The elementalist would need a complete rework

[ralkeon.6304]

Hi everyone, I know that Elementalists spend their time crying (when they're not in downstate), but I wanted to share my thoughts even if they're probably unrealistic ideas.

The Elementalist would need a complete rework... having 4 attunements is very cool and fun, but when you get to the endgame, you realize there are significant design issues, such as:

- Swapping between attunements to use all the CCs
- Having skills 6-9 that deal damage and none that provide decent utility
- Having too mixed a concept within the same element (water - heals, deals power damage, deals condition damage...)

And many other more specific things, like the tempest's overloads: very cool, very strong, but often blocking and useless if not completed.

A massive rework in terms of concept would be needed...
For example, keeping most of the damage on weapons and removing it (or at least most of it) from skills 6-9 to implement utilities instead, like other classes have (stab, aegis, and similar). We could say that the tempest has these, but a single stack of stab is ridiculous... (you can hear heralds laughing at you from a distance).

Or something even more drastic but, in my opinion, very functional could be limiting the attunements to the selected trait lines, for example, if I choose the fire-air-weaver trait lines, I would only be able to attune to fire and air. I know, I wouldn't even know how to handle cases like fire-arcane-weaver for example, but it was just to give an idea of the possibilities.
By doing this, it would be easier to balance, and there would be less disparity between those who spend their lives on it and those who try to engage spending some hours every day but perhaps can't achieve benchmark results...

There are some classes that you can try out for 1-2 hours at the golem and they're OP compared to Ele (so probably they're not OP, is the Ele that is worse XD). Personally, I've tried virtuoso (of course), scourge, harbinger, herald, spellbreaker, and others... but every time I go back to tempest, weaver, and catalyst, the disparity is obvious, both in terms of effort required and utility provided to the group...

Quoting Mukluk in a recent video of his, "No one will ever say 'I hope a weaver joins the squad'," or at least very few do (or Ele mains XD).

Alright, I'm done, I hope I made some sense and I look forward to others' opinions and thoughts.

Have a good life!

[Flame Of The Titan.3649]

Yeah but this makes sense and sounds like a buff to Elementalist and not Mesmer, Necro or Guardian, no can do bub

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

my opinion is that anet focuses too much on pure utility for the utility skills in the e-specs, and simply copy / paste too many of them. IE: the shouts for Tempest were basically copied from signets, and then weaver stances and catalyst augments are way too similar in function... while all the other classes actually got interesting variety of NEW utility skills for each of their e-specs. guardian got traps, mantras, and physical skills, for example, which were totally unlike any of their previous utility skills. Mesmer got wells, deceptions, the psionic attacks.

as for "rework" : the first thing they need to do is change all the core melee traits (like sunspot, and pyromancer's puissance) into 1200-ranged traits, so they're not totally worthless on ranged builds., because ranged builds are balanced around these traits, assuming they'll actually hit enemies that are way too far away. earth skills need more poison (which could technically be in any attunement, breathing ash or sand in the air, or chemical smoke from fire is poisonous to breath as well) and possibly even smoke fields could be in earth (as examples of ash exploding into the air from eruptions or sandstorms hiding the elementalist from enemies' views.)

there's actually so many ideas for elementalist skills from GW1 , even from other professions in the game (such as fire arrows, and balthazar's wrath)... and anet somehow keeps giving other classes elemental themed weapons and especs (warrior's berseker spec in fire based, engineer's hammer and spear weapons are electric / air based... the skill thunderclap is based on a GW1 elementalist skill)

[crosknight.3041]

core utility skills also need a massive rework. conjures are probably on the top of my list for utility reworks, make them more like guardian spirit weapons for the simplicity and purity of purpose. arcanes could use more, as could cantrips.

trait wise, catalyst in general feels like it someone did their homework last minute to turn it in on time. i will die on the hill that combos should have been the primary thing to do in the spec (like change the quickness trait to comboing in any field grants allies quickness, and the ele more catalyst energy), and will die on the hill that hammer 3 orbs should have been part of the catalyst mechanics. instead, the catalyst apes tempests auramancer gig.

 

[Mascarun.7910]

What I think that GW2 could benefit from is something that FF14 does every expansion: rework all jobs. I wouldn't agree to having reworks for every GW2 expansion, especially if a profession is already in a good spot (FF14, unfortunately, likes to fix what isn't broken), but come on now. The game is almost 12 years old, yet some traits, weapons and even professions are as janky and clunky as they were back in 2012. How many threads in this forum are dedicated to complaining about the current stagnant state of some profession, its specs, its traits, its weapons, etc.? And how many threads propose some sort of change or rework? Far too many, which seem to go unnnoticed anyway by Anet. In addition to reworking core professions, I also propose, at some point, adding new mechanics or changing existing ones on elite specs (for example and not as an actual suggestion, an arcane or all-element 5th overload for tempest). FF14 might have it easier to add new abilities and mechanics to a job because of the vertical treadmill, the constant increase in level cap, but that does not mean that the same cannot apply to GW2, if balanced; in short, I would like to see some real changes, not just attempts to make poor skills usable and tweaked coefficients.

Anyway, to speak specifically about ele, I disagree that the same element having "too mixed" a concept is a design issue; instead, the concept of each element only doing one thing is a bigger issue both conceptually and mechnically. From my experience with Fresh Air Tempest, I feel that elementalist should be less restricting, especially in its ability to attunement swap. For example, Fresh Air allows me to swap back into air constantly to take advantage of my strongest skill: overload air. At the same time, I still have to dip into other elements to use their strongest skills before going back to overload air, a rotation that I believe is rewarding, intuitive and well-designed. However, only air has this attunement-resetting trait. Water, despite being shoehorned as the designated healing element most of the time, does not have an equivalent to Fresh Air, resulting in heal builds being locked out of water for long periods of time and tempests being punished for overloading water. Bad game design. Why is there no Fresh Water? I might not want to camp water because I still have to deliver a wide variety of boons, but why is there such a steep opportunity cost to overload water if water is supposed to specialise in healing? Ele needs to be more flexible with its attunement swaps in general, but all that design space for flexibility has been hoarded by weaver... 🤮

To share my unrealistic idea, I would redesign all of the core specialisations, removing the element specialisations so that instead there is a core specialiation specifically for condi damage, strike damage, support and survivability. Most professions in the game are designed with core specialisations divided into these roles because it works; imagine if condi elementalists did not need to always take both fire and earth to maximise burning/bleed duration, or if power builds (aside from ptempest) did not need to take fire for persisting flames despite poor access to fire fields (looking at spear), or if support builds could have some minor healing on non-water weaponskills and could swap immediately back to water upon hitting the 1 boon generating button in another element. 

 

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

my opinion is that anet focuses too much on pure utility for the utility skills in the e-specs, and simply copy / paste too many of them. IE: the shouts for Tempest were basically copied from signets, and then weaver stances and catalyst augments are way too similar in function... while all the other classes actually got interesting variety of NEW utility skills for each of their e-specs. guardian got traps, mantras, and physical skills, for example, which were totally unlike any of their previous utility skills. Mesmer got wells, deceptions, the psionic attacks.

Shouts are very different to signets - if anything, it's signets that have moved closer to shouts because if you have both Written in Stone and Powerful Auras, a signet can have the same aurashare effect as a shout, but shouts are combined area support and damage without needing that trait investment. Augments really need to be better than 4/6 being basically "stance, but it'll punish you if you don't have the right sphere up when you use it".

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

as for "rework" : the first thing they need to do is change all the core melee traits (like sunspot, and pyromancer's puissance) into 1200-ranged traits, so they're not totally worthless on ranged builds., because ranged builds are balanced around these traits, assuming they'll actually hit enemies that are way too far away. earth skills need more poison (which could technically be in any attunement, breathing ash or sand in the air, or chemical smoke from fire is poisonous to breath as well) and possibly even smoke fields could be in earth (as examples of ash exploding into the air from eruptions or sandstorms hiding the elementalist from enemies' views.)

Smoke field was considered for catalyst, but nixed because elementalist doesn't get nice things stealth. So probably not getting that.

I'm personally fine with sunspot and puissance remaining somewhat melee-oriented - you don't lose too much by having them. The bigger problem is all three elite specialisations being designed with "let's make something that turns elementalist into melee". Which was different with tempest, and sword was responding to popular demand, but nobody wanted the third elite specialisation to be something described as "a steady presence in melee combat".

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

there's actually so many ideas for elementalist skills from GW1 , even from other professions in the game (such as fire arrows, and balthazar's wrath)... and anet somehow keeps giving other classes elemental themed weapons and especs (warrior's berseker spec in fire based, engineer's hammer and spear weapons are electric / air based... the skill thunderclap is based on a GW1 elementalist skill)

Eh, elementalist never had a monopoly on elemental effects, not even on release of GW1. Plus some of those elite specs are intended to reproduce the feel of having an elementalist secondary in GW1.

6 minutes ago, Mascarun.7910 said:

Anyway, to speak specifically about ele, I disagree that the same element having "too mixed" a concept is a design issue; instead, the concept of each element only doing one thing is a bigger issue both conceptually and mechnically. From my experience with Fresh Air Tempest, I feel that elementalist should be less restricting, especially in its ability to attunement swap. For example, Fresh Air allows me to swap back into air constantly to take advantage of my strongest skill: overload air. At the same time, I still have to dip into other elements to use their strongest skills before going back to overload air, a rotation that I believe is rewarding, intuitive and well-designed. However, only air has this attunement-resetting trait. Water, despite being shoehorned as the designated healing element most of the time, does not have an equivalent to Fresh Air, resulting in heal builds being locked out of water for long periods of time and tempests being punished for overloading water. Bad game design. Why is there no Fresh Water? I might not want to camp water because I still have to deliver a wide variety of boons, but why is there such a steep opportunity cost to overload water if water is supposed to specialise in healing? Ele needs to be more flexible with its attunement swaps in general, but all that design space for flexibility has been hoarded by weaver... 🤮

I think the biggest problem here is that attunement-swapping was designed to be something that allowed you to switch your role, and with the attribute system they had when elementalist was first revealed that might have worked. However, the only thing stopping it from being obsolete the moment the game released due to changes in the attribute system in development was that condition damage and healing power didn't mean anything for a few months after release (maybe even until HoT was in the works). As soon as that changed, the attunements immediately ran into the problem that you could switch attunements, but doing so didn't switch you attributes - so any element that relies on attributes you haven't invested in becomes valueless. They've taken steps to address this with some weapons (for instance, selfish heals like water trident tend to have a high base heal and low HP scaling, so water sceptre actually does work well on a power build), but it's still a millstone around elementalist's neck. 

[Twilightmage.8309]

let us actually focus on 1-2 elements if we want to. I know it would take some major reworking, but i would much prefer being able to focus on 1-2 elements and having them be more unique and powerful.

Let us actually be a big condi fire mage, a crit focused lightning mage, a water healer/frost ccer, or tanky earth mage. We would have so much more choice in identity than having to dance through everything a bit in every spec.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

41 minutes ago, Twilightmage.8309 said:

let us actually focus on 1-2 elements if we want to. I know it would take some major reworking, but i would much prefer being able to focus on 1-2 elements and having them be more unique and powerful.

Let us actually be a big condi fire mage, a crit focused lightning mage, a water healer/frost ccer, or tanky earth mage. We would have so much more choice in identity than having to dance through everything a bit in every spec.

Imagine if available elements on your skill bar would be based on first 2 trait lines that you've picked, so if you picked Fire and Air you'd only get Fire + Air attuments. The 3rd line would be just additional bonuses that would give more synergy like Water to get condi cleanse on swap or something. Arcane line would give us pure mana-based skills or something. It'd be kinda wild for Weaver, but instead of getting a second attument, you'd get a weapon swap and maybe new set of F1-F4 skills that would be Weaver exlusive skills.
There's like kitten load of possibilities for Elementalists, like you could also make it into something like Revenants that could pick your own attuments at any given time.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Shouts are very different to signets - if anything, it's signets that have moved closer to shouts because if you have both Written in Stone and Powerful Auras, a signet can have the same aurashare effect as a shout, but shouts are combined area support and damage without needing that trait investment. Augments really need to be better than 4/6 being basically "stance, but it'll punish you if you don't have the right sphere up when you use it".

fire signet: burn foes at your target: fire shout: burn foes around you: ... earth signet: impair your targets' movement through immobilize, earth shout: impair the movement of foes around you with immobilize; ... air signet: break stun and boost your movement speed: air shout: break stun and boost allies' movement speed around you.... see? basically same skill: does the same things. Even if there's slightly different "flavor", with maybe a different boon, or a trait required for aura (again, it's a rehash giving the same thing to the other skill type) but look at the skills. the skills do the same things, but at different ranges. at least water signet and water shout were different (heal versus chill), oh wait they both chill enemies... 

with all the skills in GW1, you'd think they could have given us something totally DIFFERENT in the shout skills, instead of simply changing the range and tossing in a boon

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Smoke field was considered for catalyst, but nixed because elementalist doesn't get nice things stealth. So probably not getting that.

i mentioned smoke field only because it can be elemental, and it's already on trident. i'm well aware of stealth debates. the point of my post was that, and i'll quote you: 

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

elementalist doesn't get nice things

especially when other classes get nice elemental things

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm personally fine with sunspot and puissance remaining somewhat melee-oriented - you don't lose too much by having them. The bigger problem is all three elite specialisations being designed with "let's make something that turns elementalist into melee". Which was different with tempest, and sword was responding to popular demand, but nobody wanted the third elite specialisation to be something described as "a steady presence in melee combat".

sunspsot and pyromancer's puissance among others : doesn't matter "how" useful or not they are, they're are core minor melee traits for a class that is described as ranged, which is worse because of the focus on melee e-specs. core elementalist is supposed to be ranged, but still has mostly melee (or point blank AoE) traits. that looks like gaslighting to me. doesn't matter that it's barely useful in melee: it's not useful at all at range. can you imagine Ranger's longbow trait only giving melee damage buff? on a ranged weapon? that's the issue here. elementalist is a ranged class, with mostly melee minor traits. the minor traits, as a reminder, you don't get to choose another trait. you don't get a choice on minor traits. (absent choosing a different trait line) Once you choose that trait line, you get those 3 minor traits. 2 of them are useful at melee AND range. 1 of them is only useful in melee (obviously, pyromancer's puissance is not a minor trait, but it should still be useful at range, being as that elementalist doesn't actually have any melee oriented core weapons (daggers are close range, and even i would argue that they're essentially point blank Aoe in nature with their under 600 range)

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Eh, elementalist never had a monopoly on elemental effects, not even on release of GW1. Plus some of those elite specs are intended to reproduce the feel of having an elementalist secondary in GW1.

way to misinterpret: i'm fine with other classes using elements: i'm NOT fine with all the GOOD elemental ideas going to OTHER classes when elementalist keeps getting pure garbage and rehashes... to say it another way: if they can give the other classes good elemental themed stuff, then they can give good elemental themed stuff to elementalist.

 

Edited July 9 by Forgotten Legend.9281

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Imagine if available elements on your skill bar would be based on first 2 trait lines that you've picked, so if you picked Fire and Air you'd only get Fire + Air attuments. The 3rd line would be just additional bonuses that would give more synergy like Water to get condi cleanse on swap or something. Arcane line would give us pure mana-based skills or something. It'd be kinda wild for Weaver, but instead of getting a second attument, you'd get a weapon swap and maybe new set of F1-F4 skills that would be Weaver exlusive skills.
There's like kitten load of possibilities for Elementalists, like you could also make it into something like Revenants that could pick your own attuments at any given time.

I've often proposed an elite specialisation working that way.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

fire signet: burn foes at your target: fire shout: burn foes around you: ... earth signet: impair your targets' movement through immobilize, earth shout: impair the movement of foes around you with immobilize; ... air signet: break stun and boost your movement speed: air shout: break stun and boost allies' movement speed around you.... see? basically same skill: does the same things. Even if there's slightly different "flavor", with maybe a different boon, or a trait required for aura (again, it's a rehash giving the same thing to the other skill type) but look at the skills. the skills do the same things, but at different ranges. at least water signet and water shout were different (heal versus chill), oh wait they both chill enemies... 

You're cherrypicking the aspects they have in common while ignoring many of the factors they don't. Two fire skills burning is hardly surprising because burning is a fire thing. Impairing movement is a common earth thing. Mobility is an air thing, and professions need to have stunbreaks. I could list all of the important distinctions you're glossing over, but it would turn this into an even longer post than it's looking like it's going to be.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

i mentioned smoke field only because it can be elemental, and it's already on trident. i'm well aware of stealth debates. the point of my post was that, and i'll quote you: 

especially when other classes get nice elemental things

I don't strictly disagree, hence the snarky way I put it, but ArenaNet did consider making the catalyst turtle a smoke field and decided on poison instead because they didn't want to give stealth to elementalist, and making it a poison field instead was seen as the least bad alternative. It's still a terrible alternative - I wouldn't expect it to be any indication that they're going to give the poison condition to elementalist outside of combos with the earth turtle. What they should do is take a leaf out of engineer's book and associate confusion with lightning on condition weapons like pistol.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

sunspsot and pyromancer's puissance among others : doesn't matter "how" useful or not they are, they're are core minor melee traits for a class that is described as ranged, which is worse because of the focus on melee e-specs. core elementalist is supposed to be ranged, but still has mostly melee (or point blank AoE) traits. that looks like gaslighting to me. doesn't matter that it's barely useful in melee: it's not useful at all at range. can you imagine Ranger's longbow trait only giving melee damage buff? on a ranged weapon? that's the issue here. elementalist is a ranged class, with mostly melee minor traits. the minor traits, as a reminder, you don't get to choose another trait. you don't get a choice on minor traits. (absent choosing a different trait line) Once you choose that trait line, you get those 3 minor traits. 2 of them are useful at melee AND range. 1 of them is only useful in melee (obviously, pyromancer's puissance is not a minor trait, but it should still be useful at range, being as that elementalist doesn't actually have any melee oriented core weapons (daggers are close range, and even i would argue that they're essentially point blank Aoe in nature with their under 600 range)

Dude, pretty much every ranged build in the game has something that you'd need to get close to really make use of - it's a question of how much of the overall power budget it is. Sunspot is really not all that significant, and the fire aura still helps ranged builds (depending on other traits, it's arguably the most important part of Sunspot). Puissance is a major so you're not locked into it. Earthen Blast also technically does a PBAoE, but the damage portion is tiny, you'd mostly care about the barrier, and the cripple is something that you could use to open up the distance afterwards. When I play a ranged elementalist, not getting that tiny amount of damage from Sunspot is just not something I care about, and making it ranged by default would probably get it nerfed.

Know what I do care about? 2.1 coefficient from Catalyst jade spheres. Honestly, among the big list of things wrong with Catalyst, it'd probably be so much better if they just removed the damage and rebalanced the damage to be elsewhere.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

way to misinterpret: i'm fine with other classes using elements: i'm NOT fine with all the GOOD elemental ideas going to OTHER classes when elementalist keeps getting pure garbage and rehashes... to say it another way: if they can give the other classes good elemental themed stuff, then they can give good elemental themed stuff to elementalist.

 

I'm not sure that the other classes are getting all the good ideas. More that the good ideas elementalist gets tends to also be tied up with bad ideas such that the whole thing falls down. Which is part of the reason I view Catalyst as such wasted potential - they could have done sooooo much with it by embracing "empowered by the elemental creatures of Cantha" thing rather than just making them holograms, and instead they dropped the ball big-time on basically everything with it.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You're cherrypicking the aspects they have in common while ignoring many of the factors they don't. Two fire skills burning is hardly surprising because burning is a fire thing. Impairing movement is a common earth thing. Mobility is an air thing, and professions need to have stunbreaks. I could list all of the important distinctions you're glossing over, but it would turn this into an even longer post than it's looking like it's going to be.

okay... tell me what other utility skill does the same thing that fire shout and fire signet do... when you compare staff fire auto with dagger fire auto with scepter fire auto... and compare them, you see they have damage and burning in common, but they are different skills... look at the signets versus the shouts... and look at all the other utilities... signets versus shouts: share more than 50% of each other's function, more when traited.... then look at arcane skills? is there any arcane skill that is so similiar to signets?... how about glyphs? how about conjures?  sure, shouts buff allies and signets have passives... that IS different, but activate the skill they have a very similiar description.... look at the only other utitlity "pair" that share something in common: arcane shield and armor of earth... they share stun break... that's it (okay, they're both defensive in nature), but one gives barrier and stability, while the other explodes after it blocks attacks. air signet breaks stun and gives swiftness and superspeed (yourself)... air shout breaks stun and gives and superspeed (allies)... that's so similar that a trait could make that small of a change... utility skills are not supposed to be that similiar.

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I don't strictly disagree, hence the snarky way I put it, but ArenaNet did consider making the catalyst turtle a smoke field and decided on poison instead because they didn't want to give stealth to elementalist, and making it a poison field instead was seen as the least bad alternative. It's still a terrible alternative - I wouldn't expect it to be any indication that they're going to give the poison condition to elementalist outside of combos with the earth turtle. What they should do is take a leaf out of engineer's book and associate confusion with lightning on condition weapons like pistol.

i think you are so focused on smoke field that i think you missed my point.... that they give more conditions to elementalist... BUT we agree on that point. imo, ele should be able to apply ALL damaging conditions. (i actually think Weaver had perfect potential to apply torment and confusion on the third-slot weapon skills.)

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Dude, pretty much every ranged build in the game has something that you'd need to get close to really make use of - it's a question of how much of the overall power budget it is. Sunspot is really not all that significant, and the fire aura still helps ranged builds (depending on other traits, it's arguably the most important part of Sunspot). Puissance is a major so you're not locked into it. Earthen Blast also technically does a PBAoE, but the damage portion is tiny, you'd mostly care about the barrier, and the cripple is something that you could use to open up the distance afterwards. When I play a ranged elementalist, not getting that tiny amount of damage from Sunspot is just not something I care about, and making it ranged by default would probably get it nerfed.

Know what I do care about? 2.1 coefficient from Catalyst jade spheres. Honestly, among the big list of things wrong with Catalyst, it'd probably be so much better if they just removed the damage and rebalanced the damage to be elsewhere.

YES, all the meta ranged builds take close ranged stuff in them. i'm not talking about taking melee skills or a melee weapon in a ranged build... i'm talking about (essentially) a weapon trait (since attunement swap acts as weapon swap mechanically for elementalist) that ignores the weapons... there are no core melee weapons, but 3 of the four minor traits are still melee oriented. fine if you solo everything and enemies come to you, but worthless for ranged players who play as a plus 1 or with a tank that keeps the enemies' focus. you like the aura from sunspot... but auras require you to get hit to do anything... so what happens if you never get hit? then not only don't you do any damage at range (you do  when swapping to air if traited), but the aura is wasted, too. there are some players who like the close combat style, and others who prefer to stay at range and not get hit

I've made several suggestion on these forums to make all of those minor traits into a) damage based on target and b) the buffs based on self. and if you read what i said.. i already acknowledged that puissance can be changed. i know you said you don't care about it... but you obviously care alot more than you think, because you're arguing against it just because you're afraid it will get nerfed. WHY would it get nerfed when melee builds are obviously so much stronger than ranged builds? why can't ranged builds have traits that will help with their damage? why must ranged builds be FORCED to go into melee to get any damage potential from the traits they are forced to take?

look at guardian justice virtue: it procs its damage burns at foes location regardless of weapon. it wasn't always the case. they actually made changes to the original virtue to make it into what it is now. That's what i'm asking for: that they update all 4 minor master traits offer damage at target's location regardless of equipped weapon, like they did with Justice for guardian. maybe i keep harping on it because i feel like i've been ignored on this issue since beta, because it's only an issue for elementalist. the other classes have weapon traits that were changed to be viable for ALL weapons, but elementalist "weapon" traits are only good in melee, when it's a ranged class

and please make up your mind: either the sunspot trait is worthless or it isn't... if it would get nerfed if it was ranged, than it isn't as inconsequential as you make it out to be. i was pretty sure that everyone on these forums agree that the melee (and close) specs are in a good high damaging place, while the ranged specs are under-performing. buffing those traits ( into damaging the target, even at range) can help close the gap without over-tuning the weapons.

So you admit you don't care about these core traits, but care about Catalyst. guess what? i don't like catalyst and couldn't care less about it, but i'm not going to berate you for suggesting buffs to the spec that i don't care about. you also keep acting like changing core traits and changing espec skills is an either / or proposition. they can do both! they can give you something that you think is a glaring oversight and they can give me something that i think is a glaring oversight.

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm not sure that the other classes are getting all the good ideas. More that the good ideas elementalist gets tends to also be tied up with bad ideas such that the whole thing falls down. Which is part of the reason I view Catalyst as such wasted potential - they could have done sooooo much with it by embracing "empowered by the elemental creatures of Cantha" thing rather than just making them holograms, and instead they dropped the ball big-time on basically everything with it.

on this i think we agree. to clarify my own stance: i'm saying that the elemental ideas on other classes are maybe not better, but more thought out and "complete" than the stuff they keep giving to elementalist: which is thought out better Holosmith (fire) or Catalyst? i'd say Holosmith. same for  Berserker ( fire), Scrapper (lightning), reaper (chill based). and no i'm not complaining that the other classes got those specs... i'm complaining that ele keeps getting crap, and the same old same old that it already has/ pistol? doesn't really feel like it fills a new role. Hammer? feels like dagger dagger 2.0. Catalyst? feels like a weird mashup of core auramancer with stances and dagger dagger 2.0. Tempest? the overloads were nice, but otherwise felt like another mashup of signets with auramancer. at least Weaver offered something new (even though i don't like melee playstyle, i think it's the best overall complete espec we have)

as for catalyst: i hate catalyst so much that i never play it. it was the biggest disappointment for me. it felt like they took my F5 storm idea and turned into the one style of play i abhor: buff bot. they turned the jade sphere into boon fields. i wanted pure damage storms, that could combine the elements and get stronger as you switched attunements. i wanted the energy mechanic to buff the utility skills, semi holosmith style. I wanted utility skills that weren't just another round of stances that were kitten if you weren't in the boon fields. i wanted a weapon that had melee skills in one attunement, and ranged skills (900-1000) in another attunement. i would have preferred a full on ranged glass canon e-spec. after tempest and weaver... But mesmer got the better ranged nuker spec in Virtuoso. On a Canthan note, they could have repurposed Tenai's skills from GW1, or repurposed other Canthan skills. 

we obviously both agree that they're dropping the ball on elementalist, but care more about different things. so since i don't care about catalyst at all: and you don't care about core minor master traits like i do: how about you stick to asking for buffs on what you care about, and let me ask for buffs where i care about.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Forgotten Legend.9281 What you're complaining about for elementalist in particular is true for all professions.

• Skills that are very similar to each other? Yep, all professions suffer from this. (Necromancer have 3 weapon skillsets whose AA is litterally "copy-past")
• Cool skills from GW1 going to another profession? Yep, all professions have that as well. (Mesmer's epidemic have been taken away by the necromancer)
• The devs not giving things that totally fall into the thematic for obscure reason? Yep, all professions are similarly confused about that. (Dark aura exist, it's totally a necromancer thing and yet, necromancer can only access it if he play reaper because it's the only e-spec with a leap finisher... And said reaper would rather get frost aura...)
• The devs not listening to the player base wishes? Yep, that's true for every professions. (Having a nice synergy with aura is almost exclusively offered to elementalist. Plenty of game mechanic exist around aura thanks to that but the devs seem absolutely hell bent against using these existing things to craft something thematically fitting for professions with thematical access to chaos aura, dark aura or light aura. They would rather give those professions a thousand variation of the skills they already have.)

On topic:

Elementalist don't need a complete rework, it just need a few QoL which are totally within the devs' ability to provide. The melee AA chain + ranged attack that some spears concepts showcased is the kind of QoL that elementalist needed. The long lost Lingering elements effect is something that the current elementalist still miss (I mean, thay could at least put this effect for each element within their own traitline).

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

okay... tell me what other utility skill does the same thing that fire shout and fire signet do... when you compare staff fire auto with dagger fire auto with scepter fire auto... and compare them, you see they have damage and burning in common, but they are different skills... look at the signets versus the shouts... and look at all the other utilities... signets versus shouts: share more than 50% of each other's function, more when traited.... then look at arcane skills? is there any arcane skill that is so similiar to signets?... how about glyphs? how about conjures?  sure, shouts buff allies and signets have passives... that IS different, but activate the skill they have a very similiar description.... look at the only other utitlity "pair" that share something in common: arcane shield and armor of earth... they share stun break... that's it (okay, they're both defensive in nature), but one gives barrier and stability, while the other explodes after it blocks attacks. air signet breaks stun and gives swiftness and superspeed (yourself)... air shout breaks stun and gives and superspeed (allies)... that's so similar that a trait could make that small of a change... utility skills are not supposed to be that similiar.

Let's focus on the fire skills, then, noting that similar comments will apply to the others:

Signet of Fire has a passive effect. Feel the Burn doesn't.

Signet of Fire's burning is a relatively tight radius centred on a target up to 1200 away. Feel the Burn has a massive 600 radius, but centred on the user. Worth noting here that at the time FtB! was introduced, SoF was purely single-target.

Feel the Burn grants might, fury, and flame aura to allies within the area, plus potentially other effects if you have traits that enhance auras. SoF can only provide supporting effects if you're running two specific grandmaster traits, and even that was only possibly due to a recent buff to a trait, long after FtB! was introduced.

Taken as skills on their own, their similarities begin and end with "inflicts burning in an area". Know what else inflicts burning in an area? Fireball. And a bunch of other fire-related skills. It's basically fire's thing. But the size and location of the area is different, and unless running a very specific set of traitlines that were only enabled to work in that way within the past year or so, one has supporting aspects while the other is entirely selfish. FtB! is pretty much custom-made to work with Tempest - close range, hits a large area, has supportive aspects as well - while SoF is more general-purpose and selfish choice (I can't really see many situations outside of meme builds where you'd actually run Written in Stone and Powerful Auras when you could just run FtB! and be able to run useful aura traits in other lines like Smothering Auras). 

 

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

i think you are so focused on smoke field that i think you missed my point.... that they give more conditions to elementalist... BUT we agree on that point. imo, ele should be able to apply ALL damaging conditions. (i actually think Weaver had perfect potential to apply torment and confusion on the third-slot weapon skills.)

One could agree on a general point while still having a very different idea on the specifics. 

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

YES, all the meta ranged builds take close ranged stuff in them. i'm not talking about taking melee skills or a melee weapon in a ranged build... i'm talking about (essentially) a weapon trait (since attunement swap acts as weapon swap mechanically for elementalist) that ignores the weapons... there are no core melee weapons, but 3 of the four minor traits are still melee oriented. fine if you solo everything and enemies come to you, but worthless for ranged players who play as a plus 1 or with a tank that keeps the enemies' focus. you like the aura from sunspot... but auras require you to get hit to do anything... so what happens if you never get hit? then not only don't you do any damage at range (you do  when swapping to air if traited), but the aura is wasted, too. there are some players who like the close combat style, and others who prefer to stay at range and not get hit

Virtuoso, to give one very well known example, has Bladeturn Refrain. This doesn't stop it from being full ranged, because the contribution it grants is negligible. Sunspot, if not traited with Burning Rage, is the same. It's less than an autoattack on an effective 10s cooldown (although weavers can trigger it more often). Woop de doo.

I'd say that if you're just not getting hit at all, you're already winning. That's not the experience for most people who are engaging in any content where you actually need to squeeze every drop of efficiency out of your build. If you're just not getting hit, 0.6 coefficient every 10s is not going to be the difference between success or failure.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

I've made several suggestion on these forums to make all of those minor traits into a) damage based on target and b) the buffs based on self. and if you read what i said.. i already acknowledged that puissance can be changed. i know you said you don't care about it... but you obviously care alot more than you think, because you're arguing against it just because you're afraid it will get nerfed. WHY would it get nerfed when melee builds are obviously so much stronger than ranged builds? why can't ranged builds have traits that will help with their damage? why must ranged builds be FORCED to go into melee to get any damage potential from the traits they are forced to take?

Because ArenaNet insisted on making every elite specialisation for melee combat. That is the real problem here. A tiny amount of damage from a couple of traits being centred on your character is not. If you're not going melee, you don't take Burning Rage and you don't take Pyromancer's Puissance. There are alternatives.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

look at guardian justice virtue: it procs its damage burns at foes location regardless of weapon. it wasn't always the case. they actually made changes to the original virtue to make it into what it is now. That's what i'm asking for: that they update all 4 minor master traits offer damage at target's location regardless of equipped weapon, like they did with Justice for guardian. maybe i keep harping on it because i feel like i've been ignored on this issue since beta, because it's only an issue for elementalist. the other classes have weapon traits that were changed to be viable for ALL weapons, but elementalist "weapon" traits are only good in melee, when it's a ranged class

I presume you're referring to Justice when traited with Permeating Wrath, since untraited Justice always triggered on whatever you hit with an attack.

From my perspective, all of those minor traits have something to offer to full ranged builds. Fire has the fire aura... and any traits you might have that are triggered by the fire aura. Water is healing, and if you're ranged, you probably want the healing on you and not on your enemy. Air is already ranged. Earth grants barrier, and if the enemy is close enough, it'll cripple them so you can get away. The tiny amount of damage that Earthen Blast and untraited Sunspot apply is just not worth making a big deal about.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

and please make up your mind: either the sunspot trait is worthless or it isn't... if it would get nerfed if it was ranged, than it isn't as inconsequential as you make it out to be. i was pretty sure that everyone on these forums agree that the melee (and close) specs are in a good high damaging place, while the ranged specs are under-performing. buffing those traits ( into damaging the target, even at range) can help close the gap without over-tuning the weapons.

Sunspot contributes when you take a trait. And there's also a degree to which getting a little more from being melee makes sense. Sure, if you're trying to get every little bit, it counts, but I don't think Sunspot is significant enough to be a big deal, particularly compared to overloads and spheres. Most, if not all, "full ranged" builds have something, somewhere, that you're not getting the benefit from if you're keeping at longer ranges, but there's a threshold of significance beyond which you just don't care. And, frankly, I'd rather have something that is generally below the threshold but which is a nice extra sometimes, than something that gets nerfed into being immaterial always.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

on this i think we agree. to clarify my own stance: i'm saying that the elemental ideas on other classes are maybe not better, but more thought out and "complete" than the stuff they keep giving to elementalist: which is thought out better Holosmith (fire) or Catalyst? i'd say Holosmith. same for  Berserker ( fire), Scrapper (lightning), reaper (chill based). and no i'm not complaining that the other classes got those specs... i'm complaining that ele keeps getting crap, and the same old same old that it already has/ pistol? doesn't really feel like it fills a new role. Hammer? feels like dagger dagger 2.0. Catalyst? feels like a weird mashup of core auramancer with stances and dagger dagger 2.0. Tempest? the overloads were nice, but otherwise felt like another mashup of signets with auramancer. at least Weaver offered something new (even though i don't like melee playstyle, i think it's the best overall complete espec we have)

Really? Holosmith? Gets a bit of burning application, but its theme is light, not fire, it's just that enough light can ignite things. Berserker? Torch, longbow, if you have the right weapon the burst skill might be fire-themed, they're dabbling at best. Scrapper? Hammer is a melee weapon with fancy graphics and a few fields, dagger air is a better lightning theme and that's a low bar as it is - the upcoming engineer spear is better but it's still a melee weapon. Reaper? Lots of chill, but you don't actually see much ice, it's mostly necromantic energy that seems to be sucking out heat similar to how necromancer inflicted cold damage in GW1. I was expecting some actual competition in the elemental field like burn guardian, greatsword mesmer, or Jalis revenant.

It's not that elemental magic has really been done better in other professions, it's that it's been done short in general. There are some good ideas in there, but a large part of the issue is that most of them are mixed in with something just plain bad that ruins them. Hammer should have had some actual range in the ranged attunements. Spear doesn't look like it's going to work well with any currently existing elite specialisation. Pistol even has a couple of good ideas, but it's, well, pistol. Fire is actually done pretty well with most weapons, which is probably why it's popular, but builds usually use at least two attunements, and other attunements are a bit hit and miss (consider air, for instance - staff is terrible, sceptre looks cool but is unsatisfying except for how it synergises with Fresh Air for Electric Discharge spamming, dagger is... suffice it to say lightning whip isn't what I imagine from a lightning wizard, even if it is effective). In other professions, you usually have the ability to pick and choose the bits that work. In elementalist, though? You could have a great set of skills on one attunement, but you're likely going to be using two to four of them, and it becomes a drag if any of them are poorly done.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

as for catalyst: i hate catalyst so much that i never play it. it was the biggest disappointment for me. it felt like they took my F5 storm idea and turned into the one style of play i abhor: buff bot. they turned the jade sphere into boon fields. i wanted pure damage storms, that could combine the elements and get stronger as you switched attunements. i wanted the energy mechanic to buff the utility skills, semi holosmith style. I wanted utility skills that weren't just another round of stances that were kitten if you weren't in the boon fields. i wanted a weapon that had melee skills in one attunement, and ranged skills (900-1000) in another attunement. i would have preferred a full on ranged glass canon e-spec. after tempest and weaver... But mesmer got the better ranged nuker spec in Virtuoso. On a Canthan note, they could have repurposed Tenai's skills from GW1, or repurposed other Canthan skills. 

I don't think they took your idea - it was very clearly intended to be a source of buffs first and they added the damage in because they thought it made sense. From a power perspective, that actually probably makes more sense - access to quickness is a big deal when playing solo. Problem is, having significant damage on it as well as buffs means you now want to be close enough to the enemy that you're both in the sphere. Take the damage off, and the spheres could be... well, similar to the etchings on spear. Plant your spheres at your feet and use them as a spot to stand and launch attacks from. Putting as much damage on them as they have done pretty much forces them to be melee.

And after tempest and weaver, the third elementalist elite spec should never have been something that was described in marketing as a " steady presence in melee combat". That was the last thing elementalist needed.

My thoughts, if I had carte blanche to rework catalyst, would probably be:

1) Remove the stupid jade projector. It's now a profession empowered by the elemental beasts of Cantha. Change the dialogue at the NPC to suit. Remove the damage (adjust the graphics if it feels too much like it looks like it should be doing damage).

2) Augments are now Invocations. The earth one, the elite, and possibly the heal stay, although the earth one is renamed to Earth Shell. The others are now invoking the spirit of the creature in question for some powerful effect. Invoke the flames of the phoenix on your enemies. Conjure a kirin's whirlpool. Summon a lightning dragon to breath lightning at your enemy. 

3) Rework the traits so that the elite specialisation isn't built around stacking up to three separate stackable buffs.

4 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

we obviously both agree that they're dropping the ball on elementalist, but care more about different things. so since i don't care about catalyst at all: and you don't care about core minor master traits like i do: how about you stick to asking for buffs on what you care about, and let me ask for buffs where i care about.

Here's the thing - I actually like sunspot being centred on the elementalist. It's flavourful, and it has an additional effect such that full ranged builds don't consider it a wasted trait. Same for Earthen Blast. Lightning randomly discharging on an enemy within long range kinda makes sense - it's lightning, after all - but I think a fiery explosion or an burst of earth happening at a distance and actually hitting something useful as a free action while swapping attunements might be a bit too far. Both from a thematic perspective, and from a balance one, since if they automatically hit a target at long range, I'm pretty sure they would get nerfed. As is, it's a nice boost if you do happen to be in close, but I don't think it's enough damage to really be concerned about if they're not landing, unless you have Burning Rage traited (and if you do, you've committed to it). As opposed to overloads, which are most of the power budget of tempest, and spheres, which in normal usage will be several times the damage granted by untraited Sunspot and Earthen Blast combined. Making all of the minor traits ranged, even with the exception of water since it's a self-heal that will also heal allies close by, would make them feel a bit samey, and I don't think the additional effect that would come from doing so would really be enough to matter.

Seriously, in the scenario of highest significance, you run weaver, go fire-fire-earth-fire-fire-earth, and with unaugmented Sunspot you're losing a total of 1.56 coefficient every 12 seconds through those minors not going off. Alacrity will cut that down to 9.6 seconds. Fireball has a 1.4 coefficient with a single fireball, with a bit of burning on top. You're making a big deal on what basically amounts to one extra autoattack every ten seconds, and that's the extreme. Not playing Weaver? Best you can get is 0.96 every 8 seconds with Alacrity (faster I guess if you take Arcane instead of an elite specialisation, but that's getting a little silly and it's still likely to be a lower coefficient per second ratio than Weaver) and that's if you're not actually using any skills from the attunements, just cycling in and out again when the attunement refreshes. Spend any longer than the absolute minimum time in each attunement, and the significance of these oh-so-important minors dwindles even further.  

[Arya Whitefire.8423]

---whoops wrong forum---

Edited July 10 by Arya Whitefire.8423

[corwin.3495]

Maybe they should give the Elementalist an option to choose between wielding two elements at a time, much like revenant legendary stances.
You could chose the elements you need based on the battle (same as revenant). Of course they would need to re-work some other utilities but overall would be worth and then they might even be able to unlock a weapon swap because of the locked 2 elements at a time.  

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Since ~POF almost all classes/specs got two-fold effects for most of their weapon and utility skills, while we still get the argument "but you have 20 skills" to specifically limit effects, enlarge CD etc.
If you cut by half the elements to play with, you will need to buff really high every skills; base and coef, new effect / sustain, rework every traitlanes trait by trait; it would  be insane to balance.

[Panda.1967]

On 7/9/2024 at 10:58 AM, Mascarun.7910 said:

Water, despite being shoehorned as the designated healing element most of the time, does not have an equivalent to Fresh Air, resulting in heal builds being locked out of water for long periods of time and tempests being punished for overloading water. Bad game design. Why is there no Fresh Water? I might not want to camp water because I still have to deliver a wide variety of boons, but why is there such a steep opportunity cost to overload water if water is supposed to specialise in healing?

The issues with healing could be fixed by adding some group utility with barrier, stability, and aegis to earth attunement…

the traits in each attunement spec also shouldn’t be heavily reliant on being in that attunement either… that is one of the biggest failing points of core elementalist in fact… all attunement specific traits should be in the arcane line… water spec should improve support and utility across all attunements, earth should affect personal survivability, air should be control and mobility, while fire spec focuses on damage… you know like how EVERY OTHER PROFESSION’S CORE SPECS ARE DESIGNED! Seriously… every other profession has a key roll for each spec in their designs…

[Jeyzer.1605]

8 hours ago, corwin.3495 said:

Maybe they should give the Elementalist an option to choose between wielding two elements at a time, much like revenant legendary stances.
You could chose the elements you need based on the battle (same as revenant). Of course they would need to re-work some other utilities but overall would be worth and then they might even be able to unlock a weapon swap because of the locked 2 elements at a time.  

Yeah that's the main suggestion many have presented since basically forever, I've even posted two elite spec ideas that essentially boil down to that, but Anet keeps coming up with the worst possible outcomes when it comes to Ele elite specs for some reason

[ScottBroChill.3254]

yeah the whole 4 attunements covering all grounds as a core foundation didn't leave much wiggle room for class expansion and espec focus.

They could have had it so ele still has less weapons and more skills, but they get to pick what element they want and then have just a normal 5 skills, but them being stronger or more frequent use to make up for it, and allowing ele to focus on a tailored build.

They could have had an espec that allowed ele to use two attunements much like the rev legends.

They could have had it so ele has 20 skills per weapon, but you get to pick the 5 you want so you mix and match. Basically ele's mechanic could have been a prepared spell book that doesn't lock them in but insteadyou get 5 totally build tailored skills. This kinda stuff would also allow ele to have harder hitting skills because it wouldnt have to be balanced around have so much utility and survival baked into every build. 

But a mechanic of having 4 attunements means there stuck with that many skills, and theres no way to change the mechanic for especs. The only one that felt like a true mechanic change was weaver.

[Jski.6180]

HP / def needs to be standardize or at least a version of it though power or healing power needs to be very base off of class to counter balance it.

In no way is the dmg scaling making up for how glassly ele is atm beyond some FOTM pve builds that will be fixed in an given time that only leads to tankly classes becoming FOTM pve build that for some reason dmg as much (or more) as the lowest hp/def class. Pve is a very bad place to balance classes any way at this point spvp and wvw are far more important for classes balancing.

The classes being used in wvw/spvp as well as the builds there need to be the balancing of gw2 and pve balancing needs to be more of an after though. It will be the only way to balance ele and rework the classes right.

[vardeleanu.8972]

 

On 7/9/2024 at 2:18 PM, crosknight.3041 said:

make them more like guardian spirit weapons for the simplicity and purity of purpose

yes, turn another set of unique skills into boring garbage to appeal to the players of another class that can't be bothered to press more than 2 buttons again, why not

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Or make somewhat like old banners : you get your weapon in your hands, but the second on the ground creates a field + it gives its attributes to allies in radius or boon/damage/whatever.
You summon an earth shield on the ground, it attracts foes nearby + prot/resolution to allies. You summon an ice SB: it chills foes + healing to allies ...

[Jeyzer.1605]

5 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

In no way is the dmg scaling making up for how glassly ele is atm

There is "no dmg scaling" to make up for how glassy Ele is atm, Ele pulls less damage than other classes in WvW, while having less utility.

Right now, there's not a single worthwhile compensation to make up for how incredibly squishy Ele is. Playing DPS Ele in WvW Zerg means having 1200 range at most if running staff (so not even the highest range for the squishiest class, there are THREE classes with more ranged damage), less burst than Rev / Warrior / Necro / Engi, 0 boonstrip, and your unblockable (essential buff given the boonball mess pulsing aegis every 0.5s) is locked behind Catalyst, so you can't play anything else in this meta. You don't even have higher DPS than the other classes I mentioned. 

The golden children of Anet, Guardian and Necro, get both the best support classes for WvW (tied with others) AND the best DPS / burst builds. Ele has a decent support build (Cleanse Tempest) and a non existant DPS build. 

Edited July 16 by Jeyzer.1605

[crosknight.3041]

17 hours ago, vardeleanu.8972 said:

 

yes, turn another set of unique skills into boring garbage to appeal to the players of another class that can't be bothered to press more than 2 buttons again, why not

you already use the conjure skills for 1 or 2 skills in most cases, the way they are currently is just needlessly bloated. ele already has 20 weapon skills (more if weaver) and is the class requiring the most apm to be competitive with the other classes. why add even more onto that?

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, crosknight.3041 said:

you already use the conjure skills for 1 or 2 skills in most cases, the way they are currently is just needlessly bloated. ele already has 20 weapon skills (more if weaver) and is the class requiring the most apm to be competitive with the other classes. why add even more onto that?

Because that's not the function conjures were supposed to fill, and elementalist desperately needs the function they were supposed to fill.