Returning Ele Main Asks:

[zeyeti.8347]

23 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

The rep that Ele has comes from historical problems.  Back when I was raiding, Ele didn't have a quickness or an alacrity build.  Heal Tempest had high healing and might, but nothing else, Scepter required manually aiming dragon's tooth, etc. and so on.  In the run up to and release of End of Dragons, ele received several things that made it far better for structured PVE.  Tempest have alacrity, increased defenses via Hardy Conduit, and received many damage bonuses.  Weavers gained greater AoE barrier and condition damage, and their healing stance has been buffed for more group heals.  Catalysts received the best (for awhile) quickness build in the game, as well as global stat boosts with Elemental Empowerment.  In the past few years, Ele went from an awkward sort that had no real role to being capable of doing nearly anything quite well.  The rotations are easier, too, for they are much less reliant on Conjure chaining than they once were.  

I can't speak much for PVP, but in WvW ele can be quite the monster.  It's a celestial meta right now, and Ele capitalizes on every one of those stats.  I run a Weaver myself for roaming, but the ability to share magnetic + shocking aura makes Catalyst and Tempest powerful group support, and they throw out boons like Halloween Candy.  

all what you state is true , ele has been empowered , as all 8 other classes has been too ... 

Weaver gained greater barrier ... compared that to a scourge barrier ... barrier only proc on 2x attune skills , u use one 2x attune skill per rotation , resulting in a 550 barrier for 5 sec every 8-9 secs ... talk about useless ...

tempest has alacrity , as has scourge and specter now , only difference those two can spam their alac with 0 cast time or little cast time , tempest has to go trough 4 sec cast time skills to fully unload alac uptime....

Catalyst best quickness build ? Herald says hello , you need 0 concentration to upkeep 25 might , swiftness , fury and quickness and only one trait is needed to do so , catalyst use two traits to upkeep his quickness (looses 10% damage and +50-100% efficiency on EE) and cannot even come near the herald uptime (and just saying that when you don't attack , or boss has an invu. phase , well you pretty much screwed on your quickness...) and not even talking about the 360 aoe versus the 600 wide moving quickness engine the herald is .

And the crowd control on ele is horrible , most of the time you are not in the right attunement when the cc bar appears and even the cc are very weak again compared to other classes.

So yes ele has been improved , but is still far away from any other class in specific roles.

23 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

increased defenses via Hardy Conduit

Basically this trait make weaver a medium armor , hurray we are saved from one shots ... or not.

There is a reason some classes are not played at all in some content , some people will say "it's not because it is not played it means it is bad" , i answer yes it is bad because nobody care to play it , nobody sees the benefit or the fun for playing it , and hammer tempest is gonna be nerfed , yepie , who cares nobody plays it ... a lot of ppl like me play like that : fun-efficiency-accessibility. Ele is fun , it's the less efficient meta healer , and is hardly accessible as dps , that's why nobody plays it , being inefficient isn't fun, being average dps while you sweat on your keyboard is frustrating (especially when you are beated by LI classes) , getting your overload interrupted and see the alacrity fade away is frustrating , getting one shot , and having the feeling that if you played a class with only +4000 hp you would have sustained the damage is frustrating , Ele definition is frustration.

So play it if you want , but trust me the time you gonna try another class  you will ask yourselves why you took so much time to switch from ele, not like me which after 5000 hours of struggle , golem training , surviving any windlblow who would wreck my tiny hp bar , finally opened my eyes and made my ele a moving storage, best decision i made in this game so far

And for thsoe saying everybody complain about every class , i checked the revenant sub forum , nah can't see any complains about herald ...

I know i am being melodramatic here , but i like overreacting , make it more fun to write.

[Dadnir.5038]

On 1/19/2024 at 8:29 PM, zeyeti.8347 said:

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity it's fine to say ele is alright and everything , but explain those  numbers to me

You want me to explain this to you? It's simple, the elementalist community have been downgrading it's profession for years saying that it's trash and only looking at it's downside, spreading the word everywhere, discouraging new players... etc. The worst is that whenever someone try to point out to the good sides of elementalist, the elementalist community just shut him down.

Would you want to play with an elementalist in your group or even as an elementalist when everyone tell you it's garbage? The answer is no.

Funnily enough the necromancer (the one that the current elementalist community look at like it's a cheat) had a similarly bad reputation and representation until the good promotion from a known streamer broke throught the deep rooted prejudices. It took him a few years (Believe it or not it took 4 full years) but and then it was the explosion, necromancers everwhere.

The elementalist community really need to shake down it's deep rooted negativity and look at the strong points of their main profession. Fact is that even as this know streamer was working hard on improving the necromancer's reputation, he was still using elementalist to save the day when the necromancer profession wasn't up to the challenge. I can even recall an instance where he tried to carry the devs through a raid boss with Scourge only to give up after a few attempts to then switch to tempest and win on the first attempt (Scourge was already high on popularity at this time and elementalist was at it's lowest point. Surprising, right?).

For elementalist to have a good representation in those "statistic", you need a virtuous circle of positivity from the playerbase more than a hundred buffs to the profession spoonfed by the devs.

[draxynnic.3719]

54 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You want me to explain this to you? It's simple, the elementalist community have been downgrading it's profession for years saying that it's trash and only looking at it's downside, spreading the word everywhere, discouraging new players... etc. The worst is that whenever someone try to point out to the good sides of elementalist, the elementalist community just shut him down.

Would you want to play with an elementalist in your group or even as an elementalist when everyone tell you it's garbage? The answer is no.

Funnily enough the necromancer (the one that the current elementalist community look at like it's a cheat) had a similarly bad reputation and representation until the good promotion from a known streamer broke throught the deep rooted prejudices. It took him a few years (Believe it or not it took 4 full years) but and then it was the explosion, necromancers everwhere.

The elementalist community really need to shake down it's deep rooted negativity and look at the strong points of their main profession. Fact is that even as this know streamer was working hard on improving the necromancer's reputation, he was still using elementalist to save the day when the necromancer profession wasn't up to the challenge. I can even recall an instance where he tried to carry the devs through a raid boss with Scourge only to give up after a few attempts to then switch to tempest and win on the first attempt (Scourge was already high on popularity at this time and elementalist was at it's lowest point. Surprising, right?).

For elementalist to have a good representation in those "statistic", you need a virtuous circle of positivity from the playerbase more than a hundred buffs to the profession spoonfed by the devs.

Let's be realistic, a certain streamer might have been working to promote necromancer for years, but what really got necro through the glass ceiling was a big pile of buffs to first scourge and then reaper, which is why it took years. Scourge has been hit with nerfs since, but once you break that barrier and get people playing it, people are more willing to keep playing it because they've already got above the skill floor. Herald had the same treatment - said streamer, if it is who I think it is, was also promoting herald long before quickherald was a thing, but it took quickherald, followed by an arguably OP redesign of quickherald, to make it mainstream.

A large part of elementalist's problem, though, is that it has the highest skill floor. If you really know what you're doing, yeah, you can do well with it. But a lot of players are finding they can spend months or even years playing elementalist and switching profession still ends up as the fastest route to better performance.

[zeyeti.8347]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You want me to explain this to you? It's simple, the elementalist community have been downgrading it's profession for years saying that it's trash and only looking at it's downside, spreading the word everywhere, discouraging new players... etc. The worst is that whenever someone try to point out to the good sides of elementalist, the elementalist community just shut him down.

Would you want to play with an elementalist in your group or even as an elementalist when everyone tell you it's garbage? The answer is no.

Funnily enough the necromancer (the one that the current elementalist community look at like it's a cheat) had a similarly bad reputation and representation until the good promotion from a known streamer broke throught the deep rooted prejudices. It took him a few years (Believe it or not it took 4 full years) but and then it was the explosion, necromancers everwhere.

The elementalist community really need to shake down it's deep rooted negativity and look at the strong points of their main profession. Fact is that even as this know streamer was working hard on improving the necromancer's reputation, he was still using elementalist to save the day when the necromancer profession wasn't up to the challenge. I can even recall an instance where he tried to carry the devs through a raid boss with Scourge only to give up after a few attempts to then switch to tempest and win on the first attempt (Scourge was already high on popularity at this time and elementalist was at it's lowest point. Surprising, right?).

For elementalist to have a good representation in those "statistic", you need a virtuous circle of positivity from the playerbase more than a hundred buffs to the profession spoonfed by the devs.

Agreed , then tell me about ele strong points ? keep in mind i will bring every other spec who do the point you will bring better , that's the problem i have tried all specs off the game in literally all their option (not the funky ones like bladesworn heal for example). I came to the conclusion some classes are not for me with the matter of taste , i really don't like the druid reworked with alac slapped to his avatar , but i can deny he is efficient now with access to stab and aegis , with still strong 1200 range healing. But for the example of healers i can't see why people take tempest (if it isn't just for rebound ulti) for efficiency , i can understand they like the class , but all other meta healers are far better than him , anet missed the spot to make alacrity come from 2nd traitline and allowing ppl to keep bastion of elements ...

-Alacrity bend to 4sec(2.8 with quick) cast time , allowing you to do nothing else while overloading, or have severe punishment on your boon uptime if cancelled

-Lowest hp and armor , for no obvious reason.

-Cluncky way to give mainstream boons , might and especially fury , just tell me what you do if in your group if you have a scrapper quickness and 3 reaper ? you take air traitline instead of arcane just for Zephyr's Boon fury coverage , and don't tell me you use dagger air 2 into heat sync just for covering fury , kitten other spec do it so easily.

-Healing coming just from 1 attunement and your healing skill : either you play staff and then better have a herald in your group for might coverage , cause ppl won't stay in your tiny 180 aoe fire overload for 7 secs just to have 20 might... either you play dagger/sword with warhorn and end up with literally 0 range of healing (don't talk about the ice bow , 60 sec cooldwon for a weapon swap ... we all know conjuration need a solid revamp rework to the root to be on pair with other skills today and signet of water is just laughable ... 5% rez ...).

You are right ele community is all about rant , i know it i rant weekly about it , cause this class is just a boredom for pve endgame. But if you want solutions , i have a couple about the htemp.

-Overload 4 sec only to be allowed vs 5 sec before (counterpart 20% overlaod access instead of 33% for Transcendent Tempest)

-Alac slapped to Invigorating Torrents with regen or vigor kept.

-Make peculiar traitline a specific way to interact with players as a support : air for solid super speed uptime (super speed proc on aura share), fire having more than just one support trait (make one trait rework like x% power converted into healing and firefields heals allys like guardian symbols) , earth being the most tanky , slap barrier to aura sharing somewhere.

-Give stability baseline with Hardy Conduit and increase the protection efficiency , tempest must be able to tank when overloading blows who would normally bring low hp down (not in pvp or wvw ofc , this would be largely op), or in my wet dreams : allow tempest to have a single dodge while overloading without interrupting the overload.

-Remove might from Elemental Attunement and give fury instead , allow some skills (like staff air 2 and dagger air 2) to give and share fury.

-make earth and fire overload boonssharing 360 not 180 , that's too tiny ... i mean c'mon herald do it passively with 0 apm involved and in a 600 range ...

And for what you said , i played healscourge way before teapot came up with in one of his stream. And ppl didn't waited teapot to come with a scourge build when his f2 stacked 2 burns . Same for herald nobody cared about this spec before his access to quickness , and teapot said it was one of stongest build but nobody played it ... and now with quickness access it's the golden support dps every healalac dream about, also teapot refer to catalyst as one of the hardest hitting dps dealer of the game , but nobody plays it ... why ? So ppl still make their own decision , and for what you and i said  i think it's mixed : ppl don't wanna try ele cause they see how ppl talk about in the forums and ppl like me who tried and see only flaws in his gameplay design, it's 50/50 , but i know many players who tried ele and tried his counterpart (herald for quickness or healscoureg for alacheal being just two example) and now as me their ele is just parked at kaineng puzzle jump chest to earn the daily jade runsetone.

 

Edited January 21 by zeyeti.8347

[Dadnir.5038]

17 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Agreed , then tell me about ele strong points ? keep in mind i will bring every other spec who do the point you will bring better , that's the problem

The issue is that you think like that. You "agree" but soon after you flood everything with negativity. Nothing will go better with this mindset. The truth is that there is no point in even trying to make it look better in your eyes because even if it was overperforming by a looooooooooooong shot you'd still think that it suck and force this opinion on other just like you do right after agreeing with me.

There is a fairly recent video that show a lone elementalist face tanking a Heart of thorn event champion while camping fire attunment dealing 20k dps (most profession wouldn't even try to take on this champion in such relaxed state). That's the hidden state of the elementalist that people like you cover behind "it does have low health" or "rotation is complicated".

Edited January 21 by Dadnir.5038

[funkychikin.2659]

Hello, OP here. I’ve been reading and enjoying all of your responses. I wanted to jump in and make a clarification, though, because I didn’t want this thread to become about “what is specifically wrong about ele and how do we fix it?”

So to clarify, what I asked was, is ele as bad as they say? What I should have said was, I am going to play my ele and not look back, because I love it; is ele as bad as they say?

Reason for the clarification being, I’ve seen some terms and phrases thrown around which are either subjective or haven’t been fully defined. Some examples:

First, what is “no reward?” What is the “reward” we’re imagining, exactly? That we get everything that [insert other profession] gets and more because we press more buttons? The complexity is part of the reward for me, and if [insert other profession] can do more with less, I don’t personally care.

Secondly, what is “better performance,” exactly? What is the metric? Rotation parses? DPS meters? Boon uptime? This type of bean counting is one of the biggest reasons (if not the biggest reason) I finally gave up on WoW. I personally have no intention of going over charts and spreadsheets like pushing buttons is my second job.

Third, “complexity” itself. If performance and reward are both linked to complexity in the mind of this community, then I’m sorry, but I’m not getting it. Believe it or not, evaluations of complexity can vary between people, especially if they have enough translatable gaming experience.  FOR ME, the elementalist is not overly complex. If anything, it hits that sweet spot FOR ME that other, simpler classes do not (again, because I’m interested in feel, not numbers.)

When I asked if ele was “that bad,” I expected talk of data and digits, because this is an MMORPG after all. But for me, the numbers are most important when being evaluated by the people for whom those numbers matter. If ele is “just fine” with its complex rotation and isn’t absolutely stacked on the popularity meters as a 1-and-done DPS/boon behemoth, then that’s fine with me. What I don’t want is someone telling me that my profession is “garbage” because of the above factors, without considering that those factors are not as empirical as they might seem, regardless of the hard “performance” data that gets thrown around. My concern was always that the ele hate was justified somehow. While there are certainly some pain-points that can be addressed and some disappointments to discuss, it seems that the ele is not so much fundamentally broken as it is misused and misunderstood (perhaps even by the devs). So, while I might not be appreciated by the “high end players” as an ele, I was never going to appreciate their outlook on this profession (or any other) either.

So, for those who tl;dr these longer posts, I’ll ask again more clearly: I’m going to play my ele regardless. I’m going to queue for groups regardless. I’m going to have fun, regardless. Is ele really that bad, then? Or are we just missing that different people have fun in different ways?

Edited January 21 by funkychikin.2659

[zeyeti.8347]

8 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The issue is that you think like that. You "agree" but soon after you flood everything with negativity. Nothing will go better with this mindset. The truth is that there is no point in even trying to make it look better in your eyes because even if it was overperforming by a looooooooooooong shot you'd still think that it suck and force this opinion on other just like you do right after agreeing with me.

There is a fairly recent video that show a lone elementalist face tanking a Heart of thorn event champion while camping fire attunment dealing 20k dps (most profession wouldn't even try to take on this champion in such relaxed state). That's the hidden state of the elementalist that people like you cover behind "it does have low health" or "rotation is complicated".

That ain't the answer , where are the strong points ? if you say he can solo champs , i have a clue for you my celestial reaper can do it too , my vendicator too , my herald too ... every class can do that ... and i said i agree we rant a lot about ele on forums (i could not deny that i am a serial ranting machine)i could not agree or disagree with the rest you said , cause you bring no points on why is ele worth playing vs x or y on efficiency,  answer the question plz, on fun i agree i was thrilled when i started the agme seing i cna ttune to any elements , but when i hitted the endgame section of the game where nobody cares about your versatility i just threw my ele to the garbage can. That's how i feel , and people who start the game must know the truth , you will have fun with your ele in open world/pvp/wvw but once you hit the endgame section (fractals higher tiers , raids and strike cm) as a new player you will feel the pain adn the cold reality that you need to read perfectly what the encounter will need you to do cause you have way lesser room for failure than any other class in the game, withotu any reason cause you ain't more efficient than any other class.

my mindset is clear i have +5000 hours on my ele and all i see is this class being always unbalance , i predicted a nerf to the condi hammer cata the 26/12 on the frenchy forum and guess what ? we have burning duration on skills going from 9 sec to 3 sec and sovort , 45k for a complicated class is good , it's not too high , if ele performs as well a sother , why do you have to sustain the lesser hp pool or the lightest armor ? why ? Anet proof once again they base their view and a freaking golem for balance , ele will become meta definign they say ... well they didn't bust their ***** to nerf the pew pew mech when this class was doing 33k afk for almost 2 months ... 

[zeyeti.8347]

13 minutes ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

Hello, OP here. I’ve been reading and enjoying all of your responses. I wanted to jump in and make a clarification, though, because I didn’t want this thread to become about “what is specifically wrong about ele and how do we fix it?”

So to clarify, what I asked was, is ele as bad as they say? What I should have said was, I am going to play my ele and not look back, because I love it; is ele as bad as they say?

Reason for the clarification being, I’ve seen some terms and phrases thrown around which are either subjective or haven’t been fully defined. Some examples:

First, what is “no reward?” What is the “reward” we’re imagining, exactly? That we get everything that [insert other profession] gets and more because we press more buttons? The complexity is part of the reward for me, and if [insert other profession] can do more with less, I don’t personally care.

Secondly, what is “better performance,” exactly? What is the metric? Rotation parses? DPS meters? Boon uptime? This type of bean counting is one of the biggest reasons (if not the biggest reason) I finally gave up on WoW. I personally have no intention of going over charts and spreadsheets like pushing buttons is my second job.

Third, “complexity” itself. If performance and reward are both linked to complexity in the mind of this community, then I’m sorry, but I’m not getting it. Believe it or not, evaluations of complexity can vary between people, especially if they have enough translatable gaming experience.  FOR ME, the elementalist is not overly complex. If anything, it hits that sweet spot FOR ME that other, simpler classes do not (again, because I’m interested in feel, not numbers.)

When I asked if ele was “that bad,” I expected talk of data and digits, because this is an MMORPG after all. But for me, the numbers are most important when being evaluated by the people for whom those numbers matter. If ele is “just fine” with its complex rotation and isn’t absolutely stacked on the popularity meters as a 1-and-done DPS/boon behemoth, then that’s fine with me. What I don’t want is someone telling me that my profession is “garbage” because of the above factors, without considering that those factors are not as empirical as they might seem, regardless of the hard “performance” data that gets thrown around.

So, for those who tl;dr these longer posts, I’ll ask again more clearly: I’m going to play my ele regardless. I’m going to queue for groups regardless. I’m going to have fun, regardless. Is ele really that bad, then? Or are we just missing that different people have fun in different ways?

Well you should , ele is definitly fun to play , but the longer you will stay to the game and try other classes , you will maybe come to the conclusion it's not worth the investement , the numbers in % i showed above in wingman are about pve endgame (fractals, raids and strikes) it doesnt count the open world situation , so have fun playing it anyway. I am not making assumption here , but i know a variaty of player who started with ele and like me when the hitted the endgame section of the game , they fell down a lot of times and the dps wasn't quite what they expected, and feelign like a burden to your group isn't particularly fun. But maybe you will be the 0,2% of ppl who can dunk the charts of ele , who knows.

Edited January 21 by zeyeti.8347

[funkychikin.2659]

1 minute ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

That ain't the answer , where are the strong points ? if you say he can solo champs , i have a clue for you my celestial reaper can do it too , my vendicator too , my herald too ... every class can do that ... and i said i agree we rant a lot about ele on forums (i could not deny that i am a serial ranting machine)i could not agree or disagree with the rest you said , cause you bring no points on why is ele worth playing vs x or y on efficiency,  answer the question plz, on fun i agree i was thrilled when i started the agme seing i cna ttune to any elements , but when i hitted the endgame section of the game where nobody cares about your versatility i just threw my ele to the garbage can. That's how i feel , and people who start the game must know the truth , you will have fun with your ele in open world/pvp/wvw but once you hit the endgame section (fractals higher tiers , raids and strike cm) as a new player you will feel the pain adn the cold reality that you need to read perfectly what the encounter will need you to do cause you have way lesser room for failure than any other class in the game, withotu any reason cause you ain't more efficient than any other class.

my mindset is clear i have +5000 hours on my ele and all i see is this class being always unbalance , i predicted a nerf to the condi hammer cata the 26/12 on the frenchy forum and guess what ? we have burning duration on skills going from 9 sec to 3 sec and sovort , 45k for a complicated class is good , it's not too high , if ele performs as well a sother , why do you have to sustain the lesser hp pool or the lightest armor ? why ? Anet proof once again they base their view and a freaking golem for balance , ele will become meta definign they say ... well they didn't bust their ***** to nerf the pew pew mech when this class was doing 33k afk for almost 2 months ... 

I’m not a mod, but I did start this thread, and I’d appreciate keeping the conversation civil and on topic. This is not the place for interpersonal squabbling, as it seems like you both have beef with each other outside this thread. In fact, I know you have, because I’ve seen it play out in other discussions.

 I’m not trying to police your posts ofr interactions, but a forum thread is a community discussion, not a place for an argument or dispute between two people (which, it seems to me, is what’s happening here).

If y’all want to argue, be my guest. Just please use dms or something and don’t clog the forum I made to discuss a specific issue.

[funkychikin.2659]

3 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Well you should , ele is definitly fun to play , but the longer you will stay to the game and try other classes , you will maybe come to the conclusion it's not worth the investement , the numbers in % i showed above in wingman are about pve endgame (fractals, raids and strikes) it doesnt count the open world situation , so have fun playing it anyway. I am not making assumption here , but i know a variaty of player who started with ele and like me when the hitted the endgame section of the game , they fell down a lot of times and the dps wasn't quite what they expected, and feelign like a burden to your group isn't particularly fun. But maybe you will be the 0,2% of ppl who can dunk the charts of ele , who knows.

I know that these metrics matter for you, but you’re kind of missing the point of my clarification if you think that continuing to talk about charts and percentages is what I’m here for.

[zeyeti.8347]

1 minute ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

I’m not a mod, but I did start this thread, and I’d appreciate keeping the conversation civil and on topic. This is not the place for interpersonal squabbling, as it seems like you both have beef with each other outside this thread. In fact, I know you have, because I’ve seen it play out in other discussions.

 I’m not trying to police your posts ofr interactions, but a forum thread is a community discussion, not a place for an argument or dispute between two people (which, it seems to me, is what’s happening here).

If y’all want to argue, be my guest. Just please use dms or something and don’t clog the forum I made to discuss a specific issue.

Not at all , don't worry i like making points with other people , but i understand your point , i always feel salty when counterargumenting points but i am not, i just like to bring ppl in front of facts. But you are right it goes over the edge of the forum topic , cya.

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The issue is that you think like that. You "agree" but soon after you flood everything with negativity. Nothing will go better with this mindset. The truth is that there is no point in even trying to make it look better in your eyes because even if it was overperforming by a looooooooooooong shot you'd still think that it suck and force this opinion on other just like you do right after agreeing with me.

There is a fairly recent video that show a lone elementalist face tanking a Heart of thorn event champion while camping fire attunment dealing 20k dps (most profession wouldn't even try to take on this champion in such relaxed state). That's the hidden state of the elementalist that people like you cover behind "it does have low health" or "rotation is complicated".

How did you get this from reading that post?  He's making perfectly valid points specifically comparing tempest support to other supports that were updated around the same time and he's 100% correct that tempest has some glaring disadvantages that shouldn't exist.  And your response to that is...well, some guy (me, actually!) put up a video of faceroll tempest doing 20k DPS on a champ solo just pushing buttons and facetanking (By the way, they're nerfing the damage on that build significantly.)?  What does that have to do with the price of tea in Cantha?

Edited January 21 by AliamRationem.5172

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

I’m not a mod, but I did start this thread, and I’d appreciate keeping the conversation civil and on topic. This is not the place for interpersonal squabbling, as it seems like you both have beef with each other outside this thread. In fact, I know you have, because I’ve seen it play out in other discussions.

 I’m not trying to police your posts ofr interactions, but a forum thread is a community discussion, not a place for an argument or dispute between two people (which, it seems to me, is what’s happening here).

If y’all want to argue, be my guest. Just please use dms or something and don’t clog the forum I made to discuss a specific issue.

Is asking someone to answer the question posed a problem for you?  If so, get over it.  As you say, this is a community discussion.  You start the thread, we discuss.  Asking questions of other players to clarify points is perfectly reasonable.

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

I know that these metrics matter for you, but you’re kind of missing the point of my clarification if you think that continuing to talk about charts and percentages is what I’m here for.

It's not just about the numbers.  He provided specific examples.  For instance, the fact that might generation on support tempest is linked to a 4 second channel with only 180 radius.  Compare to herald, which passively generates might at 600 radius.  Alacrity is likewise tied to these long channeled casts, so if you have to dodge or otherwise cancel the cast during that 4 seconds your boon uptime suffers greatly.  Meanwhile other supports don't have to deal with this at all.  These aren't just "Oh well, my DPS is 1k lower than that other guy's benchmark." issues.  They make the class objectively worse at performing the role and where you might expect there to be some sort of advantage in exchange for that, there isn't.  And this is a common problem for elementalist specs.  They can do the job.  But they tend to be limited in ways other classes aren't and there's just no payoff for that, which makes experienced ele mains wonder why?  Why does only this class deserve to be so limited?  

I also provided some examples from weaver.  Such as the fact that I have CC like other classes, but due to the mechanics of the spec it's often 4+ seconds out of reach when I need it and the solution to that is a utility skill that does basically nothing other than let me drop my weaver mechanics for a few seconds so I can access those skills in a timely fashion.  You might think it's obvious that such a skill should be a cooldown that is always available because, again, why should this class be so limited?  There's no good reason for it.  But though we've been asking for unravel as an F5 for years, it's never made the list. 

Edited January 21 by AliamRationem.5172

[Mauti.3520]

I'd say

In Instanced Endgame PvE it's pretty bad (in comparison):

It isn't bad or unviable on it's own it's just decisivly worse than pretty much any other pick you can make. It has cumbersome class mechanics, worst PvE group utility, bad reactive adaption, horrible gatekept CC, inherent squishness and hybrid-hybrid Weapons that sit between all chairs just providing numbers but don't shine in their roles even slightly.

The only spec -to me- that feels somewhat okay and rewarding in Endgame PvE is Tempest. It's boon builds are pretty functional, deliver value, aren't jank to play and Tempest has at least some reactive Utility to shine, handle mechanics or fill gaps. It also features a very accessible potent Condition build now that, unlike many other Ele DPS Builds, isn't all that squish. Weaver and Catalyst in contrast just feel like borderline griefing yourself and your team.
They have numbers that are theoretically on par, that's it. Rest of the kit is inferior to 80-90% of other E-Specs you can choose, be it staying power, CC, Range, Utility, gap filling, handling mechanics eca. They suffer greatly when not played relatively optimal by yourself AND if your party/raid doesn't play very good too. 

The story of "I started on Ele but rerolled XYZ and it's so much better now" I experience and hear about frequently is way more prevalent than with any other class.
"Average Andy" drops this class like hot coals after stepping into Instanced Content the first few times.

In PvP and WvW it's a somewhat different story. In WvW the zerg builds could maybe need a smidge help, but they are still pretty great at what they do.
Roaming is great to typically cele-broken while the PvP builds on this class are also right up there too. Open World can also be good to great.


Edit: Personally I think it's a great and fun class to play, I do so frequently in any sort of content, and  have my Eles as my "beloved seconds" behind Ranger.
But since PvE is the majority's interest and endgame performance serves as some kind of "percieved benchmark" to the state of a class, Ele is seen, somewhat deserved, as not to be in a great shape, no matter how many Catalysts completely melt faces in PvP and I still hope Anet someday can fix or at least mend that a bit.

Edited January 22 by Mauti.3520

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

8 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

I don't think they were lying; they obviously have thought very hard about the numerical aspect and how to improve things. I do think they were being overdramatic, and while I didn't want them to leave the thread, I also didn't think the argumentative back-and-forth was conducive to a civil discussion. The same could've been said for Dadnir; I didn't quote them, but should have.

This actually makes sense to me, mostly because I think I finally understand where this is coming from. While I'm loathe to bring up WoW again, it is my most recent frame of reference. From what you're describing, Fractals are very much like Mythic+ Dungeons in WoW in that they are set encounters for small groups that scale up in difficulty with successive completions. In that type of environment, lack of utility is clearly a problem, especially when different professions carry "mandatory" utility.

I guess my question then is, at what point in the Fractal scaling does such utility really become "mandatory?" Higher level mythic+ keys in WoW required dedicated and efficient comps purely because of their numerical challenges. Lower level keys, however, were perfectly doable for any class (contrary to the opinions of a very vocal subsection of the player base). So, are portals and enemy pushes/pulls and immobilizes and "stability and aegis on demand" required from the lowest level, or is that something that matters more as you progress?

For fractals I'm never sure it ever becomes necessary.  Though I haven't run Silent Surf CM, so I do not know what specific mechanics are needed.  There's only a big mechanical change in fractals when the Challenge Mote (CM) is engaged at the higher levels.  There's also the random instability "No Pain, No Gain", that makes boon removal much more important.  The most niche thing needed in fractals is projectile destruction, but it isn't always necessary.  Since it is a 5 party team, most of the mechanics from fractals involve standing in the right place, using CC, or using a special ability that is given to each of the players.

It is raids where you'll encounter necessary mechanics.  For example, the first boss Vale Guardian has a phase where it splits into 3 spirits, each one with a different weakness.  One of the spirits is nigh invulnerable, unless you can remove a custom boon from it.  Without boon removal, the boss is impossible.  Vale Guardian isn't the only boss like this.  You'll find weird mechanics that require strangely profession specific abilities around half of them.  There's a skip Ele can do at the Twisted Castle, some pseudo-instance death mechanics can be cheesed with Rebound, Aftershock can be used as a pinch reflect against Matthias, and the off-hand Warhorn has a couple of push skills that can be used for some mechanics.  But, very often, the special mechanics of a raid will require a mesmer, ranger, or a necromancer to fulfill a need.

Strikes are similar to fractals, in that they are far less mechanically dependent on profession skills.  Even their CMs are largely about moving to the right spot, jumping over a shockwave, or other things that all professions can do.  I cannot speak about the SotO strikes, but know that the challenge motes for the harder EoD strikes are... rarely done, but they almost demand a ranged weapon in order to maintain DPS through all of their movement mechanics.  

For all but very few cases, high DPS isn't mandatory.  The raid bosses can be auto attacked to death if you have competent builds and players.  Some of the later strike CMs can be a damage race, though.  

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/22/2024 at 12:23 AM, funkychikin.2659 said:

When I asked if ele was “that bad,” I expected talk of data and digits, because this is an MMORPG after all. But for me, the numbers are most important when being evaluated by the people for whom those numbers matter. If ele is “just fine” with its complex rotation and isn’t absolutely stacked on the popularity meters as a 1-and-done DPS/boon behemoth, then that’s fine with me. What I don’t want is someone telling me that my profession is “garbage” because of the above factors, without considering that those factors are not as empirical as they might seem, regardless of the hard “performance” data that gets thrown around. My concern was always that the ele hate was justified somehow. While there are certainly some pain-points that can be addressed and some disappointments to discuss, it seems that the ele is not so much fundamentally broken as it is misused and misunderstood (perhaps even by the devs). So, while I might not be appreciated by the “high end players” as an ele, I was never going to appreciate their outlook on this profession (or any other) either.

The closest you're probably going to get to that is something like the Snowcrows benchmarks, which can be found here.

However, in terms of actually determining which builds are good or not, Guild Wars 2 is mostly a game where data and digits aren't what actually matters. What DPS checks there are in the game have mostly been trivialised by power creep since those DPS checks were introduced, and Guild Wars 2 doesn't rely on "progression" in the form of incrementally improving your stats through gear like WoW and Diablo, so most boss fights are designed to challenge the players to survive mechanics while still doing enough DPS, rather than being designed to challenge whether the players have good enough gear to get through the content. While some gear progression certainly does exist, it's generally taken as given that basically anything other than high-level fractals (because of agony) and maybe some of the really hard stuff like Harvest Temple CM can be done in full exotics.

What generally determines whether a build is good tends to be the softer factors that can't be represented in benchmarks and spreadsheets. It's things like whether the build has abilities and features that make it easier for you and your allies to cope with the mechanics of a fight, or whether, conversely, it has a design that actually makes the fight more complex to deal with. Boons like aegis and stability are good examples of the former: I'm not sure they're actually needed in endgame PvE if everyone played perfectly, but if your build has access to those boons and you use them well, your group doesn't have to play perfectly because those boons can cover for a lot of mistakes.

Elementalist, unfortunately, has a lot of the other side. Low base health means that, in endgame PvE, it's more likely to be downed before the healer can heal the damage back up (in other environments, this is compensated for by elementalists generally having a lot of self-healing and defensive boons, but in endgame PvE, the assumption is that everyone has healing and defensive boons from the healer). Elementalists typically have more complicated rotations, which can divert attention from maintaining the situational awareness needed to track what's going on in the encounter. And support elementalists need to track what's going on in the encounter: tempest overloads are easily interrupted and therefore you can lose alacrity uptime if you activate one at the wrong time, and every support elementalist relies on rotating between attunements to maintain key boons, which means if they're not careful they might not have access to key defensive support skills (including healing, which is nearly entirely based on water attunement) when needed because they're in the wrong attunement when the need arises.

Which is why if you stay in the forums for a while, you'll see a fair few cases of people rolling their eyes at "benchmark balancing" where ArenaNet nerfs something because it has a high benchmark, but basically nobody was actually playing it because getting the build to perform against anything other than the benchmark golem was easier said than done. And elementalist cops this a lot.

These are all challenges that can be overcome. For instance, if you have very good knowledge of the combat and when certain things happen, you can make sure you're always in the attunement you need to be in order to deal with a particular mechanic, rather than being caught out. But it does mean that there's an extent to which being fully effective with an elementalist is like climbing a mountain bare-footed when other professions have a ski lift, or at least some decent climbing equipment. Someone who's reached the peak and completely, fully mastered elementalist, including knowing exactly how to adjust their rotation to suit a specific encounter, can do just as well as any other profession - but achieving that mastery is difficult, and when an elementalist support rolls up to a PUG, the group leader often has no idea whether they've recruited an expert at the summit or someone who's still slipping and sliding down the initial slopes. Which means you can simultaneously have some people carrying groups with elementalists and trivialising difficult content with all-elementalist groups, while the general population might be suspicious about having an elementalist they don't know performing a vital role.

Edited January 23 by draxynnic.3719
Noticed a couple of minor grammatical errors.

[zeyeti.8347]

a lot of ppl here are just saying ele is fine , proof ? i bring up specific details on why he is not fine , and you stumble around saying he is fine , because he is fine , definition of a rock ? it's a rock , great statement , you can't answer the question with the question... and we have ppl talking about ele facetanking open world bosses ... waouw , that's says long about those people experience in the hard content endgame content ... out of context.

14 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The area that Ele has its greatest weaknesses is in miscellaneous utility.  Ele's utility skills largely consist of three basic uses: do damage, move, personal survival.  Fractals and raids often require more niche abilities, such as long duration projectile reflects, long duration immobilize, Crowd Control based specifically around moving enemies rather than just stunning them, switching between ranged and melee damage, boon removal from enemies, portalling allies, group stability and aegis on demand, and sometimes it requires straight up damage tanking. 

So by definition ele is bad in endgame content , ty , was that hard to reiterate ? add strike cm's to the list.

16 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

And your response to that is...well, some guy (me, actually!) put up a video of faceroll tempest doing 20k DPS on a champ solo just pushing buttons and facetanking (By the way, they're nerfing the damage on that build significantly.)?  What does that have to do with the price of tea in Cantha?

Haha ! Curse you Aliam , i spit my coffee on my screen cause to you 🤣. Here you have it someone who knows and has actually played the ele to a certain extend and can talk about his flaws and strong points (still waiting those btw).

Ppl will say i am an elitist but those franckly saying ele is fine show us some high level gameplay of it in hard content plz , i have proof of my own knowledge of the game. All the others well you can stop lying , don't forget we got amazing tools like killproof me to check your own knowledge , trust is good control is better , calling me a liar .... look yourself in the mirror .. we have ppl with no kp.me (afraid to show your true account maybe, or has never ever done a single endgame content or doesnt even know this tool exist , any dedicated endgame enjoyer knows it , so by definition those people who doesnt know it are not endgame players) and ppl who haven't even done a single strike cm talking about how ele is fine in endgame content... and stop comparing open world with endgame , open world is a cakewalk and should be talked in a separate way as wvw and pvp , i am gonna do a video of me playing pew pew mech soloing bosses while my mech is tanking , wooooooo  quick nerf engi rifle and mech he is op , he can solo bosses in open world , what a circus ...

And again i am waiting from ppl calling ele fine and meta a list of his strong points , i brought up his weak points , now to you all to proof your point of view , and don't answer with vague , elusive answers , i am a data guy i only trust what i see , i don't believe in unicorns... it's not because ppl read forums and see a lot of ppl complain about ele  that this whole spec represent 1% of playrate in endgame , and btw how many ppl of the game goes into the forum ? i always see the same people here ... so the forum is not a global view of the highest % of playrate , but the data i showed is from people being +- somewhat dedicated to endgame content, and those people mostly choose to not play the whole ele class , why . I can undertsand balance is hard for every 27 e-specs , but at least 1-e spec from every class should be balanced around every content of teh game , you never gonna see me talking about wvw or pvp , cause i don't know those , so ele is maybe strong there or not , i don't know , but i know pve a lot.

Edited January 22 by zeyeti.8347

[Atoclone.4810]

Guild raiding on Friday, me on power cat, sword dagger (yeah not wh, I have incinerator and I love it)

 

I pulled 2nd highest DPS on a couple of the fights (our holo is unbeatable and I suspect actually an ai the way he plays) we are fairly competent but no where near elite so I'd say in that bracket ele is fine.

 

I also came near the bottom on a couple but I have a long list of excuses ready to deploy.

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Guild raiding on Friday, me on power cat, sword dagger (yeah not wh, I have incinerator and I love it)

 

I pulled 2nd highest DPS on a couple of the fights (our holo is unbeatable and I suspect actually an ai the way he plays) we are fairly competent but no where near elite so I'd say in that bracket ele is fine.

 

I also came near the bottom on a couple but I have a long list of excuses ready to deploy.

I only play condi sword/focus weaver.  It's not remotely meta, but it's what I like.  I still do enough damage to hit the required DPS checks in CM fractals where I've done enough that I'm almost to fractal champion.  I've done all the raid wings and bosses, I have raid legendary armor, and I've even done some of the CMs.  Same for strikes.  I'm not out there to be on the level of the snowcrows guys.  I'm mostly a solo casual type that happens to run instanced PvE content with my guild sometimes.  For what it's worth, I've also done enough PvP to hit rank 80, finished a season in platinum years ago when people actually played PvP, and I've done enough WvW to rank 2900 almost entirely from solo roaming.  All on non-meta ele builds.

All of that should tell you that it's a perfectly viable class even when not played with the optimal builds.  It's not bad and I might even call it a great class, although I admit I may be biased.  Still, it is not without its issues and some of them are pretty frustrating to me because they just seem unneccessary.  As I've said before on this forum, at this point it feels like ele is designed under rules that none of the other classes are following.  It has some unnecessary limitations that might have made sense years ago, but no longer do.  Things like weaver having to give up a utility slot to access CC in a timely fashion, tempest having boon support on a 180 radius and tied to completing 4 second long channels, etc.  Other classes have as much or more power in these areas with none of the limitations and I think it's way past time they addressed that.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

Heh. Thread went many directions.

Ele isn’t my main character but I really enjoy playing tempest, it is flexible and fun. And ele gets moderate use in WvW with occasional obligatory complaints about being overpowered (not as much as willbender obviously…), there is one commander on my WvW world who runs tempest most of the time and his ability to run into enemy zergs and survive is frankly unbelievable (I play enough to know it is extraordinary). 

I think there are some very good points in this thread about how ele is perhaps slightly worse than most at high end PvE instanced content but I feel the difference in effectiveness isn’t that all that dramatic (ie it might be noticeable if you are good but doesn’t mean you can’t play).