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Why is Ele bad?


Dabrixmgp.4758

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It's top "2minutes fight" DPS against an inactive golem, with 1-2 or 3 conjured weapons.In fractal it's quite good, because with a strong burst all enemies die in 2 minutes before they got time to attack. But gameplay is different in raids : The fight last longer, there can be phases, breakbar..., Boss is moving or not, there can be adds to cleave, to push etc, and them and boss are attacking you. And because of that, and because elem is squishy + no support no sustain no boonstrip, no cc without interrupting the rotation, nothing but "direct dmg", staff nerf the the ground and clumsy; if you look closer to their suggestion of composition I think there are more Thief, more Mirage and more Renegade than Elementalist.

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@"Dabrixmgp.4758" said:Just came back and all I see are posts here talking about how Eles need to be fixed and all this stuff is wrong with them. I went to Snowcrows and Ele still seems to be near the top for DPS so what exactly is wrong with them?

Elementalist was supposed to be a jack of all trades, and specially good at DPS, all in exchange of low survivability.

Then they started nerfing him over and over again, with no buffs in the opposite direction to compensate in any way whatsoever.

Elementalist stopped being a good profession years ago, but it only survived because it's flashy and visually satisfying to play, and because good players always found some way to overcome the nerfs, by abusing some niche skill. That's why most meta builds since release have always been about one specific skill and setup. Of course, ArenaNet kept on nerfing the profession, and in the end, there was nothing left to salvage. It's just not worth to play anymore.

We're talking about a small percentage of extra damage compared to other professions, requiring however much more skill and experience. You could just take any other profession and perform almost as well by bashing your head against the keyboard. Also, you won't die constantly, so in the end, you'll do more DPS. This has always been the case with warrior, dragonhunter, reaper... People get obsessed with the meta, even when it's highly inefficient, and refuse to open their eyes.

Once the latest nerf came, elementalist was dropped by most meta groups altogether, since not even them could really justify using them anymore, and the community followed through.

I've played elementalist since release, it's my main, and I think it's the worst profession of the whole game, even worse than revenant. The elite specializations are terribly boring as well, other professions get cool mechanics and real changes on how they're played, but elementalist got nothing new. Most of the slot skills are utter garbage, only the ranger has worse options there.

The biggest problem is, no doubt, the attunements. They're what made the profession attractive in the first place, but they're strangling and killing it. They make balance harder, and they also restrict gameplay options. It's a clear case of "more is less". The base health needs to be adjusted as well, it's ridiculous that mesmers have more health than elementalists, who remain stuck at the bottom level together with thieves.

You can read a few ideas on how to improve elementalist here. My latest favorite is to normalize weapon mechanics across attunements, restrict attunement selection to 2 instead of 4, remove conjures, and add weapon swap. There are many others around if you're interested in the topic.

I don't expect elementalist to get any better until it's heavily redesigned.

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Ele is currently only good for providing pure damage (in a perfect scenario, where both supports and ele are on point with their gameplay, which doesn't happen very often outside of top tier pve guilds) or providing pure heals (which usually means you're carrying bad players, but even scourge is better in that role now). You rarely need just heals or just damage, and those rare places is where ele performs very good.

There's not much you can do on your own since boon uptimes are non existent, damage output requires every single modifier meaning that you have no room for sustain traits and base defenses are quite low (no evades or any defense on dps skills, no defense/utility without huge dps loss and it's nothing spectacular even when you cast those skills). There's too many mediocre skills because ele cant have too strong skills since it has too many skills (unless you build around those skills specifically, for example pure dps or pure heal). While it sounds balanced, it's not how it looks like on other specs who can sustain themselves with boons, heals, cleanses, bring CC etc with minimal or no loss in dps (or their primary role) simply because their skills offer more than one effect.

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Dps is coming from a 3ed partly program and leaves out a lot of info that is very important to a fight.You need to do your dmg vs up / down players dmg vs npc, the amount they are healing for ,how much dmg your running into dmg -% effect, how much dmg your runing into barrier, how many of your dmg is running up vs blocks and evasion, how much condi are you applying and how its getting cleard, what soft cc are you applying what, and boons your striping (ele cant strip any thing). There a lot going on in a fight in gw2 both pve and pvp and ele cant do most of the things they need to as a dps class. A program telling your numbers is not going to def how good or bad your doing as a class in a group but only how good and bad you are doing vs other ppl of the SAME class.

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@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:So after an hour trying to do living season 3 stuff i put all my ascended marauders back on my Reaper. Ele is just too much work for same results I can get my my Reaper playing spin 2 win and spamming Gravedigger.

Reaper has lots of boon strip stab and quickness reaper is signify stronger then any thing ele has. It also has unblockable that means a LOT in the current meta.

Also that why ele sux or is bad as a class it lack all of the tools of a dps class. You need 1-2 of these effects unblockable boon strip quickness and counter healing if your missing most to all your not viable dps out side of raw numbers. That why most of ele dmg is pointless and dps readers are giving you a fake reality of what going on.

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@MyPuppy.8970 said:To be fair Weaver has an unblockable elite that requires considerable setup, and that does close to 0 damage untraited. But it is a nice cc if the stars are aligned.

Tonardo is unblockable as well but it still not a real dmg tool. Reaper gets a shout that makes all of there attks unblockable as well has well from core necro that also do dmg. Unblockable cc dose not = unblockable dmg as its more about reflection and over all counter projectiles that the problem not blocking skill them self. Every thing on weaver staff but say 1 skill is a projectile slow ones at that.

Just a comple lack of dps effects and in a lot of ways a comple non mages class as only staff is a real mages tool for ele all the others are just melee weapons.

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Ele is mostly fine in PvE. Its a little clunky, and not really worth the effort if you care about raiding efficiency outside of top-tier (the damage is hard to land and you often end up doing less than 2 button specs like dps thief).

In PvP it is completely worthless. The healing spec (tempest) is almost a free kill and isn't even half as good as a bad firebrand. The dps spec (fresh air) has no effective defense vs. all the ports, the superspeed isn't effective vs. nowadays specs, the burst is MUCH lower than other burst (with longer between bursts), and it doesn't have any tools to deal with all of the blocks/evades other specs have. The bruiser spec (sword weaver) is probably the "best ele spec", and, at best, it can force a stalemate on a point then lose when +1'd, while having less mobility, less team support, and less damage than other bruisers.

Idk about WvW.

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I feel like if you have to juggle attunements and many different abilities in order to get the most from a class then I feel like it should reward you. I mean why on earth would anyone play this instant carpal tunnel class over something faceroll like Daredevil, Reaper, or Banner Slave. I wonder if I can log onto my Warrior, drop banners, and just spam auto attack while I eat dinner and contribute more.

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@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:I feel like if you have to juggle attunements and many different abilities in order to get the most from a class then I feel like it should reward you. I mean why on earth would anyone play this instant carpal tunnel class over something faceroll like Daredevil, Reaper, or Banner Slave. I wonder if I can log onto my Warrior, drop banners, and just spam auto attack while I eat dinner and contribute more.

Some people enjoy micromanagement mechanics and in that regard Elementalist is appealing. Due to it's micromanagement it also requires a bit more skill than say, Banner Slave, and as such feels more rewarding when you win with it. The PvP matches I win with my Weaver build are far more satisfying than the ones I win with my Mesmer.

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@Dace.8173 said:

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:I feel like if you have to juggle attunements and many different abilities in order to get the most from a class then I feel like it should reward you. I mean why on earth would anyone play this instant carpal tunnel class over something faceroll like Daredevil, Reaper, or Banner Slave. I wonder if I can log onto my Warrior, drop banners, and just spam auto attack while I eat dinner and contribute more.

Some people enjoy micromanagement mechanics and in that regard Elementalist is appealing. Due to it's micromanagement it also requires a bit more skill than say, Banner Slave, and as such feels more rewarding when you win with it. The PvP matches I win with my Weaver build are far more satisfying than the ones I win with my Mesmer.

Difficulty needs to be rewarded though, like said before, Ele needs to press like 3 buttons to be able to do what someone else can in 1. This isn't okay.

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@Snellibee.2761 said:

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:I feel like if you have to juggle attunements and many different abilities in order to get the most from a class then I feel like it should reward you. I mean why on earth would anyone play this instant carpal tunnel class over something faceroll like Daredevil, Reaper, or Banner Slave. I wonder if I can log onto my Warrior, drop banners, and just spam auto attack while I eat dinner and contribute more.

Some people enjoy micromanagement mechanics and in that regard Elementalist is appealing. Due to it's micromanagement it also requires a bit more skill than say, Banner Slave, and as such feels more rewarding when you win with it. The PvP matches I win with my Weaver build are far more satisfying than the ones I win with my Mesmer.

Difficulty needs to be rewarded though, like said before, Ele needs to press like 3 buttons to be able to do what someone else can in 1. This isn't okay.

Tbh it would be ok if attunements had no global cd and overall small/no cooldown, but since they do it can be underwhelming.

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@steki.1478 said:

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:I feel like if you have to juggle attunements and many different abilities in order to get the most from a class then I feel like it should reward you. I mean why on earth would anyone play this instant carpal tunnel class over something faceroll like Daredevil, Reaper, or Banner Slave. I wonder if I can log onto my Warrior, drop banners, and just spam auto attack while I eat dinner and contribute more.

Some people enjoy micromanagement mechanics and in that regard Elementalist is appealing. Due to it's micromanagement it also requires a bit more skill than say, Banner Slave, and as such feels more rewarding when you win with it. The PvP matches I win with my Weaver build are far more satisfying than the ones I win with my Mesmer.

Difficulty needs to be rewarded though, like said before, Ele needs to press like 3 buttons to be able to do what someone else can in 1. This isn't okay.

Tbh it would be ok if attunements had no global cd and overall small/no cooldown, but since they do it can be underwhelming.

Also casting times are too long for how little damage each attack does (talking about S/D Weaver right now).

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@Snellibee.2761 said:

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:I feel like if you have to juggle attunements and many different abilities in order to get the most from a class then I feel like it should reward you. I mean why on earth would anyone play this instant carpal tunnel class over something faceroll like Daredevil, Reaper, or Banner Slave. I wonder if I can log onto my Warrior, drop banners, and just spam auto attack while I eat dinner and contribute more.

Some people enjoy micromanagement mechanics and in that regard Elementalist is appealing. Due to it's micromanagement it also requires a bit more skill than say, Banner Slave, and as such feels more rewarding when you win with it. The PvP matches I win with my Weaver build are far more satisfying than the ones I win with my Mesmer.

Difficulty needs to be rewarded though, like said before, Ele needs to press like 3 buttons to be able to do what someone else can in 1. This isn't okay.

It can be rewarding. The point is, yeah I can play a profession where all I need to do is press one button. I play Elementalist because I enjoy the challenge in making three button presses work. That's the appeal. It can be done easier. However, if I, and many others, wanted simple we would play that. The people who are good with Elementalist, are really good with it. I press one button and win with Mesmer. That's ok. I press three buttons and win with Elementalist. That feels awesome. Part of the appeal is being able to do something other people can't do.

That isn't to say that Elementalist can't be improved or is perfect as is, as it's not. But the point isn't to play a profession where I press one button and win. The point isn't that I press three buttons and it's an easy win. The point is that winning with three button presses requires a certain level of skill. The problem though is that the playstyle that Elementalist generates is not for everyone and since Elementalist is a magic profession it draws a lot of people who want it to work because they like the theme of playing magical characters. The theme and appeal clashes with the playstyle and skill. It's really difficult to balance micromanage based classes in games because they often seem really cool and appeal to a lot of people but not all of those people are really capable of playing that playstyle. So it is difficult to find that balance between rewarding a higher skill investment and making the profession more accessible.

The contrast seems stark when you have professions that are powerful and easy, the idea being that the harder it is to play the more powerful it should be. That's not the purpose of playing such classes in a game, though. The appeal isn't power, it's skill and challenge. But a lot of folks want the hard to master profession to be more powerful than the easy to play one and that isn't really good for game balance. This creates a problem wherein the fans of that profession don't feel like they are being rewarded because the reward that the profession generates for the people it appeals strongest too runs counter to the reward that many other people seek. The problem for Elementist, thus, isn't that it's too weak. It's a fairly strong profession in the grand scheme of the game (at least it's not Necromancer for instance). The problem is that there is a mismatch in power results and a mismatch in what the initial appeal for a class like this is.

The inherent reward for Elementalist, and pretty much any kind of faction in a game that is designed along this line, is the difficulty itself and making it work. The reward many other people seek is to win. While folks who enjoy the challenge of it all want to win too, winning is secondary to the knowledge that you made it work. Thus, when I play, I am rewarded. My reward isn't a constant easy win streak that I might get with another, easier profession. My reward are the times I do win and the thrill I got from being better at something that it is hard to be better with.

I've seen this complaint many times in different faction based games for similar reasons when dealing with a faction of this nature. This isn't a GW2, ANet problem, so much as its a playstyle vs type of reward problem.

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Talking from personal experience, the damage was only good in PvE group setting. With staff being nerfed it lost that edge. Also, as the damage gap between classes decreased sustainability, burst and group support are becoming more relevant. Ele is not strong at any of these areas. I think it is also the worst class in open world PvE.

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@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:I feel like if you have to juggle attunements and many different abilities in order to get the most from a class then I feel like it should reward you. I mean why on earth would anyone play this instant carpal tunnel class over something faceroll like Daredevil, Reaper, or Banner Slave. I wonder if I can log onto my Warrior, drop banners, and just spam auto attack while I eat dinner and contribute more.

Then people will complain elementalists are OP because a minority is really good with it.

Rewarding skill more than other professions is one of the things that killed elementalist in the first place. I feel like eles should be as hard and as rewarding as everyone else, not above, and not below.

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:ele has become the worst class in any kind of content.

It's been the worse since years ago, but we didn't notice because we still had some OP skills now and then.

Now that all of them were nerfed, we see the rest of the profession for what it is, a huge mess with horribly failed design.

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What's wrong with Elementalist? Same thing that's wrong with condi Revenant, and many other class builds: the play is too complex, with too many limitations. Just looking at Elementalist rotations, much less trying to play them in group content, looks to me like trying to dance the Charleston with a glass of nitroglycerin balanced on your head. There is much to be said for simplicity in playing a class, especially when you have to rely on active defense as much as we do in this game.

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@"BlackBeard.2873" said:Idk about WvW.

I do roam on Ele S/D Weaver in WvW, and it's mostly just painful to the point of questioning oneself whether another class wouldn't be more fun and worthwhile.Sure, I can beat any non-roamer, and if I play perfectly challenging most normal roamers is possible. But when up against a ranger, warrior etc., so a "real roamer" - and someone who isn't half braindead - it's very unlikely that you stand any chance. Even with quite some healing power to throw around, the survivability is horrendous, and obviously the damage suffers from trying to not die within the first five seconds.It's definitely a fun class to play, but only until you come up on a class that is actually "balanced for the current content", or "overpowered" - depending on the way you want to look at it.

For WvW Ele just lacks suvivability in any way. If you run with a zerg, the only real way to be safe is to stand at the sides - positioning is everything. Popping out a Meteor Shower either means you better got your Lightning Flash is ready, or you just have to hope to survive long enough to cast it all the way through. "Stick with the commander" is not really an option usually. And better hope there isn't some thief or ranger at the rear around your position, or you are surely going to meet the ground, at least once you ran out of the few long-cd options of getting out of a sticky situation. The damage and team support does not make up for this paper thin survivability in any way.

I had really hoped for Ele to get the main part of the barrier throwing, so they'd finally get something to keep the ground at range for a bit longer, but apparently Anet thought that more fitting for Necros, who already got two health bars and can throw around damage by just running around...

In roaming the full lack of balance hits hardest, you can win fights, but it depends very much on yours and the enemy's skill. You will always be at a (severe) disadvantage to other, "real", roaming classes from my experience though. You just neither have all the survivability tools others have, don't have range (as S/D), can't disengage as easily as others and due to trying to at least survive a bit longer need to suffer reduced damage. You at best get mediocre where others have so much more room for improvement. Not to mention having a very complex set of skills (a reason I love the class), so a lot of potential for mistakes (but also a lot of options...sadly not really good ones mostly, or long CDs etc.).

Overall it's an awesome class, which is just completly outclassed by other classes. I can't say whether I think Ele to be underpowered or the others to be overpowered.In WvW, considering the kill times for some roaming bursters who still have extreme survivability - I'd say the latter.I don't raid though.

Not to mention, playing Ele is even painful to play in PvE, try doing the story stuff as a Staff Ele - even with Marauder gear you're down faster than you can dodge if you get unlucky. Maybe it's just me, but I prefered the original story's difficulty. I usually play it for the story, not to get my rearside handed to me. Other classes are definitely easier there.

Can the class be fixed? Well, if Anet finally changes their stance on "paper thin with no health", maybe. Otherwise, since all other classes now do whatever Ele seems to have been supposed to do (damage? support? geology, probably) better in some way or another ... we need a major rework either of Eles, or of the other classes. I don't think either is likely. And it's sad. Very sad.

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