Am I wasting my time to play ele? ranged scepter ele got nerf too hard.

[noneHotBuildTest.7251]

Elementalist is the most hardest class!

Look at elementalist, we have the big 3 tradeoff: no hp / no armor / weapon swapping.
Just to begin with we have gameplay dificulty, survivability, rotation maintance, team composition, utility and build variety. 

When I switch to engi, I can play my rotations with half the speed and usually live longer while doing it.

And for some reason elementalist is like meme tier and they were like nahh let go big on nerf.

Cata work on top 0.001% ppl and nerf to impossible to play and tempest/weaver not even meta got delete.

 

 

 

[zeyeti.8347]

Don't know if you talk about pve wvw or pvp . My subjectiv opinion on it in pve:

While i agree on hp and armor , the weapon swapping is intented and normal (like engi has) just imagine a weaver having 26 weapon skills x2 , thats way too much .

Weaver is coming back , you see more and more of it playing condi or power . While it is hard , usually the very good players are wrecking the dps bench on some encounters.

Catalyst is indeed very hard , but it is benching pretty high for a class who can give some boon uptime , some quality of life should help it (like not having to maintain 10 stacks of EE for a x2 bonus stats , or pulsing quickness from each speher 1 at at time)

For tempest i think you are completely right , tempest is garbage tier , 4/3 sec cast time boon/damage , cluncky boon giver , narrow aoe for boons , kitten damage , fragile to interruption , very punitive (without any benefit) , and on the top of it : it is also bugged as alacrity sharer. I havent seen any tempest since the patch who made alacrity pulse (except for some guildmates (1) who insist on it )

Playing tempest is not knowing it is garbage , or being a bit masochist on the edges.

Edited March 19, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Chyro.1462]

It's a game. You're wasting your time no matter what you do or what class you play.

If you enjoy it, play it. If you don't, don't. Simple

Edited March 19, 2023 by Chyro.1462

[the krytan assassin.9235]

Catalyst is still very powerful in pvp, roaming builds in WvW will always be relatively powerful due to antitoxin runes being absolutely broken. Zerg healtemp is probably BiS slot right now for cleanses & healing due to the healcoefficient on elemental bastion and transmute frost. 

 

For PvE there are numerous viable builds out there: 

HAT, power sw/d Weaver, power staff weaver, condi sc/f Weaver, hammer Pdps & quick cata. 

 

All weaver builds are relatively easy to play. You don't need to pay to much attention to maintaining your weavers prowess and elements of rage. Persisting flames can be abit more difficult to upkeep, but doesn't really matter for condi weaver. Missing out on a couple stacks on power now and then maybe result in a 3% dps loss max. Fresh air can be abit more difficult, but 95% of the people play btth anyways. Aftercast isn't really a big issue on sword and you dont have to pay much attention to skill cancellation. Even though the APM is relatively high, the APS is pretty consistent. Autoattack chains (& slow AA speed on staff) can be abit of an issue but thats it. A perfect weave self can add like 3% extra dps, but its absolutely not necessary. 

 

HAT has some alac uptime issues, but apart from that HAT is in a good spot atm. Good dps output, high boon application and a base 1khps output from soothing mists& regen. 

 

I agree that Pdps cata is in a rough spot, simply because of the orbs+energy+EE+aura stacks that you need to maintain, but there's an decent dps alternative for it (Weaver). Qcata can be abit tricky to play, but provides incredible boon uptime. Aslong as you're not tunnelvisioned into SC benchmarks (or you have to be a cata God) you should be able to be an incredible asset to your team. 

Edited March 19, 2023 by the krytan assassin.9235

[SleepyBat.9034]

This guy is a dedicated troll btw, take what he says with a barrel of salt.

[Kuma.1503]

20 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Don't know if you talk about pve wvw or pvp . My subjectiv opinion on it in pve:

While i agree on hp and armor , the weapon swapping is intented and normal (like engi has) just imagine a weaver having 26 weapon skills x2 , thats way too much .

Weaver is coming back , you see more and more of it playing condi or power . While it is hard , usually the very good players are wrecking the dps bench on some encounters.

Catalyst is indeed very hard , but it is benching pretty high for a class who can give some boon uptime , some quality of life should help it (like not having to maintain 10 stacks of EE for a x2 bonus stats , or pulsing quickness from each speher 1 at at time)

For tempest i think you are completely right , tempest is garbage tier , 4/3 sec cast time boon/damage , cluncky boon giver , narrow aoe for boons , kitten damage , fragile to interruption , very punitive (without any benefit) , and on the top of it : it is also bugged as alacrity sharer. I havent seen any tempest since the patch who made alacrity pulse (except for some guildmates (1) who insist on it )

Playing tempest is not knowing it is garbage , or being a bit masochist on the edges.

It pulsed for me when I played it in raids last night. After a few overloads I'm usually overcapped on alac by 15+ seconds. Could it be one of those bugs like the Mechanist toobelt bug that only affects some people and not others? 

I strongly suggest giving staff HAT a try. A major issue I've had with it is being interrupted mid overload, but staff fixes that issue somewhat thanks to transmute earth. Between that, overload earth, and eye of the storm I've usually got Stability when I need it, so I've been feeling the pain of being interrupted less. 

My build also runs full Celestial so I haven't had issues with frailty. if you don't want to tank, I suggest a mix of Harrier and Magi for a bit of extra bulk. Also grab yourself a Jade Tier 10 core if you haven't already. That ought to keep you alive.  

Damage is indeed low depending on the build you run, but at least It's not heal scrapper bad.

Tempest is still pretty high-maintenance to play, but it's absolutely not garbage tier. It's a solid healer/boon provider... provided your alacrity isn't bugged. 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[zeyeti.8347]

5 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

It pulsed for me when I played it in raids last night. After a few overloads I'm usually overcapped on alac by 15+ seconds. Could it be one of those bugs like the Mechanist toobelt bug that only affects some people and not others? 

I strongly suggest giving staff HAT a try. A major issue I've had with it is being interrupted mid overload, but staff fixes that issue somewhat thanks to transmute earth. Between that, overload earth, and eye of the storm I've usually got Stability when I need it, so I've been feeling the pain of being interrupted less. 

My build also runs full Celestial so I haven't had issues with frailty. if you don't want to tank, I suggest a mix of Harrier and Magi for a bit of extra bulk. Also grab yourself a Jade Tier 10 core if you haven't already. That ought to keep you alive.  

Damage is indeed low depending on the build you run, but at least It's not heal scrapper bad.

Tempest is still pretty high-maintenance to play, but it's absolutely not garbage tier. It's a solid healer/boon provider... provided your alacrity isn't bugged. 

 

 

It is bugged , try it on the golem with quickness , your overload earth and water do not provide a total of 14 sec alac with full boon duration , they provide both 12 sec , missing a pulse of alac , i tested it , i finish with 11 sec of alac after overloading fire and air , and 9 secs when overloading water and earth . 

And i am not making this up ...

In 15 secs you are overcapped ? nice i am overcapped in 2 secs with my hfb with quick , about 3 secs with my druid , and maybe 5 secs with my healmech , then i can go afk cause my mace AA give barrier , and my mech pulse a barrier each 3secs , maintaining alacrity 100% of the time with the Apm of a dead oyster.

We had this discussion many times , i do all endgame content as all roles , if you like your Hat this way , good for you , but for me it is garbage tier and bugged .

Staff ? nice for healing , how do you maintain might ? do everyone in your group is able to stack in  a 7 sec 180 aoe without moving out at any moment might is required ? you must be playing with qherald all the time . One of the many problem of Hat , choose staff for good healing , or choose dagger (crap) with warhorn for good boons , while all the others have both at same time , i wonder why the % of ppl playing Hat is so low , it started going up after the "pulse" update , and now no one plays it , it is arguibly below all other meta healer , even snowcrow putted it out of the "meta" class ...

Anyway you look at Hat  there is better , safer , stronger options than him , and i am not even talking about dps tempest who is a meme class , no damage boost from tempest trait if you want to alac , just look at those traits ... , all the good ones are in the Gm last line , all tier lower are garbage ... win an aura on overloads ... give prot when heal is used , give vigor when you go into water ... shouts give might and weakness , you have stab when you overload , your aura gives regen and vigor ... where is the damage ? where are the healings ? ah yes in gm , just near the alacrity provider ... too bad ... tempest design would have been good if all others healers had to make the same choices or trade off than him , i largely prefered my hat healing 10 ppl , playing with bastion of elements , at least he had one solid purpose to be the sole healer in 10 peep contents ...

Edited March 20, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Kuma.1503]

7 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

It is bugged , try it on the golem with quickness , your overload earth and water do not provide a total of 14 sec alac with full boon duration , they provide both 12 sec , missing a pulse of alac , i tested it , i finish with 11 sec of alac after overloading fire and air , and 9 secs when overloading water and earth . 

And i am not making this up ...

In 15 secs you are overcapped ? nice i am overcapped in 2 secs with my hfb with quick , about 3 secs with my druid , and maybe 5 secs with my healmech , then i can go afk cause my mace AA give barrier , and my mech pulse a barrier each 3secs , maintaining alacrity 100% of the time with the Apm of a dead oyster.

I have time to test it myself now. I was under the impression wasn't pulsing at all based on how you worded it. 

I decided to test with lightning hammer quickness because sometimes the console boons cause your other boons to reset. Can confirm, you lose a pulse of alac if you overload with quickness. Hope that's fixed soon. 

7 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

We had this discussion many times , i do all endgame content as all roles , if you like your Hat this way , good for you , but for me it is garbage tier and bugged .

It has room for improvement, but I won't call it garbage. Bugs aside (pls fix) it's perfectly serviceable. Garbage tier is a tier I reserve for nerfed quickness Warrior, and Alac Willbender. 

7 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Staff ? nice for healing , how do you maintain might ? do everyone in your group is able to stack in  a 7 sec 180 aoe without moving out at any moment might is required ? you must be playing with qherald all the time . One of the many problem of Hat , choose staff for good healing , or choose dagger (crap) with warhorn for good boons , while all the others have both at same time , i wonder why the % of ppl playing Hat is so low , it started going up after the "pulse" update , and now no one plays it , it is arguibly below all other meta healer ,

Nope, I play with a quickbrand.

This is an issue I've also brought up in the past. Overload fire's radius. It should get bumped up, and the boons should be increased further to 600 radius. 

As for actually generating the might. I share a bit upon entering fire attunement then blast fields twice during my usual rotation.

Boon radius is an issue, but on the positive side, we are capable of hitting 25 stacks of might on our own. In content where people are spread out, I will run Feel the burn to help with uptime.

For context, HAM averages around ~14might if memory serves... albiet with a more forgiving radius. 

7 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

even snowcrow putted it out of the "meta" class ...

Snowcrows values different things than the average player. They're a speedrun guild. They care less about what will make clears more consistent and more about raw output. They're a group of top tier players, everyone playing well is basically a given. 

This is why Power Alacrity Mechanist with their phenomenal alac uptime and ease of use was also cut from snowcrows. They don't have enough raw output after their DPS nerfs. 

DPS power mech is also cut despite many still considering it a top tier build in the hands of a new/inexperienced player. 

7 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Anyway you look at Hat  there is better , safer , stronger options than him , and i am not even talking about dps tempest who is a meme class , no damage boost from tempest trait if you want to alac , just look at those traits ... , all the good ones are in the Gm last line , all tier lower are garbage ... win an aura on overloads ... give prot when heal is used , give vigor when you go into water ... shouts give might and weakness , you have stab when you overload , your aura gives regen and vigor ... where is the damage ? where are the healings ? ah yes in gm , just near the alacrity provider ... too bad ... tempest design would have been good if all others healers had to make the same choices or trade off than him , i largely prefered my hat healing 10 ppl , playing with bastion of elements , at least he had one solid purpose to be the sole healer in 10 peep contents ...

Just because better options exist doesn't mean a build is garbage. (See: power mech) You don't need to run the best in slot class in every encounter to clear it, even in CMs. (Which ironically, I prefer HAT over HAM in because of the superior healing output, superior range, and extra rez power. I can carry mistakes better). 

Alac Willbender is where I draw the line for garbage. Tempest is at the very least a solid B tier class... ... Bugs aside. (Again pls fix Anet). 

All that said I do agree with you on the areas that need improvement. I believe you can like something and be objective about it while still pointing out its flaws. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[zeyeti.8347]

23 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

For context, HAM averages around ~14might if memory serves... albiet with a more forgiving radius. 

 Mech Arms: High-Impact Drivers + Mech Core: Barrier Engine is a 25 might stack easy .

I agree with all you state except for the alac generator , fire overload and earth should pulse boons on at least 360 and you should be able to pulse some fury without taking air traitline .

Alacrity is what make this class garbage , i largely prefer giving all my key boons safely than to rely on 3 sec casting spell.

There is room for improvement indeed , i would mostly say a whole house to improve

[TheQuickFox.3826]

You may enjoy the game more if you care less about the meta a.k.a. the Flavor of the Month.

 

I've been playing Celestial Tempest when it was underpowered, I've been playing Celestial Tempest when it was overpowered and I'm still playing it today.

 

If you play meta builds then the nerfs will always tend to hit you as you keep selecting builds that are overpowered. I've very much enjoyed the following buffs I got because what I ran was not meta:

• +10% health for Divinity runes
• Addition of expertise and concentration to Celestial stats
• Offhand dagger buffs
• Mainhand scepter buffs
• Summoned elemental skill buffs

• Ether Renewal buffs

• Jade bot core health addition (Elementalist has the lowest health of every profession so it needed this extra health the most)

 

Ofc, my build has been hit by nerfs as well, but overall everything had far more buffs than nerfs.

[Obtena.7952]

On 3/19/2023 at 2:56 AM, noneHotBuildTest.7251 said:

Elementalist is the most hardest class!

Yes, it is hard ... some people want that hard class option to play, so Anet provides it.

Maybe you should stick to your engi if you aren't one of those people that like choosing the harder classes. 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[TheQuickFox.3826]

10 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Yes, it is hard ... some people want that hard class option to play, so Anet provides it.

Maybe you should stick to your engi if you aren't one of those people that like choosing the harder classes. 

 

Not all Elementalist builds are hard. If you want to play raids and do DPS, this is a very simple build that does not break your brain remembering a rotation.

Just stay in fire and spam all your skills as soon they come available:

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

5 hours ago, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

 

Not all Elementalist builds are hard. If you want to play raids and do DPS, this is a very simple build that does not break your brain remembering a rotation.

Just stay in fire and spam all your skills as soon they come available:

 

I second this.  I myself play power sword weaver with one hand.  Looking at a a skill list it all looks complicated, but in practice the method is pretty simple.

For power sword, it is skill 3, then DPS skills left to right.  Just alternate between double attuning to fire and air.  For fresh air builds, go into water from fire before double attuning to air.  That's basically it.  For condi scepter weaver it is similar, except it alternates between fire and earth and doesn't fully attune to earth.  The only hard part is the weave self portion, but if that gets messed up it means losing out on a 10% strike 20% condition damage bonus for 10 seconds.  Weaver spends a relatively large amount of time just auto attacking.

Hammer catalyst is more frenetic in its button presses, but again it is simple in concept.  It just goes in reverse:  It's skill 3, f5, and then DPS skills from right to left.  Yes, going from weaver to catalyst will have me pressing the buttons in the wrong direction for awhile.  

[soulknight.9620]

When people are talking about complexity of ele they usually talk about peak performance. And to get that sweet 90-100% of the potential of ele you gotta work hard, harder than any other class out there. But that doesnt mean that ele doesnt have a LI build or rotation that can be played by almost any person. 

Other thing that you should take into consideration is that ele is squishy as hell. When you compare dps ele with lets say virtuoso you will notice that later has far more defensive mechanics including 2 invulns built in his dps kit without any tradeoffs. And if you want to make ur ele less squishy get ready to loose a lot of ur dps.
 

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

Not all Elementalist builds are hard. If you want to play raids and do DPS, this is a very simple build that does not break your brain remembering a rotation.

Usually very few on the elementalist subforum are willing to recognize that bringing elementalist to a competitive level of dps isn't necessarily difficult. You'd be surprised to see that there is even a minority that completely reject the idea of camping an attunment for dps. The majority on this subforum usually only want to hear that the rotations are fingerbreaking while the profession is the glassiest of all and that they should be handsomely rewarded for that.

[Sifu.9745]

Condi or hybrid Tempest is not hard at all, it's very simple. Just take Celestial gear or Trailblazer, if you want even more simple rotation. Scepter is great, Daggers are even better, with staff being all around weapon, for all occasions. Sword Weaver rotation is harder but not that hard, it's super fun though. Can't comment on Catalyst, it indeed seems very complicated.

 

About survivability: don't play with Berserker or Viper's gear, that's it. With Celestial or Trailblazer gear Tempest and Weaver's survivability is awesome. I have hardest times staying alive as Reaper and as any of my Warrior specs, despite high HP.

[JPUlisses.8756]

I can understand weaver but not tempest/cata

Maybe buff weaver.

[Obtena.7952]

On 4/19/2023 at 7:00 PM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

 

Not all Elementalist builds are hard. If you want to play raids and do DPS, this is a very simple build that does not break your brain remembering a rotation.

Just stay in fire and spam all your skills as soon they come available:

 

That is true also ... therefore we can conclude this thread has little value, similar to other threads the OP has created about how power mech ruins the game. 

But hey ... the OP believes ele is the hardest class because of what he can do on other classes. I highly doubt he's coming here for advice for an ele build that's easy to play wouldn't you think?

Edited April 21, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[zeyeti.8347]

On 4/20/2023 at 1:00 AM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

 

Not all Elementalist builds are hard. If you want to play raids and do DPS, this is a very simple build that does not break your brain remembering a rotation.

Just stay in fire and spam all your skills as soon they come available:

 

Good maybe i can give this one a try , but i really don't like the use of lesser elementals , you have to wait like 90 secs to get the full use of them , do they really contribute that much to the damage or can i replace it with anything else ? like play earth traitline instead and use signet of fire 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

10 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Good maybe i can give this one a try , but i really don't like the use of lesser elementals , you have to wait like 90 secs to get the full use of them , do they really contribute that much to the damage or can i replace it with anything else ? like play earth traitline instead and use signet of fire 

For that build the elementals are necessary.  The skill Arcane Power combines with Elemental Surge to make you and everyone around you inflict burning on the next few attacks.  Think of it like a Burning Venom skill.  Because of this, to get the most out of this skill you'll need to be surrounded by allies.  The easiest way to ensure that is to create your own allies.  So yes, the Arcane trait line and the lesser elementals are a pretty significant portion of your damage here.  

[zeyeti.8347]

5 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

For that build the elementals are necessary.  The skill Arcane Power combines with Elemental Surge to make you and everyone around you inflict burning on the next few attacks.  Think of it like a Burning Venom skill.  Because of this, to get the most out of this skill you'll need to be surrounded by allies.  The easiest way to ensure that is to create your own allies.  So yes, the Arcane trait line and the lesser elementals are a pretty significant portion of your damage here.  

Ty you for the tip , i didn't know arcane power combined with elemental surge  worked a bit like firebrand ashes of the just  , but as i said the elite elemental is ok , but the lesser one need like 1-2 minutes to have the 3-4 elementals up , having like 3 ammo on this glyph should make it worth it . But ill definitly use that one build , tyvm.