Does Arena Net have a bias againast Ele?

[TomUjain.8206]

Over the last year or so, Ele has constantly been in the meta. As an Engineer (scrapper) main, and feeling somewhat let down by the state of scrapper - I decided to give Ele a go and, yikes - the difference between Ele and scrapper is night and day they can just do everything I can do but better! I mean they even have a revive which is instant with 4 different versions of it (granted on a bigger cooldown than my Gyro.

 

I mean, come on 2 of the 3 meta builds now are ele! I just feel like ArenaNet have a soft spot for this class considering the treatment and state other classes are in at the moment.

 

Your thoughts on this?

Edited February 19, 2023 by TomUjain.8206

[Khalisto.5780]

Well

 

Ele has just been nerfed to oblivion once again, I think FA weaver is and tempest are the only 2 builds left for ele

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Ele has been poor for quite a long time but last few years it has seen quite some buffs to address these issues. Including buffs to offhand dagger, scepter, alac tempest, and catalyst general.

Last PvP season Catalyst was one of the best performing specs out there.

Recently, the relatively weak staff skills got some nice buffs.

 

Only core Elementalist remains a bit weak, but maybe that is on purpose to sell expansions.

[shion.2084]

Uh weaver is definitely still a thing.  Go play please remove this class then tell me there’s something not two ele classes that can be played.

You get that ele is the top tier class in the meta right?  And now there are going to be some legit annoying group tank builds coming from tempest

 

so no, there is definitely not a current bias against ele. Hey bless you consider them trying to make something other than 5 cata winning MAT a bias against???

 

also things like this people are having fun with.

 

[Fenom.9457]

Is this some kinda joke? The title mentions a bias AGAINST ele, and then the post is all about how great it is for you.

 

but to answer the title question, as an ele main of 8 years, lately it’s been getting to me and yes it does feel like it.  They crush catalyst builds that come out OP only for top level experts and yet they leave Mech as… I mean, look at it! They explicitly said they WANTED a high power easy to play option for people, they literally build a spec to be faceroll easy.  But when ele hits the same numbers it gets slammed down into the ground again.  Poor kid keeps standing up, us ele players should just stay down

[shion.2084]

1 hour ago, Fenom.9457 said:

Is this some kinda joke? The title mentions a bias AGAINST ele, and then the post is all about how great it is for you.

 

but to answer the title question, as an ele main of 8 years, lately it’s been getting to me and yes it does feel like it.  They crush catalyst builds that come out OP only for top level experts and yet they leave Mech as… I mean, look at it! They explicitly said they WANTED a high power easy to play option for people, they literally build a spec to be faceroll easy.  But when ele hits the same numbers it gets slammed down into the ground again.  Poor kid keeps standing up, us ele players should just stay down

Wait are you saying you believe that ele got nerfed to worse than mechanist in pvp and now does not gets “the same numbers”?

That is … yeah just wow

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by shion.2084

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

1 hour ago, Fenom.9457 said:

Is this some kinda joke? The title mentions a bias AGAINST ele, and then the post is all about how great it is for you.

 

but to answer the title question, as an ele main of 8 years, lately it’s been getting to me and yes it does feel like it.  They crush catalyst builds that come out OP only for top level experts and yet they leave Mech as… I mean, look at it! They explicitly said they WANTED a high power easy to play option for people, they literally build a spec to be faceroll easy.  But when ele hits the same numbers it gets slammed down into the ground again.  Poor kid keeps standing up, us ele players should just stay down

Dude Mech has been virtually bottom tier bad for a long time now. In no way is Mechanist anywhere even near the efficiency levels of Cata even after nerfs, and definitely not Tempest Support which is still obnoxiously overtuned in every way and rightfully deserves nerfs.

[TomUjain.8206]

I don't want to bash ele, just wanted some prospective here, is ele overperforming? I only play (mainly) engineer and have very little experience with other classes.

 

I am only going by the fact that a lot of the top tier players all use ele, and how most of the meta builds are ele. as a scrapper going against ele tempest it is almost impossible to take them down - they make the ultimate bunker / tank and on node battles they are by far my worst nightmare to face as scrapper.

I also heard that one of the devs plays an ele main, which is why I was wondering if (possibly) that is leading to some form of favortisum. I am not calling for nerfs as I said just looking for a bit of prospective.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by TomUjain.8206

[Downstate.4697]

There is a lot to unpack for ele. Historically it’s either been very strong or very weak.

CMC is not biased imo. He knows more about ele than previous leads and is more confident with making changes to them. I think the scepter buffs was an oversight on their part though. 

[Khalisto.5780]

21 minutes ago, TomUjain.8206 said:

I don't want to bash ele, just wanted some prospective here, is ele overperforming? I only play (mainly) engineer and have very little experience with other classes.

 

I am only going by the fact that a lot of the top tier players all use ele, and how most of the meta builds are ele. as a scrapper going against ele tempest it is almost impossible to take them down - they make the ultimate bunker / tank and on node battles they are by far my worst nightmare to face as scrapper.

I also heard that one of the devs plays an ele main, which is why I was wondering if (possibly) that is leading to some form of favortisum. I am not calling for nerfs as I said just looking for a bit of prospective.

 

 

Earth tempest is basically unkillable by most power builds, cuz stone heart, it's not a scrapper issue.

[Kodama.6453]

2 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

There is a lot to unpack for ele. Historically it’s either been very strong or very weak.

CMC is not biased imo. He knows more about ele than previous leads and is more confident with making changes to them. I think the scepter buffs was an oversight on their part though. 

I think CMC is slightly biased for ele....

That elementalist got 2 of it's weapons (staff and scepter) changed this much, while requiring way more workload than the weapons of any other class, speaks for itself, imo.

Other classes can be glad if they got 1 of their weapons updated, but many of them didn't get anything. And it's not like other classes don't have weapons in dire need of updates.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[Hotride.2187]

Cant you play holo? Not broken like cata but not bad either. Complaining that the one spec you play is not performing well seems like cherry-picking to me. I can complaing about fb support being garbage in conquest too... or I can go in wvw where every zerg needs 10 of. Its not much different for scrapper.

[Fenom.9457]

On 2/19/2023 at 10:25 AM, shion.2084 said:

Wait are you saying you believe that ele got nerfed to worse than mechanist in pvp and now does not gets “the same numbers”?

That is … yeah just wow

 

I’m not saying anything about *right now*, I don’t know what they’ve done with the most recent balance 

[Fenom.9457]

On 2/19/2023 at 11:31 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Dude Mech has been virtually bottom tier bad for a long time now. In no way is Mechanist anywhere even near the efficiency levels of Cata even after nerfs, and definitely not Tempest Support which is still obnoxiously overtuned in every way and rightfully deserves nerfs.

wait fr? It was the most busted OP thing ever for many months after EOD and anet basically said yeah we want it to be easy for casuals.  I never read about any nerfs and when I play it, I still face roll for everything easily …

[Grimjack.8130]

On 2/19/2023 at 4:37 PM, Kodama.6453 said:

I think CMC is slightly biased for ele....

That elementalist got 2 of it's weapons (staff and scepter) changed this much, while requiring way more workload than the weapons of any other class, speaks for itself, imo.

Other classes can be glad if they got 1 of their weapons updated, but many of them didn't get anything. And it's not like other classes don't have weapons in dire need of updates.

eles weapons ARE its profession mechanic, if even 1 attunement is dramatically underpowered, the weapon starts getting massive holes torn in its viability. you can see this still with staff in pvp, everything about it is pretty solid now, except the fire attunement and thats gonna keep it from being a real top tier pick.(and this is only for support tempest, its still completely unviable as any dps variant) another example here is sword on weaver, pretty solid in the past but nowadays 18s evade cds dont cut it and it still has a massive overreliance on Primordial Stance to do damage(seriously try to play Sword without Pri Stance and tell me its not one of the worst kits in the game nowadays)

there are not many weapons left in the game that were as bad as staff, scepter, dagger mh, or even sword mh, and that list gets alot smaller when you dont mention weapons that may have been good in the past for large amounts of time, that fell off eventually. staff has always been bad, scepter was only good in core and thats a stretch to say the least, dagger mh is not a viable dps build 95% of the time on ele(and thats been its only option before weaver and cata), and sword has been outpowercreeped at many many points since PoF

when you factor all of this together, there is no chance you can call CMC "biased"

the weapons were and still are largely outdated, and for a class like elementalist, thats a big deal.

[Sahne.6950]

17 hours ago, Fenom.9457 said:

 I never read about any nerfs and when I play it, I still face roll for everything easily …

it got nerfed into the dust.

[Fenom.9457]

On 2/22/2023 at 4:19 AM, Sahne.6950 said:

it got nerfed into the dust.

Wow. Well… thanks anet. As a non-Mech main, it was fun for a while but I appreciate having anything else be a valid choice too 

[Leonidrex.5649]

On 2/19/2023 at 9:05 PM, FrownyClown.8402 said:

There is a lot to unpack for ele. Historically it’s either been very strong or very weak.

CMC is not biased imo. He knows more about ele than previous leads and is more confident with making changes to them. I think the scepter buffs was an oversight on their part though. 

if this is his balance on a class he " knows more about " im kittening scared what he will do to classes that he knows nothing about.
kitten me thinking about it makes me wish the wiki reading dev comes back lol.
but in all seriousness elementalist is a stat-check class, it is what it is.

[felincyriac.5981]

ele has been getting prime time 1 hour presentation shows with demo's for the past few balance patches, meanwhile we got some other classes that get like 2 slides max... No bias at all.

[Dreams.3128]

On 2/19/2023 at 3:05 PM, FrownyClown.8402 said:

There is a lot to unpack for ele. Historically it’s either been very strong or very weak.

I think this is a important part everyone needs to remember about ele. It's turned into what MOBAs would call a 'feast or famine' class. MOBAs it's obviously different because a character being in the 'feast or famine' category can get exploited pretty easily. Beat them down while they are in the 'famine' stage so they'll never reach their 'feasting' time. Same goes for their balance. They are either not played for a string of months at a time or they are banned for a string of months until the 'famine' nerfs set in.

Ele has this issue 1000% percent and I am confused as to why people are not talking about this more. This here should advocate for Ele to get reworked because either its not fun for the ele main when it's in 'famine' and it is not fun for the opponents when it is in its 'feasting' mode. There shouldn't be this sort of set up on ANY class really. 

[apharma.3741]

On 2/27/2023 at 1:37 AM, Leonidrex.5649 said:

if this is his balance on a class he " knows more about " im kittening scared what he will do to classes that he knows nothing about.
kitten me thinking about it makes me wish the wiki reading dev comes back lol.
but in all seriousness elementalist is a stat-check class, it is what it is.

Honestly, CMCs changes to ele were right on point, not enough but catalyst was toned down. I expect if they sboon earth shield and then do a little bit more tweaking it will still be in a better place and other classes will start shinning too.
I don't dread his changes any more than past balance devs who did very questionable things too. At least he had a vision and has passion for the game in the competitive scene which matters a lot.

[Downstate.4697]

22 minutes ago, Dreams.3128 said:

Ele has this issue 1000% percent and I am confused as to why people are not talking about this more. This here should advocate for Ele to get reworked because either its not fun for the ele main when it's in 'famine' and it is not fun for the opponents when it is in its 'feasting' mode. There shouldn't be this sort of set up on ANY class really. 

Ele has a lot of defensive options built into their weapons and elite specs that other professions don’t get in exchange for no weapon swap. If they have the damage to go along with it then it’s very strong. Any time it’s been bad is when it couldn’t do enough damage or didn’t have the defensive it needed. That coupled with boons makes them hard to balance appropriately. Catalyst is quite literally ele + in that regard with protection uptime similar to vanilla d/d ele. They also have a built in water field and a ton of ways to heal from it. They have the sustain to go full damage so are very strong

[Dreams.3128]

19 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Ele has a lot of defensive options built into their weapons and elite specs that other professions don’t get in exchange for no weapon swap. If they have the damage to go along with it then it’s very strong. Any time it’s been bad is when it couldn’t do enough damage or didn’t have the defensive it needed. That coupled with boons makes them hard to balance appropriately. Catalyst is quite literally ele + in that regard with protection uptime similar to vanilla d/d ele. They also have a built in water field and a ton of ways to heal from it. They have the sustain to go full damage so are very strong

That also explains why in times where scourge was popular or boon removal (first spb meta) was at its all time high, Ele simply flopped to the side. Weaver was there, but it still wasn't overpowering until scourge started to fall off.  Ele has, I think at least, has too much boon reliance which causes it to fall back into the state that I mentioned before. It falls to two extremes, when it needs a more healthy balance. 

I do at least appreciate Anet trying to keep some drawbacks for the class, but I think its time they get rid of weapon swapping, tone down their reliance on defensive boons, and then proceed to try to break it out of the 'feast and famine' cycle it is constantly stuck in. It's the only way I see Ele ever going to have a more healthy balance moving forward for both parties.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Ele plain & simply needs sustain nerfs.