Elementalist is so disappointing, it's sad to see

[Scar.1793]

Some context :
I have always been playing Warrior and Revenant, played a bit Necro and Thief. Came back recently after a long break. So here are my impressions of Elementalist.

____________________________________________________________
 

I will start by saying this : the Elementalist profession is deeply dissapointing despite having an interesting gameplay.
After coming back from a 7 years break, I wanted to try something new. I wanted to make use of my fiery dragon sword and a profession that would use sword as its main weapon set.

Elementalist seemed like the right choice since there was no weapon-swap, you had access to many skills with a single weapon-set AND it had access to fire skills which would fit my theme & style.
Despite the many complaints I saw on the Internet, I wanted to give the Elementalist a fair try.

I boosted one, learned to play the condition Weaver rotation and found it very enjoyable. It's ok in outdoor content but in content like Fractals, I was starting to notice that the damage wasn't really there. Sure I could do some 23k up to 27k burning ticks with boons (with a mix of mainly viper gear + a few trailblazer for some survivability), but overall after some testing and comparisons.... it's just pathetic. And I know why, because despite sword being melee, despite being geared for condition damage... YOU, as a player, are forced to go with a scepter instead.

How and why a gameplay/balance designer would decide that a ranged weapon should do way more damage than its melee counter-part is very puzzling to me.
But I'm not really surprised, since it was terrible balance that made me quit the game years ago. I'm still wondering how these anomalies are still happening. It feels like balance decisions are just a "whac-a-mole" philosophy along with viewing some benchmarks and deciding professions fates based on that. With some overpowered professions left untouched for years (would be better and more positive to just bring up all the others to the same level).

____________________________________________________________

All in all, I put a lot of effort on my Elementalist but I just don't see the point. Why bother when any other profession can do what you do but much better and with ease.
If I could, I would have gone with Holosmith but I hate shields, the super flashy Holosmith stance (which even makes you lose your weapon-set using holograms instead) and there's not much fire going on there.

I was going to try Power Catalyst but the survivability will be worse.
Full glass canon with 14K HP max, while others can get at least a base of 17K with no sweat and better sustain. Today there is just no good reason to have Elementalist have such low base HP pool. Other professions have access to just as many skills and their damage aren't so spread out between them. Why is it so hard to get Elementalist to a proper level as the other professions ? Just a few key and targeted tweaks would fix so many issues.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Scar.1793

[SeTect.5918]

I main Ele (Cata and Weaver) and Engi (Scrapper and Holo) because these are very similar imo:

• Both classes have no weapon swap.
• Scrapper is like the cata of engi and vice versa and holo is like the weaver of engi n vice versa.
• Scrapper is more power focused same as cata - weaver can do both power and condi same as holo
• scrapper is supporting and has more passive defense than holo - cata is supporting and has more passive defense than weaver
• Holo can build up a lot of active defense via traits and utility skills and same for weaver
• Holo has no self boons aside from minimal might, its a selfish dps, weaver is very similar to that.
• Holo has a difficult rotation and same for weaver - Scrapper and cata both have a bit easier rotation

However, what i want to say, you wouldnt be in a better spot if u wouldve chosen holo.
Holo has mid armor and more hp than weaver but weaver has a dmg reduction (if condi due to earth spec) and holo has the forced overheat in the rotation which makes you lose like 3k hp every now and then.

Tho i dont understand why u r saying that scepter would deal more damage. U meant in the past maybe? tho i dont remember anything like that. I always felt like sword deals far more damage in pve than scepter. Also the offhand weapons (focus and dagger) force you into melee anyway. (Edit: i was wrong, according to snowcrows, scepter is better in terms or condi now. I just came back 1-2 months ago after a 1-year-pause and sword was the better condi weapon back then)

I agree that some classes have it better in sustain while still pulling out the same dps tho.
Problem here is that if you buff weavers passive sustain, then it would have far too much if you stack active sustain, because weaver is really good in stacking that.
I also think it would be boring if every class has very high passive sustain and like almost no active sustain.
The thing with most classes is, that if you have high passive sustain, you cant get a lot of active sustain in addition to that and if you have bad passive sustain, you can still boost your active sustain up.
The problem is that in fractals, raids and so on the passive sustain is far better than the active one, because passive sustain is almost always built into the dps build already (scrapper barrier, Catalyst Elemental empowerment toughness and vitality and so on), while active sustain often comes through reducing damage by choosing other traits or swapping out utility skills for more sustain based ones (like choosing Bulwark_Gyro instead of a damaging skill). Thats why u cant stack a lot of active sustain in fractals, raids or whatever, because your group wants you to deal a lot of damage.
But that problem isnt easy to fix if you want active sustain to be a thing at all, because if a class can stack both passive and active sustain, then its a sustain overload which isnt healthy for the game.

I hope this wasnt too complicated.

Edited November 13, 2023 by SeTect.5918
Clarifications

[Doctor Hide.6345]

I'll just say there is nothing wrong with how elementalist plays. The reasons I love is because I don't have to weapon swap which is one of the reasons you listed on why you wanted to try it. It's the same reason I love Engi. Just not a huge weapon swap fan.

As for the rest, I don't think you were playing it right if I am to be honest. Scepter has been the condi weapon for awhile now on weaver, so of course the damage would be lower if you were trying it with the sword. That sword build is rarely used now for condi weaver because scepter is so much better. If you wanted to use the sword, you would need to play as power catalyst or power weaver which are both within the top 10 on Snowcrows. That is where sword shines now. It shines with power builds. 

Yes, you would need to go full zerker which is ok with none of those trailblazers sets. Yes, you would die somewhat until you memorize the fights which is an ok thing. Elementalist and somewhat Holo are like playing Dark Souls. You have to know the enemies move sets to do well on them and succeed. You have to accept that you will die if you mess up. But once you master the Ele and Holo you will be doing a lot of damage to the enemy and bosses. They don't need to change anything because they are fine as they are. Making Elementalist like other professions would ruin its appeal in my opinion. It is the "Get Gud" profession after all.

[Scar.1793]

1 hour ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Tho i dont understand why u r saying that scepter would deal more damage. U meant in the past maybe? tho i dont remember anything like that. I always felt like sword deals far more damage in pve than scepter. Also the offhand weapons (focus and dagger) force you into melee anyway.

I agree that some classes have it better in sustain while still pulling out the same dps tho.
Problem here is that if you buff weavers passive sustain, then it would have far too much if you stack active sustain, because weaver is really good in stacking that.
I also think it would be boring if every class has very high passive sustain and like almost no active sustain.

Holosmith would have been a good fit for me but there are some aesthetics I really don't dig (like the Photon Forge removing your backpiece and adding this meh texture on your character). But for an alt, it might be def worth a look ! As condi build, scepter does  way more damage than sword (basically every ability adds burning and those specific burns do a ton of damage, sword pales in comparison), I guess I'm just frustrated that I can't play as condi with a tiny bit of vitality/toughness to somewhat make up for the lack of survivability.

1 hour ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

I'll just say there is nothing wrong with how elementalist plays. The reasons I love is because I don't have to weapon swap which is one of the reasons you listed on why you wanted to try it. It's the same reason I love Engi. Just not a huge weapon swap fan.

As for the rest, I don't think you were playing it right if I am to be honest. Scepter has been the condi weapon for awhile now on weaver, so of course the damage would be lower if you were trying it with the sword. That sword build is rarely used now for condi weaver because scepter is so much better. If you wanted to use the sword, you would need to play as power catalyst or power weaver which are both within the top 10 on Snowcrows. That is where sword shines now. It shines with power builds. 

Yes, you would need to go full zerker which is ok with none of those trailblazers sets. Yes, you would die somewhat until you memorize the fights which is an ok thing. Elementalist and somewhat Holo are like playing Dark Souls. You have to know the enemies move sets to do well on them and succeed. You have to accept that you will die if you mess up. But once you master the Ele and Holo you will be doing a lot of damage to the enemy and bosses. They don't need to change anything because they are fine as they are. Making Elementalist like other professions would ruin its appeal in my opinion. It is the "Get Gud" profession after all.

It's not necessarily the gameplay itself, because I actually find it super entertaining, but it's just lame when you're here playing piano and doing pitiful damage.
To be honest I wanted to play condi because I saw some videos of a player using sword and focus (I wanted to use both weapons), and being rather tanky and doing ok damage. It does work in Outdoor PvE, but in instanced content (I'm just doing fractals for now) I can see that the damage is just not there compared to my old revenant for example.

Guess I'll have to make a sacrifice and use an offhand dagger instead (I'm actually pissed because I made a focus legendary lol), Incinerator will do and it's gen 1, not too expensive/annoying to make. Seems using trinkets to add some vitality might not be a good idea either with Ele power builds since it will remove some damage (or at least crit chance).

Ele should get an HP bump and some QoL though, because compared to other professions, there is just no valid reason in my mind why their HP would be so low VS a necromancer who not only gets insane base HP but also a second HP bar while doing crazy damage.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

48 minutes ago, Scar.1793 said:

Ele should get an HP bump and some QoL though, because compared to other professions, there is just no valid reason in my mind why their HP would be so low VS a necromancer who not only gets insane base HP but also a second HP bar while doing crazy damage.

 

What gamemode are we talking about here ?

 

Because Elementalist do not need an HP buff in WvW, they are already plenty tanky and mobile. 

[peperoncino.2516]

15 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

I'll just say there is nothing wrong with how elementalist plays. As for the rest, I don't think you were playing it right if I am to be honest.

what is the right way to play tho?

15 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

Yes, you would need to go full zerker which is ok with none of those trailblazers sets. Yes, you would die somewhat until you memorize the fights which is an ok thing. You have to know the enemies move sets to do well on them and succeed. You have to accept that you will die if you mess up. 

ok, so the "right way" then would be to try infinitely harder than most other prof/spec by mastering every encounter like its darn dark souls. but what if, so to speak, your group is not exactly keen on providing you all the learning opportunity, for they just want to beat content at hand? again, most specs can do without as extensive experience, so why you then think its alright to bring in your weaver for example?

15 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

If you wanted to use the sword, you would need to play as power catalyst or power weaver which are both within the top 10 on Snowcrows

that aside, jumping through all the hoops, you will only accomplish... what exactly? by all means, its either basically the exact same playing field as most other professions, like in terms of golem dps top 25 of snocrows is literally all within 3%, or strictly worse in other areas, like boon provision/uptime, general squishiness, no weaponswap, dps loss due to absolute reliance on many persisting aoes, with a bunch of forced movement if using sword.

15 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

But once you master

once you do indeed "master", you will just be on a decent level to compete with other professions without outright hindering the group you are in.

eles issues dont go anywhere because of your ability to somewhat play around them. its not that deep.

[Joncal.9623]

I honestly find the heavy focus on melee across all its e-specs, and also core, to be the biggest turnoff. 
Staff is available but it's a dreadfully slow, and boring, weapon. Scepter is just.. whatever, dagger is better. And now we've 1h sword across all specs.

I've mained staff ele (tempest & cata) for years now but I still get turned off by the forced "Battle Mage" class fantasy, yet I always come back to my ele.
'Tis a toxic relationship we share. 🫡

Also I didn't quite catch what game mode you've issues with, but honestly Celestial on Ele (pretty much all specs) work wonder in (almost) all GMs - I can't speak for PvP/WvW.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Joncal.9623

[Puck.3697]

22 hours ago, Scar.1793 said:

All in all, I put a lot of effort on my Elementalist but I just don't see the point. Why bother when any other profession can do what you do but much better and with ease

Sadly in a balanced world even, this is something u have to accept, if every class does 40k dps but difficulty isn't equal u kinda accept you put in more effort for same results. You cant stsrt balancing the game based on difficulty. 

I wouldnt say any other proffession can do whst u do buy much better either, which is apprant when u reliese most of the classes have this almost exact Post title. 

That aint saying ele ain't got its problems. Rather ele aint alone in that respect. 

[Doctor Hide.6345]

7 hours ago, peperoncino.2516 said:

what is the right way to play tho?

ok, so the "right way" then would be to try infinitely harder than most other prof/spec by mastering every encounter like its darn dark souls. but what if, so to speak, your group is not exactly keen on providing you all the learning opportunity, for they just want to beat content at hand? again, most specs can do without as extensive experience, so why you then think its alright to bring in your weaver for example?

that aside, jumping through all the hoops, you will only accomplish... what exactly? by all means, its either basically the exact same playing field as most other professions, like in terms of golem dps top 25 of snocrows is literally all within 3%, or strictly worse in other areas, like boon provision/uptime, general squishiness, no weaponswap, dps loss due to absolute reliance on many persisting aoes, with a bunch of forced movement if using sword.

once you do indeed "master", you will just be on a decent level to compete with other professions without outright hindering the group you are in.

eles issues dont go anywhere because of your ability to somewhat play around them. its not that deep.

Well, all the stuff you mentioned are not issues in my opinion. Not everything has to be the same level easy as all the others. It's ok to have harder professions to play even if the damage is within 3% of each other. And for the group question, I say it is within my right to play weaver there. If they have a problem with it, I tell them to kitten off  and leave them and find another static who does accept my playstyle for what it is. I am not that weak willed to bend to the group that easily. There is always another group around the corner. So, again doesn't matter if it takes more dark souls work to master. As long as the person feels good about it, that is all that matters in the end because the damage is there. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Doctor Hide.6345

[AliamRationem.5172]

Pretty much.  If you don't like scepter, better play power.  Despite how easy it would be to make condi sword competitive this balance team refuses to make it happen.  Patch after patch they buff only power sword, offhand power weapons, and condi scepter.

[Scar.1793]

7 hours ago, peperoncino.2516 said:

once you do indeed "master", you will just be on a decent level to compete with other professions without outright hindering the group you are in.

eles issues dont go anywhere because of your ability to somewhat play around them. its not that deep.

That was my realization few days ago. Not saying I'm a master, but I sure am not a beginner.
It's just that after having played other professions, you quickly realize the main issues with elementalists. I'm still on the fence but I may just end up going with holosmith despite my aesthetic issues with it. Or maybe another profession like condi warrior idk.

I'm not at all a metaslave, in fact I often stray from it playing stuff I find fun/look good visually.
But kitten man, there's a point where it's just not enjoyable to be gimping yourself so much.

3 hours ago, Puck.3697 said:

Sadly in a balanced world even, this is something u have to accept, if every class does 40k dps but difficulty isn't equal u kinda accept you put in more effort for same results. You cant stsrt balancing the game based on difficulty. 

I don't know, in FFXIV and other games, you can have balanced classes and some are harder to play but can pay off really well if you know what you're doing. While not making those classes overshadow the others because they all bring something to the table.

I just don't see it here for Elementalist. Elementalist started with much less HP because the excuse was "they have more skills to toy with". So not only your damage is spread out through multiple skills, now you also have professions having access to just about the same amount of skills AND having more HP, better sustain, better armor and better overall damage that isn't hard to get.

I get it can be hard to balance it all, but how about some bare minimum ? It only takes someone playing and testing the professions to quickly notice something's not right here.

6 hours ago, Joncal.9623 said:

I honestly find the heavy focus on melee across all its e-specs, and also core, to be the biggest turnoff. 
Staff is available but it's a dreadfully slow, and boring, weapon. Scepter is just.. whatever, dagger is better. And now we've 1h sword across all specs.

I feel your frustration and it's indeed very puzzling when I look back at GW1 elementalist, which is a real and efficient caster.
I don't understand what's so difficult to make a few targeted tweaks to allow people to enjoy what they want to enjoy. Elder Scrolls Online manages that and they don't have locked weapon-skills. I don't understand why even a decade later they can't make every weapon at least viable. Instead we get these a few weapons dominating all and that's it. You'll be lucky if they shake things up in a few years.

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Pretty much.  If you don't like scepter, better play power.  Despite how easy it would be to make condi sword competitive this balance team refuses to make it happen.  Patch after patch they buff only power sword, offhand power weapons, and condi scepter.

Hey ! Thanks for your videos, it's what made me want to try Elementalist. Was a good run for me despite my conclusion of it lol. I do wish they actually gave a toss about the profession instead of balancing by looking at benchmark videos and not playing/testing the profession.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Scar.1793

[AliamRationem.5172]

8 minutes ago, Scar.1793 said:

That was my realization few days ago. Not saying I'm a master, but I sure am not a beginner.
It's just that after having played other professions, you quickly realize the main issues with elementalists. I'm still on the fence but I may just end up going with holosmith despite my aesthetic issues with it. Or maybe another profession like condi warrior idk.

I'm not at all a metaslave, in fact I often stray from it playing stuff I find fun/look good visually.
But kitten man, there's a point where it's just not enjoyable to be gimping yourself so much.

I don't know, in FFXIV and other games, you can have balanced classes and some are harder to play but can pay off really well if you know what you're doing. While not making those classes overshadow the others because they all bring something to the table.

I just don't see it here for Elementalist. Elementalist started with much less HP because the excuse was "they have more skills to toy with". So not only your damage is spread out through multiple skills, now you also have professions having access to just about the same amount of skills AND having more HP, better sustain, better armor and better overall damage that isn't hard to get.

I get it can be hard to balance it all, but how about some bare minimum ? It only takes someone playing and testing the professions to quickly notice something's not right here.

I feel your frustration and it's indeed very puzzling when I look back at GW1 elementalist, which is a real and efficient caster.
I don't understand what's so difficult to make a few targeted tweaks to allow people to enjoy what they want to enjoy. Elder Scrolls Online manages that and they don't have locked weapon-skills. I don't understand why even a decade later they can't make every weapon at least viable. Instead we get these a few weapons dominating all and that's it. You'll be lucky if they shake things up in a few years.

Hey ! Thanks for your videos, it's what made me want to try Elementalist. Was a good run for me despite my conclusion of it lol. I do wish they actually gave a toss about the profession instead of balancing by looking at benchmark videos and not playing/testing the profession.

FWIW I still play condi sword in all content including CM.  It's viable.  It's just not as good as power sword or condi scepter, which feels bad because it's tougher to perform well with even if it were on par. 

I wish they'd address that but after more than a year of conspicuously avoiding any improvements to the condi variant it seems clear they just don't want this spec to be competitive.  I guess it's had it's time in the sun and that's the end of it. 

[Scar.1793]

20 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

FWIW I still play condi sword in all content including CM.  It's viable.  It's just not as good as power sword or condi scepter, which feels bad because it's tougher to perform well with even if it were on par. 

I wish they'd address that but after more than a year of conspicuously avoiding any improvements to the condi variant it seems clear they just don't want this spec to be competitive.  I guess it's had it's time in the sun and that's the end of it. 

It's genuinely a strange design philosophy.
Like, why would they not improve other ways to play which would not only retain players instead of frustrating them, but you'd also get a much more better rep and in turn, attract new players.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Just now, Scar.1793 said:

It's genuinely a strange design philosophy.
Like, why would they not improve other ways to play which would not only retain players instead of frustrating them, but you'd also get a much more better rep and in turn, attract new players.

I'm sure it's a combination of factors.  Condi sword was meta for a long time, so the priority was on elevating other specs.  Player feedback suggests that a lot of players want more ranged options, so having scepter as a meta option was a good call.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense when you compare the relatively easier and more versatile ranged build to its weaker and more limited melee counterparts.

The frustrating part for me is all the buffs to power sword.  While deserved, it seems to me it would have been easy to throw some condi buffs in there at the same time.  Would it have killed them to make a weapon that is equally strong as either condi or power?

[Doctor Hide.6345]

2 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I'm sure it's a combination of factors.  Condi sword was meta for a long time, so the priority was on elevating other specs.  Player feedback suggests that a lot of players want more ranged options, so having scepter as a meta option was a good call.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense when you compare the relatively easier and more versatile ranged build to its weaker and more limited melee counterparts.

The frustrating part for me is all the buffs to power sword.  While deserved, it seems to me it would have been easy to throw some condi buffs in there at the same time.  Would it have killed them to make a weapon that is equally strong as either condi or power?

I think the issue is that it would potentially overpower condi scepter if buffed too much making it meta again. And as we know, balancing is hard enough as is, so making both sword and scepter equal in damage would be nearly impossible to do, so it makes sense with the approach they have taken. It is easier to balance with sword is power and scepter is condi for the sake of simplicity of balance while allowing both weapons to be used still as a whole. It is the lesser of two evils compared to trying to make sword condi work again while not outshining scepter. 

[Szatko.8132]

Sword is a power weapon, scepter is a condi weapon. If you want to play with a sword then you should've gone with a power weaver/catalyst build. Both power catalyst and weaver with a sword are currently one of the best performing builds too XD

Edited October 29, 2023 by Szatko.8132

[AliamRationem.5172]

9 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

I think the issue is that it would potentially overpower condi scepter if buffed too much making it meta again. And as we know, balancing is hard enough as is, so making both sword and scepter equal in damage would be nearly impossible to do, so it makes sense with the approach they have taken. It is easier to balance with sword is power and scepter is condi for the sake of simplicity of balance while allowing both weapons to be used still as a whole. It is the lesser of two evils compared to trying to make sword condi work again while not outshining scepter. 

Disagree that the minor buffs we're talking about would be difficult or risk dethroning scepter.  If they were close to equal and even if sword were slightly better scepter would still be meta due to ease of play and range advantage.  Sword just wouldn't feel so unrewarding to play as a condi weapon.

[Puck.3697]

1 hour ago, Scar.1793 said:

don't know, in FFXIV and other games, you can have balanced classes and some are harder to play but can pay off really well if you know what you're doing. While not making those classes overshadow the others because they all bring something to the table

I wouldnt nessercarily agree, 

The only difference is in ffxiv ur more limited. I.e a bard will never do the same personal dps as a Black mage, but a black mage will never do the raid dps a bard does. 

Where in this game every class cN be a full dps, a support, a healer, a tank. Which means no class brings more then the next to the table, due to 0 trinity presence. 

 

1 hour ago, Scar.1793 said:

get it can be hard to balance it all, but how about some bare minimum ? It only takes someone playing and testing the professions to quickly notice something's not right here

The thing is, things are balanced to a degree, 

In ffxiv, if u play a warrior you are only a warrior. 

In GW2, If u play a warrior u have core trait lines, gear stat choice, aswell as a elite choice, then weapon choices changing ur skills. 

There are competitive choices for every class. Its just a case of not every choice is competitive in current balance. 

Where in ffxiv u have 0 choices. But still only 1 competitive choice if u played a warrior. 

[Puck.3697]

39 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I'm sure it's a combination of factors.  Condi sword was meta for a long time, so the priority was on elevating other specs.  Player feedback suggests that a lot of players want more ranged options, so having scepter as a meta option was a good call.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense when you compare the relatively easier and more versatile ranged build to its weaker and more limited melee counterparts.

The frustrating part for me is all the buffs to power sword.  While deserved, it seems to me it would have been easy to throw some condi buffs in there at the same time.  Would it have killed them to make a weapon that is equally strong as either condi or power?

I think anet reliese the games design is starting to cause problems. 

Every class having several elites to balance then weapon combinations to bbalance would take huge dev time to realistically balance properly. 

So they've dropped to balancing specific weapons to meta. I.e specific weapons for power and specific weapons for condi, doing this means the only need to balance 1 particular weapon to keep things competitive. 

I think this has draw backs sure, but while it's easy enough to say "well just buff it's condi dmg too" I think anet are trying to avoid dynamically buffing weapon sets to be capable of several things. 

Ele weapons are espically complicated given basically all eles weapons fulfill every role simultaniously.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Puck.3697

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 minutes ago, Puck.3697 said:

I think anet reliese the games design is starting to cause problems. 

Every class having several elites to balance then weapon combinations to bbalance would take huge dev time to realistically balance properly. 

So they've dropped to balancing specific weapons to meta. I.e specific weapons for power and specific weapons for condi, doing this means the only need to balance 1 particular weapon to keep things competitive. 

I think this has draw backs sure, but while it's easy enough to say "well just buff it's condi dmg too" I think anet are trying to avoid dynamically buffing weapon sets to be capable of several things. 

Ele weapons are espically complicated given basically all eles weapons fulfill every role simultaniously.

That just doesn't make sense in the case of sword.  It's not like it would require a rework of the weapon functionality to accommodate the change.  It just needs a minor buff, which for some reason they've conspicuously avoided while repeatedly buffing power sword and power offhands.  There's really no excuse for it to be this way.  They could have easily done it but they chose not to.

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Puck.3697 said:

Sadly in a balanced world even, this is something u have to accept, if every class does 40k dps but difficulty isn't equal u kinda accept you put in more effort for same results. You cant stsrt balancing the game based on difficulty. 

I wouldnt say any other proffession can do whst u do buy much better either, which is apprant when u reliese most of the classes have this almost exact Post title. 

That aint saying ele ain't got its problems. Rather ele aint alone in that respect. 

They could, however, try to balance builds based on what a good player doing the content can realistically achieve, rather than what a speedrunner or benchmark setter can achieve in ideal circumstances.

[Puck.3697]

29 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They could, however, try to balance builds based on what a good player doing the content can realistically achieve, rather than what a speedrunner or benchmark setter can achieve in ideal circumstances

This would make the very high end of the playerbase do ridiculous amounts of damage and clear content insanely fast though, 

However they could load more of its Damage into the easier parts of the proffession which would help the medium player achieve a higher amount of the potiental damage. 

I think the difficulty curve disparity in gw2 is too far apart imho however which creates this issue. 

 

 

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

That just doesn't make sense in the case of sword.  It's not like it would require a rework of the weapon functionality to accommodate the change.  It just needs a minor buff, which for some reason they've conspicuously avoided while repeatedly buffing power sword and power offhands.  There's really no excuse for it to be this way.  They could have easily done it but they chose not to

Agreed it doesnt but you can't pick and choose what weapons are and arent allowed this sorta flexibility. If ur gonna do one, ur gonna have to accept players will demand more. 

However given how much of a fan favorite sword was it is surprising they didn't retain it as a competitive option. But they seem to rly want it to be a power weapon. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Puck.3697

[AliamRationem.5172]

24 minutes ago, Puck.3697 said:

This would make the very high end of the playerbase do ridiculous amounts of damage and clear content insanely fast though, 

However they could load more of its Damage into the easier parts of the proffession which would help the medium player achieve a higher amount of the potiental damage. 

I think the difficulty curve disparity in gw2 is too far apart imho however which creates this issue. 

 

 

Agreed it doesnt but you can't pick and choose what weapons are and arent allowed this sorta flexibility. If ur gonna do one, ur gonna have to accept players will demand more. 

However given how much of a fan favorite sword was it is surprising they didn't retain it as a competitive option. But they seem to rly want it to be a power weapon. 

Players will always want more, and there's nothing wrong with that.  What's wrong in the current approach is focusing exclusively on two builds for over a year.  It's past time other builds see some development time and this is the place to discuss that. 

[Puck.3697]

41 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Players will always want more, and there's nothing wrong with that.  What's wrong in the current approach is focusing exclusively on two builds for over a year.  It's past time other builds see some development time and this is the place to discuss that

Well I can agree there. 

Coming back to the game, I changed main to thief, I was amazed to find staff Daredevil is still thieves only competitive power build lol. 

And the fact D/P daredevil is basically still the standard pvp build. 

Anet defintly do leave jt a long long time before they change builds up, and its primarily only because new elites etc etc arrive things change in the first place. 

Wish we would see more weapon reworks / changes more often to see things spiced up more regularly. 

But it see.s anet focus more on changes to traits and things then actual unused weapons. 

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Puck.3697

[AliamRationem.5172]

15 minutes ago, Puck.3697 said:

Well I can agree there. 

Coming back to the game, I changed main to thief, I was amazed to find staff Daredevil is still thieves only competitive power build lol. 

And the fact D/P daredevil is basically still the standard pvp build. 

Anet defintly do leave jt a long long time before they change builds up, and its primarily only because new elites etc etc arrive things change in the first place. 

Wish we would see more weapon reworks / changes more often to see things spiced up more regularly. 

But it see.s anet focus more on changes to traits and things then actual unused weapons. 

 

At one point they indicated changing underutilized weapons was a priority, but then they fell off the wagon.  But in the case of sword it doesn't need a rework.  It just needs a few little bumps to its condition damage to bring up to speed with power sword and condi scepter and it's fine.