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I am actively reading through the 14 pages of this but it is long and I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in, I know I am a bit late to this thread and somebody might even have already said what I am about to say but I'll just leave it here anyway.

As a support Staff Elementalist in spvp I have always looked at Flame burst (Fire Staff 3) skill and wondered what the purpose of it was on Staff outside of the Minor Grandmaster trait Burning Rage in the Fire trait line.I feel like if a Staff Elementalist wants to make use of Burning Rage then we shouldn't have a skill entirely dedicated to just burning on a primarily power based weapon, instead one of our other skills should just inflict burning on the side some kind of way.Flame burst could be replaced to be something more defensive or useful utility wise like Phoenix for Scepter or even have said skill inflict burning as well as having some utility.Flame Burst could also have similar damage to Eruption (Earth Staff 2) in which it inflicts a condition and does power damage but it would still be lacking because Eruption is also a Blast Finisher whereas Flame Burst is not.

Next I would have to address is Lightning Surge (Air Staff 2) It is LITERALLY just Lightning Strike and Blinding Flash from Scepter but with a cast time, it should probably be an entirely different skill honestly, or be updated to have some kind of lingering effect that causes constant damage to further separate it from those 2 skills, but I don't really know what you could do with this one.

Next one is kind of a wild suggestion but if Shock Wave (Earth Staff 5) was replaced with Grasping hands (Downed skill 3) I feel like it would be more useful although I don't know how balanced it would be and some adjustments would have to be made if they were swapped probably.

Last but certainly not least, the Staff weapon for Elementalist having cast times is fine I do like the concept but even our basic attacks feel like they have cast times, especially Fireball (Fire Staff 1), I'd like to see the cast times for at least the auto attacks of Staff be toned down, or maybe even receive an auto attack rework like Guardian Staff did although that would be excessive and not necessary.

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@"foozlesprite.8051" said:I hate to suggest weapon swapping on an already-complex class, but I would /really/ like to have a ranged option when using sword. The only thing I can do if running around with bounties and getting phase-shifted into range is drop an ice bow and hope I don't get downed or somebody doesn't pick up the other one so I can keep holding one until it recharges. And that requires a utility slot to be expended on a frankly disappointing 'weapon.'

It doesn't have to be weapon-swapping, but some way to extend my range, even temporarily, without a utility slot sacrificed would be a godsend.

Elementalist needs a whole redesign, the four attunements are restraining us and leaving us behind.

I say limit attunement selection to two, remove conjures, and give us weapon swap. More about this idea here.

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@secretsauce.7689 said:I am actively reading through the 14 pages of this but it is long and I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in, I know I am a bit late to this thread and somebody might even have already said what I am about to say but I'll just leave it here anyway.

As a support Staff Elementalist in spvp I have always looked at Flame burst (Fire Staff 3) skill and wondered what the purpose of it was on Staff outside of the Minor Grandmaster trait Burning Rage in the Fire trait line.I feel like if a Staff Elementalist wants to make use of Burning Rage then we shouldn't have a skill entirely dedicated to just burning on a primarily power based weapon, instead one of our other skills should just inflict burning on the side some kind of way.Flame burst could be replaced to be something more defensive or useful utility wise like Phoenix for Scepter or even have said skill inflict burning as well as having some utility.Flame Burst could also have similar damage to Eruption (Earth Staff 2) in which it inflicts a condition and does power damage but it would still be lacking because Eruption is also a Blast Finisher whereas Flame Burst is not.

Next I would have to address is Lightning Surge (Air Staff 2) It is LITERALLY just Lightning Strike and Blinding Flash from Scepter but with a cast time, it should probably be an entirely different skill honestly, or be updated to have some kind of lingering effect that causes constant damage to further separate it from those 2 skills, but I don't really know what you could do with this one.

Next one is kind of a wild suggestion but if Shock Wave (Earth Staff 5) was replaced with Grasping hands (Downed skill 3) I feel like it would be more useful although I don't know how balanced it would be and some adjustments would have to be made if they were swapped probably.

Last but certainly not least, the Staff weapon for Elementalist having cast times is fine I do like the concept but even our basic attacks feel like they have cast times, especially Fireball (Fire Staff 1), I'd like to see the cast times for at least the auto attacks of Staff be toned down, or maybe even receive an auto attack rework like Guardian Staff did although that would be excessive and not necessary.

I really like your ideas. Moreover sometimes I thought that the radius of geyser could be increased maybe a bit? It doesn´t have to be like the guardians water field, but the same size as mesmer and necro's wells would be nice:). Furthermore I wish healing rain would also gain a small healing component, not too much, something 500 health per sec, but its name is healing rain and not regenerating rain:D

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@Lonami.2987 said:

@"foozlesprite.8051" said:I hate to suggest weapon swapping on an already-complex class, but I would /really/ like to have a ranged option when using sword. The only thing I can do if running around with bounties and getting phase-shifted into range is drop an ice bow and hope I don't get downed or somebody doesn't pick up the other one so I can keep holding one until it recharges. And that requires a utility slot to be expended on a frankly disappointing 'weapon.'

It doesn't have to be weapon-swapping, but some way to extend my range, even temporarily, without a utility slot sacrificed would be a godsend.

Elementalist needs a whole redesign, the four attunements are restraining us and leaving us behind.

I say limit attunement selection to two, remove conjures, and give us weapon swap.

Really starting to agree with you. Getting locked into one weapon range is at this point of the game terrible, and its becoming more and more so as the game progresses.

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@Dante.1763 said:

@"foozlesprite.8051" said:I hate to suggest weapon swapping on an already-complex class, but I would /really/ like to have a ranged option when using sword. The only thing I can do if running around with bounties and getting phase-shifted into range is drop an ice bow and hope I don't get downed or somebody doesn't pick up the other one so I can keep holding one until it recharges. And that requires a utility slot to be expended on a frankly disappointing 'weapon.'

It doesn't have to be weapon-swapping, but some way to extend my range, even temporarily, without a utility slot sacrificed would be a godsend.

Elementalist needs a whole redesign, the four attunements are restraining us and leaving us behind.

I say limit attunement selection to two, remove conjures, and give us weapon swap.

Really starting to agree with you. Getting locked into one weapon range is at this point of the game terrible, and its becoming more and more so as the game progresses.

They could just rework mainhand weapon skills to have multiple range options. Dagger skills 1 and 2 on fire and water can be ~600 range. Scepter fire (or water) and earth autos can work in a ~400 range wide cone (like icebow 3). Staff water and earth autos can be similar to old guard's staff autos, with rework of eruption (shockwave as well) to be some kind of pulsing aoe around caster so earth becomes more melee friendly. Sword fire (earth maybe as well) auto could work on a similar way like FGS auto.

These are just random ideas, but having different range options on same weapons would be a nice upgrade, especially to melee builds.

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I've been thinking a bit about Weaver and how to balance it out with Elementalist. I had a thought. I think one of the reasons Elementalist is hurting so much is because when put together with Weaver, it has in the past been extremely powerful. I think thats why we lost alot of our damage on attunement swapping abilities, like Arcane Fury and Electric Discharge.

So I was wondering, how would people feel if Arena-Net were to go through a lot of the Weaver Traits and rework them to specifically take effect while the Weaver is wielding 'Blade Weapons', so either a Sword or Dagger? This could push Weaver towards what it probably should have been at the start: a powerful, melee spellsword. By making most of the traits of Weaver work only with swords or daggers, it might allow them to return some damage to core Ele through other traits and skills since Weavers would no longer feel they have to pick Weaver to deal decent DPS. Meanwhile, Weavers's will now be able to have some fairly useful abilities that can make it competitive in either single target DPS with sword and perhaps give it some decent survivability traits now that they wouldn't have to worry about Staff Weavers using all the extra damage abilities.

It's just a small thought and I didn't really think about how it would change the traits. But I dunno about you guys, I would rather see Weaver lose as lot of its Staff and Scepter DPS in order to allow it to truly shine as a Melee Spellsword which is what the class should really be. And in return, hopefully Arena-Net would feel comfortable returning some damage to Core Ele to make that competitive once again.

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It's funny that many ppl want to take everything I enjoy about the ele... cycling through all 4 elements combined with conjures, fields, leaps, explo...

Personally I'd love to see some Aurabuff with defensive, supportive and offensive catabilities... like stacking duration, combining them with each other and interacting with different combofields by blasting them with an explofinisher...

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Here's a thought.

The Elementalist was I believe the first designed profession for the game right? The concept, weapon selection and attunement mechanics were first. But here's the thing, the class was initially designed and built before skills had cooldowns. I think everyone who mains the class remembers the Elementalist Skills video where a female elementalist just keeps casting Meteor Shower on a couple of Ettins until they die.

So the problem is the profession NEEDS to have access to any of its skills at any time (i.e. NO cooldowns) to justify its lack of any sort of baseline mechanic like Shroud or Stealth. It's clear this was initially the idea, that an Ele could instantly attune to Water to heal, or Earth for a defense skill, and not be "locked out" of critical skills.

The introduction of cooldown mechanics was never integrated into Elementalist design, and this is very easily seen in comments about the Weaver's mechanic locking out the 4 and 5 skills behind an extra Attunement CD. And also explains the dilution of effects on skills to lukewarm milk-drinker levels of anemia. Introducing cooldowns to the class SHOULD have forced the dev team to ramp up individual skill effects and/or add a variety of effects to each skill. Instead, they water each skill and trait down to below what other professions have with the justification that the Ele has double the skills. This is rather blind because you can't activate skills twice as fast as other professions.

So yeah, the problem is not with numbers or stats but the fact the Elementalist was NEVER designed properly from the get-go, at least once the cooldown mechanic was introduced to the game's core. I would say the best solution is two-fold:

  1. Eliminate cooldowns on Attunements. Not individual skills, just the ability to switch. Effects like Overloads on Tempest can still have an ICD to avoid abuse.
  2. Give each Attunement a focus. Fire is heavy AoE skills with Burning. Air is only single target skills with Vulnerability and hard CC. Water should be similar to the Druid's Astral skills, just healing and AoE CC. Earth should be HEAVILY Condition focused with strong defensive skills.

Of course, there can be some variation across weapon types, so a Dagger would for example be point blank skills for melee range while a Staff would ONLY have AoE skills. Give each aspect of the Elementalist, whether traitline, weapon or Attunement a defined reason for being used, rather than just everything being a hodge-podge jumbled mess.

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I've run an ele since GW2 released and agree that the class is "virtually" useless without a supporting cast-------------and even then (in PvE /WvW) they are the FIRST target for ANY opponent (and the quickest, easiest "kill"). Why??? Because EVERY ONE of their skills is a RANGED skill-----------offering NO benefit in close combat. Yes, everything CAN be cast, but "cooldown"s minimize the effectiveness of ALL of the ele's skill sets-----------and trying to change attunements??? Not until AFTER you've rezzed at a waypoint!!!IMO--------as it exists today------------the "ele class" should carry a big sign----------"Oh, please, kill me quick"!!!

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If they touch the F# skills I delete my elementalist. I don't want a cheap sweetened elem for afk players.Gameplay is FUN ! DON'T TOUCH THE ATTUNEMENT'S SWAP. Weapons are ...okai (pls stop nerfing staff, pls), I don't think we need to up dmg, may be low some CD *and casting times, revise target tracking, and it'll be fine. The specs are a bit too focused on weapons skills and respective element, not enough on utility skills, it looks like an old design template, as if we had for warrior Mace Spec: minor traits on the swap, major traits on skills #1, #2 etc.From my point of view the weakness are the utility skills : Too weaks too useless, can't sustain or help to dps properly, never reviewed. We had nerfs on conjure weapon because of PvE, now it's dead. Glyphs are a joke. And stances ... stances ... Aqua stance : I'm laughing, or crying, I don't know ; Unravel : too clumsy, in the idea it's good, but why give the boon on the primary element ? Why refresh only one CD ? Why not rather 50% cd reduc ? Stone resonance (and weaver's barriers) : need healing power, It pulses, it doesn't last long, 50 sec cd, it doesn't really help. Arcane : Arcane Blast a bit weak / or slow ? Arcane shield, a bit weak too.

I don't want "+15% dmg" or "Grant 25 mights and quickness and fury" (like holo/soulbeast/rev) on every traits and skills, but without a proper review of utility skills we'll be stucked in water's spec and attunement for the rest of GW2's life.

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Thanks to all the nerfs, former "glass canon" is now just "glass target". In a group environment, I often feel like elementalists are dead-weight for parties/teams. On top of now mediocre DPS, we are also still squishy. So now, what are we even good for? Absolutely nothing.

"Elementalists are multifaceted spellcasters who channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up for in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage."

Maybe you should update that description since it's no longer true. We lost that "versatility" thanks to CDs on skills and we no longer "inflict massive damage". We might as well be someone's "Ranger pet".

Either give us back our "massive damage" or remove the restrictive CDs on skills and up our health for more survivability, otherwise we're just "glass shields" for our parties/team. There are lots of great suggestions from others, so just fix ele, don't make them the outcasted class no one wants in their group because the way they are now, they are doomed to solo play, dying lonely deaths in some caves somewhere in the open world.

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Spvp as a casual player, I feel my only role is Support.Yeah I can do dmg, but I feel other professions has faster access to CC, survivability and burst.Amd the access to weapon swap is huge, it makes them able to range then melee... where we are kinda trapped beside conjuring weapons.Never understood why we are not tier 2 even tier 3 health.. adn necro should be tier 1 with great selfsunstainable with minion, life steal, curses etc. Though I like my all vitality necro.

Tbh I never understood fully the choice between health tier especially with traits.. why couldnøt trait dictate it? Like the roles you removed, which was a bald move, and maybe not the smartest move (but that is just my view).Why can’t earth be a viable tank condi spec, granting higher health tier, toughness and condi.And as one mentioned, it feels wird to throw elements of fire, earth etc. And have to spec for giving their respective condition.The minor skills with 33% chance should imo be reworked, since you reworked sigils with same rng.

But hey if you want innovation, why not make earth grant access to tier 2 health and heavy armor (I know this wouldn’t work, and would break set and collections) and lets us be a bit more tanky.

Or give us something to in weaver to offset the missing steal/ambush dmg, so we can feel like magical dualist/assassins!)

All in all I am still having fun with weaver dmg in pve, though it is a bit low, and tempest support in spvp.You are doing the right thing, I’ve seen that with your slow but steady guardian changes (thanks for the 25% movement speed :D finally xD).So do not let these threads disencourage you, but give yu inspiration.. for frustration come from a passionated community, and if it is vocal, it cares.

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@"Kaleban.9834" said:Here's a thought.

The Elementalist was I believe the first designed profession for the game right? The concept, weapon selection and attunement mechanics were first. But here's the thing, the class was initially designed and built before skills had cooldowns. I think everyone who mains the class remembers the Elementalist Skills video where a female elementalist just keeps casting Meteor Shower on a couple of Ettins until they die.

So the problem is the profession NEEDS to have access to any of its skills at any time (i.e. NO cooldowns) to justify its lack of any sort of baseline mechanic like Shroud or Stealth. It's clear this was initially the idea, that an Ele could instantly attune to Water to heal, or Earth for a defense skill, and not be "locked out" of critical skills.

The introduction of cooldown mechanics was never integrated into Elementalist design, and this is very easily seen in comments about the Weaver's mechanic locking out the 4 and 5 skills behind an extra Attunement CD. And also explains the dilution of effects on skills to lukewarm milk-drinker levels of anemia. Introducing cooldowns to the class SHOULD have forced the dev team to ramp up individual skill effects and/or add a variety of effects to each skill. Instead, they water each skill and trait down to below what other professions have with the justification that the Ele has double the skills. This is rather blind because you can't activate skills twice as fast as other professions.

So yeah, the problem is not with numbers or stats but the fact the Elementalist was NEVER designed properly from the get-go, at least once the cooldown mechanic was introduced to the game's core. I would say the best solution is two-fold:

  1. Eliminate cooldowns on Attunements. Not individual skills, just the ability to switch. Effects like Overloads on Tempest can still have an ICD to avoid abuse.
  2. Give each Attunement a focus. Fire is heavy AoE skills with Burning. Air is only single target skills with Vulnerability and hard CC. Water should be similar to the Druid's Astral skills, just healing and AoE CC. Earth should be HEAVILY Condition focused with strong defensive skills.

Of course, there can be some variation across weapon types, so a Dagger would for example be point blank skills for melee range while a Staff would ONLY have AoE skills. Give each aspect of the Elementalist, whether traitline, weapon or Attunement a defined reason for being used, rather than just everything being a hodge-podge jumbled mess.

The problem is certain think will need an ICD too then because with a water trait you gain 2k health when you switch to water or you get boons for switching attunements but if there was no CD you could literally spam water and air for example and get full health instantly and infinite regen, same with fire for might, would get 25 stacks of might instantly

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@"Dennis.8036" said:I really like your ideas. Moreover sometimes I thought that the radius of geyser could be increased maybe a bit? It doesn´t have to be like the guardians water field, but the same size as mesmer and necro's wells would be nice:). Furthermore I wish healing rain would also gain a small healing component, not too much, something 500 health per sec, but its name is healing rain and not regenerating rain:D

Sorry took me a while to get back to you on this, Geyser has a radius of 240 and all the Well skills from both Chronomancer and Necromancer have a radius of 240 as well, although I can understand why you would be disappointed at the radius size I'd have to say I think Geyser is fine.

As for Healing Rain I understand what the devs were going with when they created this skill, a giant condition cleansing cloud is good but the issue is that power creep has put it in a place where it feels low impact or just downright irrelevant, at least for spvp.It lasts 6 seconds, curing 1 condition every 2 seconds, it is simply too slow for the burst nature of condition damage in spvp nowadays and is a worse version of Super Elixir (cures 1 condition per second, heals over time after the initial tiny burst heal, and lasts almost twice as long), and Null field (strips boons from enemies and conditions on allies per second) on a higher cool down albeit without expending a utility slot (although kinda iffy with super elixir since that also comes with 4 other skills as well).

It pretty much requires you to have the Major Grandmaster Trait Cleansing Water to be good, I would like to see it cleanse a condition every second and either keep the regeneration how it is now (once per 2 seconds) or make it only apply regeneration at the very beginning (with a longer duration to at least match up with the duration of Healing Rain) to balance it out so that its not a condition cleansing powerhouse with the Cleansing Water trait selected.

PS. If they do follow through with these changes they should probably rename it "Cleansing Rain" instead of Healing rain since that would be more accurate.

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I am sorry to ruin anyone's hopes and dreams in regards to these matters, but TLDR, whoever is advising / distributing information on the "respective" parts of the process, has in focus the highest things being used, and those currently are the already popular classes, and mount skins. While this particular company has a steady income from those sources, you will never see any improvements whatsoever on any part of the game that does not fit the above formula. Ow, and don't bother writing a strongly worded thread, since it will be taken as offensive, deleted, and you will earn a beautiful forum ban. If you wish to make a strong move, deploy your hard earned money and time investment elsewhere, dealing with sunken cost fallacy is way easier than with inexistent communication game designers.

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