will have a significantly harder time maintaining full stacks any of these buffs. With how difficult it already is to even trigger our DPS  grandmaster, Empowered Empowerment, I expect this spec will be completely useless in 99% of players hands. The change to Spectacular Sphere is a good step in the right changes but does nothing to offset the struggles the spec already has and will be getting on the 29th 

Weaver - Literally no pve changes in a balance patch that is suppose to be targeting under-performing dps specs. How does this get missed? In optimal conditions this spec is bog standard middle of the road, when their own philosophy should place it at the very top of the charts. Melee only, involved rotation, no party utility, and so of the worst cc potential in the game unless you are playing a Fresh Air variant. I truly do understand the complete lack of pve buffs for weaver, particularly sword weaver.

 

The change to aura application for Catalyst should not move forward period. The spec is already one the least played pve specs in the game, if this change happens I cant think of any reason to ever play it. Empowered Empowerment should be changed so that more players are able to actually make use of the buff, it should be dropped to 5 stacks to trigger. Realistically it probably doesn't need a threshold at all. Energy is still a problem and should be looked at for a later balance patch. I'd like to see it go away completely personally, and change Energized Elements to provide ~3 seconds of quickness on Attunement swap. Upstate Spectacular Sphere to provide ~4 seconds of quickness on sphere drop, along with what it will gain this patch, and Catalyst will more be reliable and flexible at giving quickness, giving a chance for better playtime.

 

Tempest is in the best spot of all ele specs, buts still needs some love. Give shouts ammo stacks, 2 each, so that it can provide its role and also react to things happening in the game. Again ideally break the alacrity into pulses during the course of the overload, or front load it.  

 

Again, how weaver got no attention at all in pve is a complete mystery to me. At best sword weaver is benching 36k, in real play most players will achieve half that at best between personal skill and the handicaps of the spec. Sword specifically should be receiving significant DPS buffs, between a 5-7K boost, so that it accurately reflects what Anet claims their philosophy is. High ceiling skills providing a high reward for being well played and weaver simply does not provide that at all. I'd also like to see Elemental Refreshment provide its barrier on attunement swap as well as barrier skills. Thematically fits very well and would provide a decent, but not overtly powerful effect to help players to new the spec survive and more experiences player additional windows to flex there skills. 

 

All in all this is a very disappointing patch for Elementalist mains. Lets get some good conversation going, we know from prior patches that they are actually looking at and taking feedback before patches go live. Let's let them know that this is simply not enough for Elementalist to close out this year!

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Just now, AliamRationem.5172 said:

No buffs to sword weaver? No faith in these devs.  Rapidly losing interest. 

Amen, i just give up. Every ele and their grandmother were giving feedback to anet for months now. And they buffed the most powerfull ele weapon that didnt needed a buff (scepter). And sword still sits in the dumpster with its dps. 

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Was expecting sword weaver to get more damage (especially on water attunement auto) and the changes to water trident and shatterstone suggests that mainhand scepter will only be a spike damage weapon with zero utility outside of personal barrier and heal. Dragon's tooth tether will depend on line of sight interaction: currently if for some reason you run scepter in WVW then you can drop dragon's tooth on a wall. It probably is to make fresh air scepter spike come back in PVP instead.

Catalyst getting aegis on spectacular sphere is meant to make it more attractive for quickness variants but when is the last time you saw a quickness catalyst in a non-speedclear group? The catalyst change to finally pulse damage instead of using projectiles is a huge change that has been requested since the first iteration however.

I am happy with rock barrier change though, that one cannot be understated. 

Edited by Infusion.7149
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10 minutes ago, thetwothousand.5049 said:

Again, how weaver got no attention at all in pve is a complete mystery to me. At best sword weaver is benching 36k, in real play most players will achieve half that at best between personal skill and the handicaps of the spec. Sword specifically should be receiving significant DPS buffs, between a 5-7K boost, so that it accurately reflects what Anet claims their philosophy is. High ceiling skills providing a high reward for being well played and weaver simply does not provide that at all. I'd also like to see Elemental Refreshment provide its barrier on attunement swap as well as barrier skills. Thematically fits very well and would provide a decent, but not overtly powerful effect to help players to new the spec survive and more experiences player additional windows to flex there skills. 

U dont get it. They dont want to make any single build to be op! Thats why they buffed the most broken op dmg build (untamed). 

#EleStopBeingSoMetaDefining

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9 minutes ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

i think you kinda missed that the biggest heal in PvE tempest is completely removed. Scepter is dead now for heal alac tempest. so new meta is gonna be dagger/warhorn. No longer a short cd ranged aoe heal and a big dps loss due to missing scepter on fire.

 

 

Your right, I absolutely over looked this in my initial post.

 

I will say that I dont hate that the aoe heal is going away from scepter, if there was a healing buff coming to dagger. Frankly you bring scepter of heal tempest literally only for the trident which is not really healthy game play imo. But with the option going away there should be compensation dagger 2, providing more heals and a larger range.

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23 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Catalyst getting aegis on spectacular sphere is meant to make it more attractive for quickness variants but when is the last time you saw a quickness catalyst in a non-speedclear group? The catalyst change to finally pulse damage instead of using projectiles is a huge change that has been requested since the first iteration however.
 

This needs to be talked about more too. I like that they are adding stability and aegis to classes outside of guardian, but its always so limiting. They seem to always add the boons to off-cooldown skills, or highly-niche skills/traits that players cant afford to take over what they'd be giving up. The point of there boons are to have them be reactive to the things happening in a fight, and as is you'll never be able to use these aegis purposefully. its value will be always be inadvertent.

 

Thinking about the changes to Hammer 3, another 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Admittedly this is better for the weapon, but the change will nuke your already painful energy generation making 4 orb drops impossible. This is basically offsets the DPS increases that the traits are getting, which with the aura change still aren't a buff anyways. I really dont see anyway that these changes are anything but a big nerf to Catalysts numbers while making the already irritating jank that much worse.

Edited by thetwothousand.5049
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32 minutes ago, thetwothousand.5049 said:

I'll start by saying this patch is at best disappointing, realistically its a joke. Out of all the things that Ele needs help with and they devoted all their time to reworking scepter of all things???

 

As someone that exclusively plays FA ele, they actually made really good changes to scepter that will address some of the weak points of FA atm. This is a step in the right direction imo. Id rather they made small changes to outdated skills than make big changes ruining the flavor of the spec. 

 

Fresh Air is one of, if not the most fun spec to play in the game imo and I'm pretty happy having buffs to Dragon's Tooth and Water/Earth. Cleave on air is awesome too tbh.

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Tempest main here, I expected nothing and got nerfed again since I played the heal alac build since I felt the least useless with it in instanced content. They wasted all their effort on the scepter, but are the changes any good, in my opinion except the air changes not, I dont understand them dragontooth is now just a bit kitten in an other way should have just let it hit quicker, i dont understand the poenix or all the water changes. Then they ignored all the tempest problems that are described beautifully inhere and did nothing at all.

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9 minutes ago, Onoxsys.7615 said:

As someone that exclusively plays FA ele, they actually made really good changes to scepter that will address some of the weak points of FA atm. This is a step in the right direction imo. Id rather they made small changes to outdated skills than make big changes ruining the flavor of the spec. 

 

Fresh Air is one of, if not the most fun spec to play in the game imo and I'm pretty happy having buffs to Dragon's Tooth and Water/Earth. Cleave on air is awesome too tbh.

 And what would these be? The main weak points of FA is dmg. FA was suppose to be the burst combo build. And nothing in this departament got fixed. The survivability with water 3 and earth 2 wouldnt make that much difference. 

And without all of that fluff, scepter changes are just some long overdue QoL changes, nothing major. 

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55 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Amen, i just give up. Every ele and their grandmother were giving feedback to anet for months now. And they buffed the most powerfull ele weapon that didnt needed a buff (scepter). And sword still sits in the dumpster with its dps. 

Yep, giving up on sword weaver. In the livestream they said they were listening, but it doesn't look like they are listening. I'm a new player and seeing that stream gave me some hope that maybe this is an mmo with responsive development where the devs will listen to the pain points of players and steer development in line with the philosophy they lay out. Sadly does not seem to be the case.

Maybe Ashes of Creation someday will be the game I've been waiting for, but as demonstrated here, it is not GW2.

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Did they just kill my scepter heal alac tempest with one change? Wow...I seriously hope they don't change trident. 

Might have to make more noise like scrappers did... also catalyst? Was it a buff or a nerf? Sounds like they are trying to say it's a buff while nerfing it😅 energy gain will be even slower, please change/remove energy seriously...the aura changes are pretty disheartening too 😔

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7 minutes ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Might have to make more noise like scrappers did... also catalyst? Was it a buff or a nerf? Sounds like they are trying to say it's a buff while nerfing it😅 energy gain will be even slower, please change/remove energy seriously...the aura changes are pretty disheartening too 😔

Its been half a year now since the release of EOD and hammer 3 spheres still randomly doublecasts which ruins the rotation and air 4 still shoots you up into the textures of walls etc. Do you really think there is a future for any ele spec? 

Edited by soulknight.9620
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6 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Its been half a year now since the release of EOD and hammer 3 spheres still randomly doublecasts which ruins the rotation and air 4 still shoots you up into the textures of walls etc. Do you really think there is a future for any ele spec? 

If I was ever gonna give up on ele I would have done so long ago, so I'm stuck with it for better or worse. I'm gonna keep pushing for good changes and criticising bad ones.

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Really excited for the Catalyst and Scepter changes.

I think overall, this patch may help fix some of Ele's weakness in my favorite game mode (mid-large scale WvW fights). Staff's damage is backloaded and this now gives Ele a spike damage build for coordinated situations. I'm slightly nervous because attunement swaps can make this pretty wild, but hopeful to see how it pans out.

In PvE situations, I usually just play Catalyst or Tempest. I think the damage amp on Catalyst is going to be pretty nice, but we will probably have to reduce the number of sphere's used in the overall rotation.

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33 minutes ago, Brasides.9360 said:

Yep, giving up on sword weaver. In the livestream they said they were listening, but it doesn't look like they are listening. I'm a new player and seeing that stream gave me some hope that maybe this is an mmo with responsive development where the devs will listen to the pain points of players and steer development in line with the philosophy they lay out. Sadly does not seem to be the case.

Maybe Ashes of Creation someday will be the game I've been waiting for, but as demonstrated here, it is not GW2.

This response is honestly the most depressing I've seen all day, because its simply not true for every other class. Mesmer, ranger, warrior, and engineer are just a few examples of classes that in the last THREE MONTHS have had major changes/nerfs either proposed or go live. In each and every case Anet has listened and adjusted course and as a result all of those classes are better off for it, mechanically and numerically RIGHT NOW.

For some reason elementalist simply does not get that same attention and consideration from the devs. I honestly do not want this thread to simply be a complaint/flamebait thread. We know that they are listening and it is my sincere hope that this thread, and others, is noticed by the balance team so that they address our concerns in the same ways they have the above examples. The problems that our class has are manageable, but we really need CMC and Roy to address them directly so we know that we are being listened to too.

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8 minutes ago, thetwothousand.5049 said:

We know that they are listening and it is my sincere hope that this thread, and others, is noticed by the balance team so that they address our concerns in the same ways they have the above examples.

Sure they are. Havent you seen the majority of the topics on ele subforum with requests to buff and/or rework scepter and remove heal from scepter water 3? 

Edited by soulknight.9620
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6 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Sure they are. Havent you seen the majority of the topics on ele subforum with requests to buff and/or rework scepter and remove heal from scepter water 3? 

So you clearly ignored the rest of my post, to do the one thing I hoped we wouldnt do here, snipe at the devs. No one is saying that they are addressing Ele concerns its why I made this thread in the first place!

But they clearly do listen to player feedback and the proof is in how they have handled warrior, ranger, engie and others in just the last three months. The point is that we need that same level of consideration for our class too.

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4 minutes ago, thetwothousand.5049 said:

But they clearly do listen to player feedback and the proof is in how they have handled warrior, ranger, engie and others in just the last three months. The point is that we need that same level of consideration for our class too.

Thats the point. Ele dont get the same level of consideration as other classes. And that has been the case for years now. For some unknown reason devs prefer to ignore the concerns of ele players. It took them 3 months to fix a bug with evasive arcana. They still havent addressed the hammer 3 skill doublecasting if your autoattack triggers after the skill use. They still havent fixed the air 4 on hammer throwing you into textures. Arcane skills are barely usable. So are conjures. Woven stride is bugged since POF? Elementals still despawn on mount. Ele still lacks decent elite skills outside of some specific interactions. And thats just a fracture of concerns that were mentione countless times here in the official forum. 

Their balancing has been "random at best" for the past few years. And yes, people are not happy with it. There were plenty of feedback given in past 3 months since the august update. Did they make something out of it? Ah yes, they removed the -10% dmg reduction from cata (that was implemented in july patch, so thats 5 months of feedback). 

What do you propose? Keep throwing feedback into the bottomless pit? The sad part is they dont care. Literary. They contradict their own balancing phylosophy when it comes to ele.

Ok, lets test something. Lets all post that we want additional changes to sword weaver for november 29 balance patch. Lets say buff the damage a bit. 3-4k would do. Do you think they will listen and do some changes for the november 29 patch? Or will we have to wait another 3 months hoping that they may listen to us for once?

People are tired of hoping. People are tired of playing a class that constantly underperforms. People are tired of being forced to get better, perfect their rotations to a high level standart to get the same result as 111111 rifle mech. People are tired of hearing the same excuses over and over again: "In July patch we dont want to make sudden changes cause we remove unique skills and want to see how that impacts the whole balance", "In August update we dont want to make impactfull changes cause we are still developing the design phylosophy", "In november update we dont want to make some major changes cause we changed FB and we want to see how that impacts the balance in whole". 

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One of the best patches elementalists have ever gotten, bar none (it isn't saying much, but still).

FINALLY, Scepter is massively improved after waiting and waiting for more than TEN years.

 

And yet, YET(!), some of you still find ways to complain. As if the removal of some allied healing from friken' Water Trident(!) would break your scepter Tempest builds. I have no words.

 

I'm glad you're such a minority in these forums.

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7 minutes ago, Khenzy.9348 said:

One of the best patches elementalists have ever gotten, bar none (it isn't saying much, but still).

FINALLY, Scepter is massively improved after waiting and waiting for more than TEN years.

 

And yet, YET(!), some of you still find ways to complain. As if the removal of some allied healing from friken' Water Trident(!) would break your scepter Tempest builds. I have no words.

 

I'm glad you're such a minority in these forums.

There are other weapons besides scepter that they did jack kitten for and for a PvE patch this looks decidedly PvP focused.  I think some disappointment is warranted here.

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