The people designing ele should be reassigned

[Sahne.6950]

2 hours ago, Caffynated.5713 said:

Necro having 15 weapon skills instead of 20 isn't really a justification for an equivalent skill doing 10x damage, 2x chill, and removing 3 boons with longer range and shorter CD. 

Just get good, will ya.

Ele is fantastic. We are just too bad to realize that. /s

Edited November 4, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Last Crab.6054]

12 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Just get good, will ya.

Ele is fantastic. We are just too bad to realize that. /s

Fixed that for you.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 11/3/2023 at 5:59 AM, Arken.3725 said:

 

This is fairly rich.  Guardian is EASILY the worst-designed profession in the game and I can easily prove it.

- No other profession has SO many terribly-tracking skills(Torch, Scepter-Auto, Staff-Auto, LB at max range, Zealot's Defense, Zealot's Embrace, Binding Blade, Leap of Faith)

- The most static class in terms of mechanics(Consecrations, Symbols, rooted-skills)

- Nearly every healing-skill is garbage.  You're taking the lesser of many evils here; same with utilities.  Heaven's palm has got to be the worst Elite-skill in the game, bar none.  

I could go on far more than this dude ever could.  Outside of support, Guardian has been TERRIBLE for the longest time.

*blink*

The only one of these I'd vaguely agree with is poor tracking, and 1) just about every profession has issues with that to an extent and 2) notice how most of those are ranged skills? There are professions, and elite specialisations of professions, that have effectively had no viable ranged for long periods. Revenant hammer's problems alone eclipse guardian tracking issues (we'll see if the upcoming update fixes those).

Meanwhile, guardian has some of the best utilities in the game, and probably the best set of traits, at least on core, from a design perspective.

Guardian's been in a fairly steady position of "present, but not OP" for most of the game's life... because they got the fundamentals right early on and it hasn't had the big balance swings that other professions have had as ArenaNet tries to address problems with reworks and ends up breaking things in the process. Now, the 'not OP' part does mean that it's usually eclipsed by whatever builds are OP this season, but that's not a problem with guardian, that's the end result of guardian already sitting more-or-less in about the spot that ArenaNet wants builds to sit, while other professions are in a cycle of spiking above one season and being nerfed to death the next.

Edited November 4, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Flowki.7194]

On 11/4/2023 at 11:02 AM, Caffynated.5713 said:

Necro having 15 weapon skills instead of 20 isn't really a justification for an equivalent skill doing 10x damage, 2x chill, and removing 3 boons with longer range and shorter CD. 

That is basically a microcosm you can apply to many specs, very consistantly.

 

The thing that people dont get, is that its not just about ''more buttons'' increaseing the room for error, it is also the time it takes to press ''more buttons'' which leaves you more prone to being CC'd/los abused or w/e else during damage windows. I mean think for a second, in raw damage abilitys, condi zerker can achieve a kill by pressing 2 damage keys, one time, just one time. There is so little room for error, and a much smaller window to interupt. It makes it such a horrible thing to fight, where every dodge is is practically do or die, yet he does not have to dodge every thing you throw at him, with 0 0 0 0 0 damage on instant activation for good measure. I mean at times, it actually goes against you to stun a bad warrior, becuase they only wanted to break the stun, and were never going to pre-empt pop for immunity. This isn't just about warrior ofc, many other bs examples acorss other specs.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 11/4/2023 at 5:02 AM, Caffynated.5713 said:

Necro having 15 weapon skills instead of 20 isn't really a justification for an equivalent skill doing 10x damage, 2x chill, and removing 3 boons with longer range and shorter CD. 

Truth.  The developers don't seem to understand the concept of opportunity cost.  If, for example, I wanted to use water 4 on weaver I have to rotate through no-damage attunements for 8 seconds to do so.  At that point it isn't just a question of why this one skill compares poorly but why does the design of ele justify this forced skill compartmentalization at all? 

On weaver especially it should not be a massive DPS loss to rotate into water or any other attunement as we're forced to remain in those attunements and can't use other skills.

[Jski.6180]

Glyph and arcain utility should be swapped arcan or the power dmg / crit should be on the air line and glyph the support condi dmg base off of atument should be on the arcain line. A glyph of storms would have root in earth more burning in fire chill in water and blind in air. Where the arcan skills should hit much harder and be less about trying to add condi effects to power dmg hits.

Conja weapons need to have an on cast effect or on lose effect as well as having an charge of cast and only having an drop for others if you have one in your hands already.

[Serephen.3420]

On 11/2/2023 at 7:08 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

 

What? Ever heard of cleansing fire? It's a core skill.

Umm just need to point out, cleansing fire removes conditions...not boons.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Serephen.3420
Sorry came to the thread much later than I realised😅

[Serephen.3420]

On 11/3/2023 at 4:06 AM, Sweetbread.3678 said:

Ele could definitely use a pass on it's utilities, I'll give you that, but largely it's main problem is that it's one of the only somewhat decently designed classes in the game. The issue isn't that Ele actually has to make tradeoffs between sustain and damage or that it's mechanic actually has a real sense of risk vs. reward and opportunity cost (stuff which is actually good game design and we should have more of), it's that so many other classes/specs that don't actually have any real depth/complexity/tradeoffs have been powercrept and overloaded to the same level (or more) as something that's entirely designed around those tradeoffs and complexity mitigating that power level. Ele doesn't need buffs, the rest of the game's brain dead specs just actually need to have their output match their effort required. Balance principles shouldn't fly out the window just because a class was intended for a toddler to be able to pilot.

Like Ele's niche was always being a sort of jack-of-all-trades by having a deep, diverse set of skills which in turn were balanced around being the glassiest class in the game (which absolutely forces trading off damage for defense), having to know and manage twice as many skills, and having all of their effects compartmentalized by mutually-exclusive attunements that have a built in opportunity cost/management mechanic. Now Ele's lost that niche, because everything else has been power crept into also being a jack-of-all-trades, except they get to be it while having only 10 overloaded weapon skills to manage and basic/easy af mechanics like Shroud or Virtues or Whatever as a bonus on top of it. So you end up in a situation where 90% of the time Ele's are stuck abusing horrrrribly designed auras, because it's really their only option. When every other class has the same level of diversity as 20 ele skills crammed into 10, then Ele's class mechanic no longer has any actual benefit to it in the same way that say having a second health bar with shroud does; they're literally just the glassiest class in the game with an incredibly complicated weapon swap for no other reason than "I guess we need a hard mode? *shrug* ".

Honestly, beautifully put. I've held this same view for quite some time but gave up hope of something being done about it. It's more likely for them to cut out ele's trade offs than it is for them to bring other classes to a similar style of balance.

[Arken.3725]

On 11/4/2023 at 3:45 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

*blink*

The only one of these I'd vaguely agree with is poor tracking, and 1) just about every profession has issues with that to an extent and 2) notice how most of those are ranged skills? There are professions, and elite specialisations of professions, that have effectively had no viable ranged for long periods. Revenant hammer's problems alone eclipse guardian tracking issues (we'll see if the upcoming update fixes those).

Meanwhile, guardian has some of the best utilities in the game, and probably the best set of traits, at least on core, from a design perspective.

Guardian's been in a fairly steady position of "present, but not OP" for most of the game's life... because they got the fundamentals right early on and it hasn't had the big balance swings that other professions have had as ArenaNet tries to address problems with reworks and ends up breaking things in the process. Now, the 'not OP' part does mean that it's usually eclipsed by whatever builds are OP this season, but that's not a problem with guardian, that's the end result of guardian already sitting more-or-less in about the spot that ArenaNet wants builds to sit, while other professions are in a cycle of spiking above one season and being nerfed to death the next.

Revenant hammer problem's do not eclipse Guardian tracking issues.  Best utilities you say?  Let's go over them since you're so versed in it.  

- 1 of the healing skills is only good with support spec, rest are meh.

- All consecrations are terrible

- All spirit weapons are terrible

- 1 Signet is good (out of 6)

- 2 Meditations are good (out of 6)

- Shouts are only good when paired with support

- 1...maybe 2 traps are good (out of 6)

- 1 Mantra is good (out of 6)

- 1 Physical skill is good (out of 6)

Please....tell me what these "best" utilities are?  Let's do some basic math shall we from a core perspective: 4 consecrations, 4 spirit weapons, 4 signets, 3 shouts, 3 meditations are all pretty terrible.  This out of 27 total core skills(healing, utility and elite combined) and 18 are terrible.  This is roughly 66% of the total skills being useless but sure, best of all.  

[Poelala.2830]

6 hours ago, Arken.3725 said:

Revenant hammer problem's do not eclipse Guardian tracking issues.  Best utilities you say?  Let's go over them since you're so versed in it.  

- 1 of the healing skills is only good with support spec, rest are meh.

- All consecrations are terrible

- All spirit weapons are terrible

- 1 Signet is good (out of 6)

- 2 Meditations are good (out of 6)

- Shouts are only good when paired with support

- 1...maybe 2 traps are good (out of 6)

- 1 Mantra is good (out of 6)

- 1 Physical skill is good (out of 6)

Please....tell me what these "best" utilities are?  Let's do some basic math shall we from a core perspective: 4 consecrations, 4 spirit weapons, 4 signets, 3 shouts, 3 meditations are all pretty terrible.  This out of 27 total core skills(healing, utility and elite combined) and 18 are terrible.  This is roughly 66% of the total skills being useless but sure, best of all.  

Revenant’s hammer problems actually do eclipse any of Guardian’s problems. Revenant hammer has never been viable in sPvP. Not even close. You cannot say that for any incarnation of guardian or any of its weapons.

[Sweetbread.3678]

1 hour ago, Poelala.2830 said:

Revenant’s hammer problems actually do eclipse any of Guardian’s problems. Revenant hammer has never been viable in sPvP. Not even close. You cannot say that for any incarnation of guardian or any of its weapons.

I really don't think logic is going to work on the "GUARDIAN IS THE WORST CLASS EVEEEER" guy.

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Arken.3725 said:

Revenant hammer problem's do not eclipse Guardian tracking issues.  Best utilities you say?  Let's go over them since you're so versed in it.  

- 1 of the healing skills is only good with support spec, rest are meh.

- All consecrations are terrible

- All spirit weapons are terrible

- 1 Signet is good (out of 6)

- 2 Meditations are good (out of 6)

- Shouts are only good when paired with support

- 1...maybe 2 traps are good (out of 6)

- 1 Mantra is good (out of 6)

- 1 Physical skill is good (out of 6)

Please....tell me what these "best" utilities are?  Let's do some basic math shall we from a core perspective: 4 consecrations, 4 spirit weapons, 4 signets, 3 shouts, 3 meditations are all pretty terrible.  This out of 27 total core skills(healing, utility and elite combined) and 18 are terrible.  This is roughly 66% of the total skills being useless but sure, best of all.  

Having some tracking issues with some ranged skills is nothing compared to ranged weapons being so bad they pretty much might as well not exist.

The rest, meanwhile, is laughable. Guardian has access to stability and aegis from utility skills that other professions could only dream of until recently, and even now I'm pretty sure guardian still wins, it's just that it no longer has an effective monopoly. Projectile hate if you need it. Condition cleanse out the wazoo if you want it. Some of the best CCs out of utility slots in the game. Mobility is a little short if not playing Willbender, but the Intervention skills are there if you really want them. Good selection of means to get additional DPS out of utility slots if that's all you want, sometimes in the same skill that also fills one of the other roles described above. I think the slot-6 self-healing skills might be a little underpar compared to some other professions, but guardian doesn't rely only on those for survival and sustain and can also bring additional healing in other utility skills - I've always found guardian to be one of the easier professions to survive on if you know how to use the tools available.

Also, for the record: Every traitline has a function. There are professions where entire traitlines have been dead for extended periods.

Obviously, guardian isn't perfect, and I think the "favoured child" meme is overblown, but there are definitely professions that have much bigger issues.

[Deadringers.9047]

On 11/3/2023 at 11:46 AM, Sahne.6950 said:

I just love how ele completly vanished from the meta and everyone is just like....     "bro... you simply need to git gud"

 

Those goldplayers are getting clapped by some p3 FACata and think the profession is in a good spot.... not realizing they got "Grand Canyon skillgaped".

 

The only profession thats in a worse spot right now is Revenant.

I play ele main and have returned to the game after a few years away.

 

What you say is so true it hurts.

 

Got my A-heal tempest up and running and that’s fine…except the range of alac and other boons isn’t great, and it just doesn’t output that many boons when compared to other classes.

 

Ive now got a weaver power DPS build I’m running and OMG it’s an uphill battle…

You basically need VERY good timing of atunements and skills throughout a fight to maintain anything over 30k DPS.

Thats if you can actually get to the target to hit, as you basically NEED to be dodging every single attack you can.

This is unlike some other classes which can spam the same 3-7 buttons, while having a decent health pool + medium or heavy armour.

 

Doesn’t feel great 😞 

[Omg Im Target.3095]

Just wanna say that ele despite its flaws like many neglected skills is the most enjoyable class to me especially the Weaver spec. Whoever designed this spec knew what he was doing unlike Catalyst.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Omg Im Target.3095

[Anthony.8056]

Give Ele a useful elite skill like change tornado into a ground target skill instead of a transform skill and have it pull instead of launch. It's useless in open world. Give earthquake an actual animation instead of a jump and knockdown, very lackluster for a skill called earthquake. These are two skills that say elementalist to me, but they suck in this game.

I Know Ele has its problems with its design, but I never had a problem with it as it has been my main since launch. Funny thing is I have no problem swapping between attunements, but I always forget to weapon swap on all the other classes. Numbers will always be an issue and no side is ever happy, its either overpowered or underpowered. I just want useful skills with good animations.

The Weaver spec is the fun one for me and the best, they outdid themselves in my opinion with that spec. I enjoy Tempest as well. Catalyst could have been so much more, as I expected something like how Thor uses his hammer. It has the least visually appealing animations in my opinion, except for hurricane of pain and wind storm. I wish they would give cleansing typhoon the animation what the Naga uses for its water vortex ability and make it a channel ability. The augments and elite are garbage and boring. Having the 3 ability on hammer wastes a skill slot and is more weaver elite skill. The energy cost to deploy the Jade sphere is just there where you can hardly see it and doesn't mesh with everything else going on. Would have like the jade sphere animal to do something other than be just something that appears and looks pretty. Catalyst was a missed opportunity but hopeful one day they will give it a rework.

[solemn.9670]

As an ele main with hundreds of videos posted on yt dedicated just to ele and all it's specs (I know that doesn't validate what I'm saying automatically, but just saying - not just a casual ele player here)... What are you smoking OP. You sound like you don't even play ele.

 

Edit: yes obviously there are issues but come on lol what a dramatic post

Edited November 14, 2023 by solemn.9670

[corwin.3495]

I played gw2 for about 7 years now and I decided to finally try out Elementalist, in my case Weaver. I heard many jokes how it's low hp, glass class, did not believe it. But after playing it for a couple of weeks, even with my 7 years of knowledge I easily get downed in the open world (I even have vitality jadebot core). 
Stop calling it a "glass cannon" because there is no cannon to be found. Ele is just a piece of glass waiting to be stomped on. What cannon, when a heavy armor herald has 200% more survivability and damage. Please buff the HP and add more survivability to Eles, I die faster than I can swap out the elements to protect or heal myself. Heck, I can't even finish casting my heal utility spell and I get downed/interrupted. 

TLDR; please buff Ele's HP, it's not funny anymore. 

[Nephalem.8921]

On 11/14/2023 at 6:44 PM, solemn.9670 said:

As an ele main with hundreds of videos posted on yt dedicated just to ele and all it's specs (I know that doesn't validate what I'm saying automatically, but just saying - not just a casual ele player here)... What are you smoking OP. You sound like you don't even play ele.

 

Edit: yes obviously there are issues but come on lol what a dramatic post

Play herald, renegade, vindicator, spellbreaker, scrapper, soulbeast etc and then swap to ele and tell me it feels completely fair to have basically no boons on weaver or your overly clunky cata energy mechanic WHICH STILL DOES NOT HAVE UI feels finished.

Weaver is 100% dependant on supports giving you boons. It does not even grant itself fury. And they can not buff core stuff because according to sc disc wh earth 4 would promote ele stacking. How about nerfing wh, buffing dagger offhand and staff and all the other trash weapons which are all in a much worse state than they were before soto release because devs nerfed mods together with warhorn?

What is staff at this point? Requires multiple conjures to function at all. Requires a full rework to have more than 2 (or 3 if you play weaver) decent skills. And most importantly it needs an aa rebalance. Ele has no good ranged power weapon, it gets pistol which is apparently condi focussed and even if it was ranged dagger/wh are melee mostly.

Cata / weaver golem dps is fine. Boon application in core traitlines without dropping tons of dps and especially self quick application is on 2012 balance. actually worse because ele used to have fury on blast on its dps trait. Now you have to take raging storm, a dps loss over a mod, and zephyr boon, another dps loss over a mod. Ele also lost vuln on crit.

Look at the weaver meta build. It is basically just dmg mods with nothing else. Other builds usually give aoe fury/might or at least have some added might gen tied to mods etc. Isn't catalyst supposed to be the supporty bruiser? Why is it doing almost everything better than weaver? If they want us to play core ele+ they could at least create an ui to pull cata out of alpha state.

I had way more fun with ele before soto. Everything got nerfed for sw/wh.

Quick cata somehow and somewhere exists too apparently. I haven't seen it in multiple months. Dagger fire 3 still does not hit targets with the trail unless you are in the hitbox or does it finally hit them? There are mutliple hitboxes in the game you cant enter.

[Poelala.2830]

On 11/14/2023 at 12:44 PM, solemn.9670 said:

As an ele main with hundreds of videos posted on yt dedicated just to ele and all it's specs (I know that doesn't validate what I'm saying automatically, but just saying - not just a casual ele player here)... What are you smoking OP. You sound like you don't even play ele.

 

Edit: yes obviously there are issues but come on lol what a dramatic post

"You sound like you don't even play ele." I'm a better ele than you are. Also, why not address ANYTHING I actually said? It's because everything is correct.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

On 11/14/2023 at 12:44 PM, solemn.9670 said:

As an ele main with hundreds of videos posted on yt dedicated just to ele and all it's specs (I know that doesn't validate what I'm saying automatically, but just saying - not just a casual ele player here)... What are you smoking OP. You sound like you don't even play ele.

 

Edit: yes obviously there are issues but come on lol what a dramatic post

Hes just on yet another ego trip after the signet cata nerf.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Paradoxoglanis.1904

[Flowki.7194]

2 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Hes just on yet another ego trip after the signet cata nerf.

The nerf that destoyed many unrelated builds and the classes main condi weapon?

[Poelala.2830]

4 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Hes just on yet another ego trip after the signet cata nerf.

You lose to my core Elementalist on every build you play; catalyst or core. Signet catalyst is just what I play when I want to meme.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

1 hour ago, Poelala.2830 said:

"You sound like you don't even play ele." I'm a better ele than you are. Also, why not address ANYTHING I actually said? It's because everything is correct.

You lose to my core Elementalist on every build you play; catalyst or core. Signet catalyst is just what I play when I want to meme.

thanks for proving my point

Edited November 18, 2023 by Paradoxoglanis.1904

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

3 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

The nerf that destoyed many unrelated builds and the classes main condi weapon?

the build that gave so many ele players a false sense of skill

[Flowki.7194]

3 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

the build that gave so many ele players a false sense of skill

What do you mean so many ele players? 95% of condi catas were bandwaggon players who only played it at that time becuase it was easy. Those were not ''ele players".

 

You sound like a sword weaver main (or are you a hammer cata?), who has not played anything else on ele. I've played every possible spec imaginable, and the scepter/signet nerfs were massive overkill, destroying specs that you have no clue about. I know this becuase you are that guy who tried to compare ele condi to condi bombs.. like they are even remotely compareble. Why don't you stick to sword weaver or your one cata build? and stop having opinions on things you know nothing about.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Flowki.7194