Week 3 Profession stats

[Qori.9671]

it's too bad Eles cant pick their traits per attunement. seperate traites for each element. They are expected from a design approach to really be doing multiple roles all the time switching between each role as needed and locking the others out, But when your picking your traits you basically decide between bunker traits and damage traits or group utility traits , and like others have said only affect 1/4 of what you are doing. If they chose their traits per attunement you would see more things like , while in water support team , or more selfish personal heal. I feel it requires so much investment in your traits to only do 1 role even close to what other jobs can do as that role , and so the other 3/4 of your abilites really are trash and not worth using in most cases.

[Enigmoid.1264]

@Razor.6392 said:

@Enigmoid.1264 said:

@Razor.6392 said:How to buff ele though? That's the real question.

They certainly need no more damage in any scepter power build.

Sword build is slow, but it

can

do good damage. It's survivability is above average as well.

No one uses dagger anymore, what could you even give to it?

Staff... well, no amount of buffs will do anything as long as it remains in its current state.

What does ele need? more tankiness? more condi removal? more sticking to targets? In my opinion the only buffs ele needs right now is nerfing the overperforming specs. Maybe a couple QoL cooldown adjustments on stuff like Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash? Weaver could perhaps see higher barrier amounts and 0.5 seconds less in att. swap, but that's it.

Ele needs a complete rework but Anet will never do that. This rework would involve changing traits from being attunement focused to being focused on a area (i.e. instead of the fire traitline you would have the rage traitline that would buff power/condi damage across attunements, rather than buffing virtually solely fire attunement). Yeah ele gets a lot of skills but can only enhance two attunements + elite which greatly cuts effectiveness in PvP.

Barring that ele would benefit from removing some of the +% damage modifiers and putting the damage right on the weapon skills (for competitive damage ele has no defences as sustain is through healing power which requires stat investment and through water/earth skills whose attunements tend to have low damage compared to the dodges of daredevil or the blinks/ports/stealth of mesmer).

As far as realistic buffs... here are some ideas. Bear in mind that ele needs quite a lot of buffing to be competitive.

• Sword Autos 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 s, range increased to 180 instead of 130. Ele has no weapon swap and is range locked - this would greatly help them to stay on target and land damage.

• 1s cool down on double attune vs. the 4 s currently. Weaver is currently slower and less flexible on attuning than core ele.

• Double to triple all barrier that ele receives. <400 barrier on dual weapon skills is absolutely forgettable, like 1/4 of an auto attack

• Cleansing Fire and Lightening Flash cooldown reduced to 30s and break stun.

• Rework stances, everything except for primortial stance is pretty trash. Many stances don't feel like stances (i.e. give you an effect over a period of time).The above points would go a long way toward fixing the class.

• Move the class to medium healthpool (probably would fix most problems on its own with the class).

• Change some traits to be 'sustain while glassy' instead of solidly sustain to avoid issues with tank tempests, buff the traits.

All in all, ele was designed as jack-of-all. Unfortunately that means that it is not good at any one thing in particular so why take it. Furthermore, with elite specs, most other professions are at least as flexible as elementalist and can specialize better (i.e. guardian can fight, heal, tank just as well). The final nail in the coffin is raid balancing - ele's raison d'etre was big damage and the push for all the classes to deal similar damage in raids has invalidated its basic design principles. Why play a squishy ele and play the paino and require babysitting in raids when you can pick up another class and do just as well? Not to mention that the damage buffs that were added to classes because of raids have carried over to PvP. Furthermore the anti boon meta has cemented ele at the bottom as the class from inception was designed around boons.

Then that's not ele anymore. Just like nerfing should be slow and steady, same should happen with buffs. You want ele to be SSS tier?

I would add Twist of Fate to the list of stances that don't suck. Aquatic, Earthen,

Unravel

, and Weave Self all need some help. Unravel especially, being the elephant in the room. Lowering the same-attunement cd would make this stance completely redundant, but as it is, it simply cannot justify a utility slot. Not at all.

The changes I would make are the following:

• Invigorating Strikes (GM Weaver trait): Barrier increased to 1556 from 778 base (100% increase, same scaling)
• Woven Stride (GM Weaver trait): Now removes conditions on Swiftness or Superspeed application. No longer gives regeneration.
• Elemental Pursuit (Adept Weaver trait): ICD reduced to 5 from 10.
• Tailored Victory (Weave Self 2nd active): Can now be used while moving.
• Bolstered Elements (Master Weaver trait): Stability now lasts 5 seconds from 4.
• Lightning Flash: Stun breaks again, number of targets increased to 3 from 1.
• Cleansing Fire: Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 40.
• Evasive Arcana: Updated cleansing water to match the off hand version and remove 2 conditions, up from 1.
• Fire Grab (OH dagger fire #5): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Lightning Touch (dagger air #2): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Aquatic Stance: Now also heals around the elementalist.
• Unravel: Now grants 4 seconds of quickness on top of 4 seconds of the usual attunement specific boons (3 might, fury, protection, regen). Duration reduced to 4 seconds from 5.
• Glyph of Storms: Cooldown reduced to 50 from 60.

Yeah, my suggestions were a little OP, meant to say SOME of the following not ALL.

However, your suggestions in my opinion are simply band-aids that do not address the core problems of the class. Ele needs some more passive sustain, not more active sustain. In other words it needs to be able to function in melee and actually be able to tank some damage or at least apply enough pressure to put the opponent on the defensive.

Ele in PvP will have to invest in a ton (comparatively speaking) of vitality AND healing power for sustain. This is the core issue - the speccing for healing power and vitality, thus reducing damage. While maintaining hugely active healing-based defences during which you cannot pressure your opponent. The other issue is the huge amount of damage modifiers which are required for good damage requiring you to choose between damage and sustain. The damage needs to be put onto the weapon skills and the damage modifiers toned down and made actually interesting.

Your changes would help elementalist to a degreee but would not address several core issues, namely the fragility (weakness to oneshots), the healing power sustain made irrelevant due to powercreep, and the number of % damage modifiers.

[Xibalbar.7459]

First balance out other specs before you buff ele. At the moment its okay to play with.

[Chaith.8256]

@Xibalbar.7459 said:First balance out other specs before you buff ele. At the moment its okay to play with.

The only thing that's clearly first order optimal strategy in PvP is to pick Scourge/Firebrand and have them joined at the hip. Almost everything except for that has a semblance of drawbacks, or opportunity cost for running it.

Right now Weaver is too vulnerable to CC and power burst, once Twist of Fate is exhausted, one stun vs. multiple foes and an 100-0 is looming. If Weaver struggles to be useful against things that aren't likely to be heavily nerfed, it does need buffs.

From my point of view, the easiest Weaver fix is to sprinkle a little selfish stability, and sprinkle a little increased single target damage onto Sword. Obviously many mechanics aren't viable but that requires a deep dive to discuss possible fixes

[Xibalbar.7459]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Xibalbar.7459 said:First balance out other specs before you buff ele. At the moment its okay to play with.

The only thing that's clearly first order optimal strategy in PvP is to pick Scourge/Firebrand and have them joined at the hip. Almost everything except for that has a semblance of drawbacks, or opportunity cost for running it.

Right now Weaver is too vulnerable to CC and power burst, once Twist of Fate is exhausted, one stun vs. multiple foes and an 100-0 is looming. If Weaver struggles to be useful against things that aren't likely to be heavily nerfed, it does need buffs.

From my point of view, the easiest Weaver fix is to sprinkle a little selfish stability, and sprinkle a little increased single target damage onto Sword. Obviously many mechanics aren't viable but that requires a deep dive to discuss possible fixes

Well, if i compare it to other great doing pof specs i tend to say buff. But this circle will only end in losing other builds like from hot or some core`s. I totaly get your point, but at tests (50 matches) with weaver it felt not so bad, it is just clunky, struggles to close the gap propper and it is something between burst and constant damage on a node. The sustaine alone is strong enough, just because of riptide and blast. Condicleanse is great if you pick watertraitline, which is sadly mandatory. Overall its most balanced spec and feels average because of the far stronger mirage/scrouge/spellbreaker.

A nerf to necro will solve some problems. At end weaver needs not be the top of the melees, it just needs to fill a role out propper enough. Some buffs to dualskills on sword, maybe switch masters of fortitude from gaining vita to toughness and cleanse on woven stride everytime you apply swiftness and it could be something. At the moment everything is half of half.

At end there will be allways a meta, guess what, if i can play something to decent level and its worth it to play im fine. I like to play the game, not the system.

[Dreams.3128]

@Xibalbar.7459 said:First balance out other specs before you buff ele. At the moment its okay to play with.

@Razor.6392 said:

@Enigmoid.1264 said:

@Razor.6392 said:How to buff ele though? That's the real question.

They certainly need no more damage in any scepter power build.

Sword build is slow, but it

can

do good damage. It's survivability is above average as well.

No one uses dagger anymore, what could you even give to it?

Staff... well, no amount of buffs will do anything as long as it remains in its current state.

What does ele need? more tankiness? more condi removal? more sticking to targets? In my opinion the only buffs ele needs right now is nerfing the overperforming specs. Maybe a couple QoL cooldown adjustments on stuff like Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash? Weaver could perhaps see higher barrier amounts and 0.5 seconds less in att. swap, but that's it.

Ele needs a complete rework but Anet will never do that. This rework would involve changing traits from being attunement focused to being focused on a area (i.e. instead of the fire traitline you would have the rage traitline that would buff power/condi damage across attunements, rather than buffing virtually solely fire attunement). Yeah ele gets a lot of skills but can only enhance two attunements + elite which greatly cuts effectiveness in PvP.

Barring that ele would benefit from removing some of the +% damage modifiers and putting the damage right on the weapon skills (for competitive damage ele has no defences as sustain is through healing power which requires stat investment and through water/earth skills whose attunements tend to have low damage compared to the dodges of daredevil or the blinks/ports/stealth of mesmer).

As far as realistic buffs... here are some ideas. Bear in mind that ele needs quite a lot of buffing to be competitive.

• Sword Autos 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 s, range increased to 180 instead of 130. Ele has no weapon swap and is range locked - this would greatly help them to stay on target and land damage.

• 1s cool down on double attune vs. the 4 s currently. Weaver is currently slower and less flexible on attuning than core ele.

• Double to triple all barrier that ele receives. <400 barrier on dual weapon skills is absolutely forgettable, like 1/4 of an auto attack

• Cleansing Fire and Lightening Flash cooldown reduced to 30s and break stun.

• Rework stances, everything except for primortial stance is pretty trash. Many stances don't feel like stances (i.e. give you an effect over a period of time).The above points would go a long way toward fixing the class.

• Move the class to medium healthpool (probably would fix most problems on its own with the class).

• Change some traits to be 'sustain while glassy' instead of solidly sustain to avoid issues with tank tempests, buff the traits.

All in all, ele was designed as jack-of-all. Unfortunately that means that it is not good at any one thing in particular so why take it. Furthermore, with elite specs, most other professions are at least as flexible as elementalist and can specialize better (i.e. guardian can fight, heal, tank just as well). The final nail in the coffin is raid balancing - ele's raison d'etre was big damage and the push for all the classes to deal similar damage in raids has invalidated its basic design principles. Why play a squishy ele and play the paino and require babysitting in raids when you can pick up another class and do just as well? Not to mention that the damage buffs that were added to classes because of raids have carried over to PvP. Furthermore the anti boon meta has cemented ele at the bottom as the class from inception was designed around boons.

Then that's not ele anymore. Just like nerfing should be slow and steady, same should happen with buffs. You want ele to be SSS tier?

I would add Twist of Fate to the list of stances that don't suck. Aquatic, Earthen,

Unravel

, and Weave Self all need some help. Unravel especially, being the elephant in the room. Lowering the same-attunement cd would make this stance completely redundant, but as it is, it simply cannot justify a utility slot. Not at all.

The changes I would make are the following:

• Invigorating Strikes (GM Weaver trait): Barrier increased to 1556 from 778 base (100% increase, same scaling)
• Woven Stride (GM Weaver trait): Now removes conditions on Swiftness or Superspeed application. No longer gives regeneration.
• Elemental Pursuit (Adept Weaver trait): ICD reduced to 5 from 10.
• Tailored Victory (Weave Self 2nd active): Can now be used while moving.
• Bolstered Elements (Master Weaver trait): Stability now lasts 5 seconds from 4.
• Lightning Flash: Stun breaks again, number of targets increased to 3 from 1.
• Cleansing Fire: Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 40.
• Evasive Arcana: Updated cleansing water to match the off hand version and remove 2 conditions, up from 1.
• Fire Grab (OH dagger fire #5): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Lightning Touch (dagger air #2): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Aquatic Stance: Now also heals around the elementalist.
• Unravel: Now grants 4 seconds of quickness on top of 4 seconds of the usual attunement specific boons (3 might, fury, protection, regen). Duration reduced to 4 seconds from 5.
• Glyph of Storms: Cooldown reduced to 50 from 60.

And core ele is still better than Weaver even with those buffs. Just running Arcane, Water, Earth immediately makes them more survivable than Weaver can ever dream to be.

Except for Tempest and core, Weaver has to pick and choose what to give up. Survival or damage. Most of the stances are redundant or nigh useless. They keep buffing conjure weapons that no one takes except for greatsword and maybe lightning hammer (lightning hammer has pretty decent cc control). The spec in itself is redundant, that's the problem. It is trying to be a better core ele and it's not. The only thing that is probably Superior is sword, but without enough practice with dagger even that doesn't matter.

Weaver needs a whole rework skill wise because, to me, its not even a separate playstyle, it's just literally an offshoot of core.

Edit: Maybe we are facing the Berserker issue, where Weaver maybe is a Condi and does better as condi? Has anyone tried this in PVP

[Xibalbar.7459]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Xibalbar.7459 said:First balance out other specs before you buff ele. At the moment its okay to play with.

@Razor.6392 said:

@Enigmoid.1264 said:

@Razor.6392 said:How to buff ele though? That's the real question.

They certainly need no more damage in any scepter power build.

Sword build is slow, but it

can

do good damage. It's survivability is above average as well.

No one uses dagger anymore, what could you even give to it?

Staff... well, no amount of buffs will do anything as long as it remains in its current state.

What does ele need? more tankiness? more condi removal? more sticking to targets? In my opinion the only buffs ele needs right now is nerfing the overperforming specs. Maybe a couple QoL cooldown adjustments on stuff like Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash? Weaver could perhaps see higher barrier amounts and 0.5 seconds less in att. swap, but that's it.

Ele needs a complete rework but Anet will never do that. This rework would involve changing traits from being attunement focused to being focused on a area (i.e. instead of the fire traitline you would have the rage traitline that would buff power/condi damage across attunements, rather than buffing virtually solely fire attunement). Yeah ele gets a lot of skills but can only enhance two attunements + elite which greatly cuts effectiveness in PvP.

Barring that ele would benefit from removing some of the +% damage modifiers and putting the damage right on the weapon skills (for competitive damage ele has no defences as sustain is through healing power which requires stat investment and through water/earth skills whose attunements tend to have low damage compared to the dodges of daredevil or the blinks/ports/stealth of mesmer).

As far as realistic buffs... here are some ideas. Bear in mind that ele needs quite a lot of buffing to be competitive.

• Sword Autos 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 s, range increased to 180 instead of 130. Ele has no weapon swap and is range locked - this would greatly help them to stay on target and land damage.

• 1s cool down on double attune vs. the 4 s currently. Weaver is currently slower and less flexible on attuning than core ele.

• Double to triple all barrier that ele receives. <400 barrier on dual weapon skills is absolutely forgettable, like 1/4 of an auto attack

• Cleansing Fire and Lightening Flash cooldown reduced to 30s and break stun.

• Rework stances, everything except for primortial stance is pretty trash. Many stances don't feel like stances (i.e. give you an effect over a period of time).The above points would go a long way toward fixing the class.

• Move the class to medium healthpool (probably would fix most problems on its own with the class).

• Change some traits to be 'sustain while glassy' instead of solidly sustain to avoid issues with tank tempests, buff the traits.

All in all, ele was designed as jack-of-all. Unfortunately that means that it is not good at any one thing in particular so why take it. Furthermore, with elite specs, most other professions are at least as flexible as elementalist and can specialize better (i.e. guardian can fight, heal, tank just as well). The final nail in the coffin is raid balancing - ele's raison d'etre was big damage and the push for all the classes to deal similar damage in raids has invalidated its basic design principles. Why play a squishy ele and play the paino and require babysitting in raids when you can pick up another class and do just as well? Not to mention that the damage buffs that were added to classes because of raids have carried over to PvP. Furthermore the anti boon meta has cemented ele at the bottom as the class from inception was designed around boons.

Then that's not ele anymore. Just like nerfing should be slow and steady, same should happen with buffs. You want ele to be SSS tier?

I would add Twist of Fate to the list of stances that don't suck. Aquatic, Earthen,

Unravel

, and Weave Self all need some help. Unravel especially, being the elephant in the room. Lowering the same-attunement cd would make this stance completely redundant, but as it is, it simply cannot justify a utility slot. Not at all.

The changes I would make are the following:

• Invigorating Strikes (GM Weaver trait): Barrier increased to 1556 from 778 base (100% increase, same scaling)
• Woven Stride (GM Weaver trait): Now removes conditions on Swiftness or Superspeed application. No longer gives regeneration.
• Elemental Pursuit (Adept Weaver trait): ICD reduced to 5 from 10.
• Tailored Victory (Weave Self 2nd active): Can now be used while moving.
• Bolstered Elements (Master Weaver trait): Stability now lasts 5 seconds from 4.
• Lightning Flash: Stun breaks again, number of targets increased to 3 from 1.
• Cleansing Fire: Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 40.
• Evasive Arcana: Updated cleansing water to match the off hand version and remove 2 conditions, up from 1.
• Fire Grab (OH dagger fire #5): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Lightning Touch (dagger air #2): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Aquatic Stance: Now also heals around the elementalist.
• Unravel: Now grants 4 seconds of quickness on top of 4 seconds of the usual attunement specific boons (3 might, fury, protection, regen). Duration reduced to 4 seconds from 5.
• Glyph of Storms: Cooldown reduced to 50 from 60.

And core ele is still better than Weaver even with those buffs. Just running Arcane, Water, Earth immediately makes them more survivable than Weaver can ever dream to be.

Except for Tempest and core, Weaver has to pick and choose what to give up. Survival or damage. Most of the stances are redundant or nigh useless. They keep buffing conjure weapons that no one takes except for greatsword and maybe lightning hammer (lightning hammer has pretty decent cc control). The spec in itself is redundant, that's the problem. It is trying to be a better core ele and it's not. The only thing that is probably Superior is sword, but without enough practice with dagger even that doesn't matter.

Weaver needs a whole rework skill wise because, to me, its not even a separate playstyle, it's just literally an offshoot of core.

Edit: Maybe we are facing the Berserker issue, where Weaver maybe is a Condi and does better as condi? Has anyone tried this in PVP

Fresh air weaver is not so bad, the burst is insane, the nearly perma superspeed is great. Weaver fresh air is the more offensive variant, while the core version is more defensiv. Both of them are a great pick. The problem around the cojure weapons in my opinion is simply you need to stick to them whole time while you cant swap them like with engi`s kit. Its situational use, but it locks you just and makes it not usefull in all. I whould say if it whould be an ammu-system i whould maybe play with earth shield. But at end, its just all about situations so far.

Weaver is fun, but i agree with you, it added just an better version of dagger to ele and the playstyle is pretty the same.

[Winegum.2395]

Thanks for posting this!

Would it be a good idea to start a google sheet so people can contribute to the data using a standardized layout? plus you can use it to auto generate graphs, making it easier to visualize patterns and trends in the data

[Josa.5067]

I just find it really amazing how you manage to keep track of all of this.

[Razor.6392]

@Enigmoid.1264 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

@Enigmoid.1264 said:

@Razor.6392 said:How to buff ele though? That's the real question.

They certainly need no more damage in any scepter power build.

Sword build is slow, but it

can

do good damage. It's survivability is above average as well.

No one uses dagger anymore, what could you even give to it?

Staff... well, no amount of buffs will do anything as long as it remains in its current state.

What does ele need? more tankiness? more condi removal? more sticking to targets? In my opinion the only buffs ele needs right now is nerfing the overperforming specs. Maybe a couple QoL cooldown adjustments on stuff like Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash? Weaver could perhaps see higher barrier amounts and 0.5 seconds less in att. swap, but that's it.

Ele needs a complete rework but Anet will never do that. This rework would involve changing traits from being attunement focused to being focused on a area (i.e. instead of the fire traitline you would have the rage traitline that would buff power/condi damage across attunements, rather than buffing virtually solely fire attunement). Yeah ele gets a lot of skills but can only enhance two attunements + elite which greatly cuts effectiveness in PvP.

Barring that ele would benefit from removing some of the +% damage modifiers and putting the damage right on the weapon skills (for competitive damage ele has no defences as sustain is through healing power which requires stat investment and through water/earth skills whose attunements tend to have low damage compared to the dodges of daredevil or the blinks/ports/stealth of mesmer).

As far as realistic buffs... here are some ideas. Bear in mind that ele needs quite a lot of buffing to be competitive.

• Sword Autos 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 s, range increased to 180 instead of 130. Ele has no weapon swap and is range locked - this would greatly help them to stay on target and land damage.

• 1s cool down on double attune vs. the 4 s currently. Weaver is currently slower and less flexible on attuning than core ele.

• Double to triple all barrier that ele receives. <400 barrier on dual weapon skills is absolutely forgettable, like 1/4 of an auto attack

• Cleansing Fire and Lightening Flash cooldown reduced to 30s and break stun.

• Rework stances, everything except for primortial stance is pretty trash. Many stances don't feel like stances (i.e. give you an effect over a period of time).The above points would go a long way toward fixing the class.

• Move the class to medium healthpool (probably would fix most problems on its own with the class).

• Change some traits to be 'sustain while glassy' instead of solidly sustain to avoid issues with tank tempests, buff the traits.

All in all, ele was designed as jack-of-all. Unfortunately that means that it is not good at any one thing in particular so why take it. Furthermore, with elite specs, most other professions are at least as flexible as elementalist and can specialize better (i.e. guardian can fight, heal, tank just as well). The final nail in the coffin is raid balancing - ele's raison d'etre was big damage and the push for all the classes to deal similar damage in raids has invalidated its basic design principles. Why play a squishy ele and play the paino and require babysitting in raids when you can pick up another class and do just as well? Not to mention that the damage buffs that were added to classes because of raids have carried over to PvP. Furthermore the anti boon meta has cemented ele at the bottom as the class from inception was designed around boons.

Then that's not ele anymore. Just like nerfing should be slow and steady, same should happen with buffs. You want ele to be SSS tier?

I would add Twist of Fate to the list of stances that don't suck. Aquatic, Earthen,

Unravel

, and Weave Self all need some help. Unravel especially, being the elephant in the room. Lowering the same-attunement cd would make this stance completely redundant, but as it is, it simply cannot justify a utility slot. Not at all.

The changes I would make are the following:

• Invigorating Strikes (GM Weaver trait): Barrier increased to 1556 from 778 base (100% increase, same scaling)
• Woven Stride (GM Weaver trait): Now removes conditions on Swiftness or Superspeed application. No longer gives regeneration.
• Elemental Pursuit (Adept Weaver trait): ICD reduced to 5 from 10.
• Tailored Victory (Weave Self 2nd active): Can now be used while moving.
• Bolstered Elements (Master Weaver trait): Stability now lasts 5 seconds from 4.
• Lightning Flash: Stun breaks again, number of targets increased to 3 from 1.
• Cleansing Fire: Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 40.
• Evasive Arcana: Updated cleansing water to match the off hand version and remove 2 conditions, up from 1.
• Fire Grab (OH dagger fire #5): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Lightning Touch (dagger air #2): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Aquatic Stance: Now also heals around the elementalist.
• Unravel: Now grants 4 seconds of quickness on top of 4 seconds of the usual attunement specific boons (3 might, fury, protection, regen). Duration reduced to 4 seconds from 5.
• Glyph of Storms: Cooldown reduced to 50 from 60.

Yeah, my suggestions were a little OP, meant to say SOME of the following not ALL.

However, your suggestions in my opinion are simply band-aids that do not address the core problems of the class. Ele needs some more passive sustain, not more active sustain. In other words it needs to be able to function in melee and actually be able to tank some damage or at least apply enough pressure to put the opponent on the defensive.

Ele in PvP will have to invest in a ton (comparatively speaking) of vitality AND healing power for sustain. This is the core issue - the speccing for healing power and vitality, thus reducing damage. While maintaining hugely active healing-based defences during which you cannot pressure your opponent. The other issue is the huge amount of damage modifiers which are required for good damage requiring you to choose between damage and sustain. The damage needs to be put onto the weapon skills and the damage modifiers toned down and made actually interesting.

Your changes would help elementalist to a degreee but would not address several core issues, namely the fragility (weakness to oneshots), the healing power sustain made irrelevant due to powercreep, and the number of % damage modifiers.

In my opinion, balance should be taken in small steps. I don't consider myself well versed enough (even if I mained ele for 5 years) to propose a full rework. IMO it's not needed.

[Enigmoid.1264]

@Razor.6392 said:

@Enigmoid.1264 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

@Enigmoid.1264 said:

@Razor.6392 said:How to buff ele though? That's the real question.

They certainly need no more damage in any scepter power build.

Sword build is slow, but it

can

do good damage. It's survivability is above average as well.

No one uses dagger anymore, what could you even give to it?

Staff... well, no amount of buffs will do anything as long as it remains in its current state.

What does ele need? more tankiness? more condi removal? more sticking to targets? In my opinion the only buffs ele needs right now is nerfing the overperforming specs. Maybe a couple QoL cooldown adjustments on stuff like Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash? Weaver could perhaps see higher barrier amounts and 0.5 seconds less in att. swap, but that's it.

Ele needs a complete rework but Anet will never do that. This rework would involve changing traits from being attunement focused to being focused on a area (i.e. instead of the fire traitline you would have the rage traitline that would buff power/condi damage across attunements, rather than buffing virtually solely fire attunement). Yeah ele gets a lot of skills but can only enhance two attunements + elite which greatly cuts effectiveness in PvP.

Barring that ele would benefit from removing some of the +% damage modifiers and putting the damage right on the weapon skills (for competitive damage ele has no defences as sustain is through healing power which requires stat investment and through water/earth skills whose attunements tend to have low damage compared to the dodges of daredevil or the blinks/ports/stealth of mesmer).

As far as realistic buffs... here are some ideas. Bear in mind that ele needs quite a lot of buffing to be competitive.

• Sword Autos 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 s, range increased to 180 instead of 130. Ele has no weapon swap and is range locked - this would greatly help them to stay on target and land damage.

• 1s cool down on double attune vs. the 4 s currently. Weaver is currently slower and less flexible on attuning than core ele.

• Double to triple all barrier that ele receives. <400 barrier on dual weapon skills is absolutely forgettable, like 1/4 of an auto attack

• Cleansing Fire and Lightening Flash cooldown reduced to 30s and break stun.

• Rework stances, everything except for primortial stance is pretty trash. Many stances don't feel like stances (i.e. give you an effect over a period of time).The above points would go a long way toward fixing the class.

• Move the class to medium healthpool (probably would fix most problems on its own with the class).

• Change some traits to be 'sustain while glassy' instead of solidly sustain to avoid issues with tank tempests, buff the traits.

All in all, ele was designed as jack-of-all. Unfortunately that means that it is not good at any one thing in particular so why take it. Furthermore, with elite specs, most other professions are at least as flexible as elementalist and can specialize better (i.e. guardian can fight, heal, tank just as well). The final nail in the coffin is raid balancing - ele's raison d'etre was big damage and the push for all the classes to deal similar damage in raids has invalidated its basic design principles. Why play a squishy ele and play the paino and require babysitting in raids when you can pick up another class and do just as well? Not to mention that the damage buffs that were added to classes because of raids have carried over to PvP. Furthermore the anti boon meta has cemented ele at the bottom as the class from inception was designed around boons.

Then that's not ele anymore. Just like nerfing should be slow and steady, same should happen with buffs. You want ele to be SSS tier?

I would add Twist of Fate to the list of stances that don't suck. Aquatic, Earthen,

Unravel

, and Weave Self all need some help. Unravel especially, being the elephant in the room. Lowering the same-attunement cd would make this stance completely redundant, but as it is, it simply cannot justify a utility slot. Not at all.

The changes I would make are the following:

• Invigorating Strikes (GM Weaver trait): Barrier increased to 1556 from 778 base (100% increase, same scaling)
• Woven Stride (GM Weaver trait): Now removes conditions on Swiftness or Superspeed application. No longer gives regeneration.
• Elemental Pursuit (Adept Weaver trait): ICD reduced to 5 from 10.
• Tailored Victory (Weave Self 2nd active): Can now be used while moving.
• Bolstered Elements (Master Weaver trait): Stability now lasts 5 seconds from 4.
• Lightning Flash: Stun breaks again, number of targets increased to 3 from 1.
• Cleansing Fire: Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 40.
• Evasive Arcana: Updated cleansing water to match the off hand version and remove 2 conditions, up from 1.
• Fire Grab (OH dagger fire #5): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Lightning Touch (dagger air #2): Made it more reliably to hit.
• Aquatic Stance: Now also heals around the elementalist.
• Unravel: Now grants 4 seconds of quickness on top of 4 seconds of the usual attunement specific boons (3 might, fury, protection, regen). Duration reduced to 4 seconds from 5.
• Glyph of Storms: Cooldown reduced to 50 from 60.

Yeah, my suggestions were a little OP, meant to say SOME of the following not ALL.

However, your suggestions in my opinion are simply band-aids that do not address the core problems of the class. Ele needs some more passive sustain, not more active sustain. In other words it needs to be able to function in melee and actually be able to tank some damage or at least apply enough pressure to put the opponent on the defensive.

Ele in PvP will have to invest in a ton (comparatively speaking) of vitality AND healing power for sustain. This is the core issue - the speccing for healing power and vitality, thus reducing damage. While maintaining hugely active healing-based defences during which you cannot pressure your opponent. The other issue is the huge amount of damage modifiers which are required for good damage requiring you to choose between damage and sustain. The damage needs to be put onto the weapon skills and the damage modifiers toned down and made actually interesting.

Your changes would help elementalist to a degreee but would not address several core issues, namely the fragility (weakness to oneshots), the healing power sustain made irrelevant due to powercreep, and the number of % damage modifiers.

In my opinion, balance should be taken in small steps. I don't consider myself well versed enough (even if I mained ele for 5 years) to propose a full rework. IMO it's not needed.

I would agree with you that balance SHOULD be taken in small steps. However the frequency in which Anet balances means that balancing in small steps will take at least 6 months and nobody has time for that nonsense. Look at Scourge and how long it has been OP. It got minor nerfs though - how long until the next balance patch where it gets some more minor nerfs but still remains OP.

[Jugnificent.2061]

Based on your numbers (and my experience in matches) a single scourge looks fairly balanced. The problem lies when you start stacking more than one on a team. That win rate for double scourge is pretty brutal. It seems like the best fix is to implement class locking and limit it to one of any class per team. Fotm classes get longer queues, but that helps encourage play of other classes.

[Hooglese.4860]

@Jugnificent.2061 said:Based on your numbers (and my experience in matches) a single scourge looks fairly balanced. The problem lies when you start stacking more than one on a team. That win rate for double scourge is pretty brutal. It seems like the best fix is to implement class locking and limit it to one of any class per team. Fotm classes get longer queues, but that helps encourage play of other classes.

Saying that "stacking doesn't mean it's unbalanced" is missing the point entirely. You're openly admitting that scourge is OP, because when stacking more than one profession increases win rate, it implies that there's no situation you don't want to have a Scourge. Something untrue for engineers, elementalists, guardians, revenants, rangers, warriors, other necro specs, mesmers and thieves. It's a repeat of the cele-ele meta, where the optimal team composition was 5 d/d eles.

[Jugnificent.2061]

@Hooglese.4860 said:

Saying that "stacking doesn't mean it's unbalanced" is missing the point entirely. You're openly admitting that scourge is OP, because when stacking more than one profession increases win rate, it implies that there's no situation you don't want to have a Scourge. Something untrue for engineers, elementalists, guardians, revenants, rangers, warriors, other necro specs, mesmers and thieves. It's a repeat of the cele-ele meta, where the optimal team composition was 5 d/d eles.

But there is almost always a profession that is viewed as OP or very annoying when stacked. Lock it so you can't get more than one and that problem goes away. One scourge is pretty easy to focus down with a decent team.

[Damocles.4908]

so is there no hope for a custom core warrior?

[Mr Godlike.6098]

Why tempest is dead?

Cause it was good at only two things - keeping condi reaper alive and power rev alive and both of them almost extincted in this meta.Cause nobody needed besides those two support to be in team fights. Almost every old HoT meta build played correctly could sustain in 1v2.Cause it can't bunkerCause it can't killCause it was good only 5 man-premadesCause it can't ress as good firebrand, druid, scraper...Casue It relies on boons and outated passive procs nerfed over and over and over....Cause main mechanics can be interrupted by random blind burp so basically tempest in 1v1 has no class mechanics...Cause it was nerfed over and over and over and for forever since HoT came.Cause firebrand can do everything better then tempest and MORE.

Why ANYBODY SANE WOULD PLAY TEMPEST?

By the way - good job Karl.

[jihm.2315]

soulbeast is actually good dont wanna get overbuffed having some fun and results at the moment