This profession is such a garbage...

[Obtena.7952]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Yasai.3549 said:Eles usually dip DPS when attuning to Water and Earth, so they should have, for example, stronger Auto attacks to compensate for their heal/protection based Attunement.

...ele needs dps boost?

No no no, Eles don't need an overall DPS boost.They need a DPS balancing across their 4 different Elements.That means dropping Fire and Air DPS in favour of boosting Water and Earth.

I was just suggesting Auto Attacks as they don't eat into the other 4 weapon skills which are usually healing and protection based utility. (usually)

Read my full post.

That wouldn't make sense ... the OVERALL balance exists in the element because of the other effects you gain access to while you are in them. That's not a problem for PVE ... because you can choose DPS as an option if that's your game.

[Strider.7849]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

If you make the dps more even throughout the ettunements then people might just sit in water/earth much more than the others that were supposed to be more dps oriented. Putting it into aa is also kind of weird to me, because then you keep the whole utility nature of those skills, so you can use it

when needed

without losing anything and still deeps with just AA. That's a weird idea to me.

And why would it need to be done anyways?

If people sit in Water and Earth, they lose all the damage from Fire and Air, as well as the benefits from attuning to Fire and Air.Why would anyone wanna do that if they are achieving highest possible DPS?

I think what Sobx try to point out is that buffing water/earth damage can easily get out of hand. In many way, the benefits from attuning to fire aren't that great. Based on the weaponset you use, water/earth can offer you more benefits (I mean water scepter's AA isn't far from outdpsing fire AA already, it's also true for earth dagger's AA). On another side, staff show high damage variations between AA and your arguments might stand true for this weapon (That is if we ignore the aoe heal of water AA and the weakness of earth AA). Well, staff's balance is a whole subject on it's own.

For staff specifically I would argue that water AA needs to no longer splash heal and get its damage buffed. It's a weird and clunky mechanic, and on top of that encourages camping water too much on support builds. While on the subject of camping attunements, lava font needs a higher cd with higher damage so swapping into other attunements is not as punishing.

Of course staff needs many more changes than these, but these 2 specific skills are the main ones that encourage attunement camping. The abysmal damage of the the non-fire attunements also discourages switching from fire. The rest of the weapons are much more balanced between attunements though.

I have to respectfully disagree, water doesn't need a damage buff on staff as it's got great support and defeats the purpose of swapping attunements. What staff needs is better AoE damage (talking about in the absences of tempest overload on air). Where I do agree with you is that it needs damage on a different attunement (specifically air).

Currently fire is damage, water is support (which it's perfect at), earth is defensive, and air is hot garbage.

My suggestion is straight up delete air 4 (it's terrible in the current state of the game both in sPvP and PvE and extremely outdated) and move the current air 5 to it's slot. I would have loved if the tempest overload air skill was actually staff air 5 but I feel that some sort of rapid hitting AoE spell with focus on high sustained damage rather than heavy burst like meteor and an added effect (vulnerability or a fraction of a second of weakness per strike) would be perfect.

EDIT: I feel this specific change would greatly help core ele staff builds and weaver.. it would also allow builds to function better without it being absolutely necessary to carry Glyph of storms.. not to mention it's make playing staff more fun.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Strider.7849 said:I have to respectfully disagree, water doesn't need a damage buff on staff as it's got great support and defeats the purpose of swapping attunements. What staff needs is better AoE damage (talking about in the absences of tempest overload on air). Where I do agree with you is that it needs damage on a different attunement (specifically air).

Currently fire is damage, water is support (which it's perfect at), earth is defensive, and air is hot garbage.

My suggestion is straight up delete air 4 (it's terrible in the current state of the game both in sPvP and PvE and extremely outdated) and move the current air 5 to it's slot. I would have loved if the tempest overload air skill was actually staff air 5 but I feel that some sort of rapid hitting AoE spell with focus on high sustained damage rather than heavy burst like meteor and an added effect (vulnerability or a fraction of a second of weakness per strike) would be perfect.

EDIT: I feel this specific change would greatly help core ele staff builds and weaver.. it would also allow builds to function better without it being absolutely necessary to carry Glyph of storms.. not to mention it's make playing staff more fun.

Personally I wouldn't delete staff air 4, It's a usefull skill in WvW for example. That said I'd buff it by adding fury to swiftness. I believe that wouldn't be to much for a 20s CD skill (or even for a 25s CD if it's seen as needed).

The main offender on staff's air attunment is lightning surge's cast time. If a skill need to be reworked it's this one since it does have a strong effects but the cast time make it a poor skill to use in any situation. I'd be in favor of reducing heavily the damage to get it on a 1/4s cast time (anyway, you don't use it for damage due to the cast time).

[Strider.7849]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Strider.7849 said:I have to respectfully disagree, water doesn't need a damage buff on staff as it's got great support and defeats the purpose of swapping attunements. What staff needs is better AoE damage (talking about in the absences of tempest overload on air). Where I do agree with you is that it needs damage on a different attunement (specifically air).

Currently fire is damage, water is support (which it's perfect at), earth is defensive, and air is hot garbage.

My suggestion is straight up delete air 4 (it's terrible in the current state of the game both in sPvP and PvE and extremely outdated) and move the current air 5 to it's slot. I would have loved if the tempest overload air skill was actually staff air 5 but I feel that some sort of rapid hitting AoE spell with focus on high sustained damage rather than heavy burst like meteor and an added effect (vulnerability or a fraction of a second of weakness per strike) would be perfect.

EDIT: I feel this specific change would greatly help core ele staff builds and weaver.. it would also allow builds to function better without it being absolutely necessary to carry Glyph of storms.. not to mention it's make playing staff more fun.

Personally I wouldn't delete staff air 4, It's a usefull skill in WvW for example. That said I'd buff it by adding fury to swiftness. I believe that wouldn't be to much for a 20s CD skill (or even for a 25s CD if it's seen as needed).

The main offender on staff's air attunment is

lightning surge

's cast time. If a skill need to be reworked it's this one since it does have a strong effects but the cast time make it a poor skill to use in any situation. I'd be in favor of reducing heavily the damage to get it on a 1/4s cast time (anyway, you don't use it for damage due to the cast time).

Can you name a use for air #4 in WvW that would bring value to a staff elementalist (asking this not in a challenging way, I'm just curious how you're making use of it)? The reason I feel it's outdated is when used as a cleanse for movement impairing conditions, there are far better options.. If for the tiny bit of swiftness you can simply blast the lightning field (low cooldowns on both earth and water). The issue I find with air beyond that is that attunement is heavily reliant on either traiting for lightning rod or an external factor of having your allies capitalize on an area you've dropped the current staff #5. There's no follow-up for the elementalist itself; not within air on its other skills and not within the staff skills itself given the duration of the stun - this also applies to all its utilities.

The suggested skill I mentioned would not only synergize well with the rest of air but it would make staff a meta weapon set bringing elementalist back into being a desirable class for WvW AND endgame PvE.

Ultimately though, most of these conversations will go no where, not like anet is going to spend time adding a new skill or making staff better at this point. <---- would love to be wrong on this.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

i agree with the staff needing more aoe overall. Yeah it has aoe, but I want that nuking feeling that mages are supposed to have. Glyph of storms feels more like an ele staff skill than the skills on ele staff.

[Infusion.7149]

Staff is going to continue to be a support weapon so long as water heals semi-decently and lava font + meteor remain nerfed and eat retal in WvW. There's fury generation in the air traitline and also heralds provide fury to their subgroup so I don't feel fury is especially needed.

If anything the auto attack on air could be reverted to near pre-nerf levels in WvW or the aftercast reduced, since it is underwhelming compared to other classes even at 1200 range and the third bounce does less damage.

Lightning Surge had its damage only slightly reduced (20%) but recharge was cut to 6s , the net effect is more damage pressure and blind.

The fact is highly ranged weapons with cleave need to be lower damage overall than lower ranged ones so it remains unlikely major changes will occur. Unless you're dropping AoE on enemies without retal, elementalist is in a terrible scenario with respect to overloads (which are basically near melee range by the way). Most of the time the value on overload air is sharing shock auras.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Strider.7849 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Strider.7849 said:I have to respectfully disagree, water doesn't need a damage buff on staff as it's got great support and defeats the purpose of swapping attunements. What staff needs is better AoE damage (talking about in the absences of tempest overload on air). Where I do agree with you is that it needs damage on a different attunement (specifically air).

Currently fire is damage, water is support (which it's perfect at), earth is defensive, and air is hot garbage.

My suggestion is straight up delete air 4 (it's terrible in the current state of the game both in sPvP and PvE and extremely outdated) and move the current air 5 to it's slot. I would have loved if the tempest overload air skill was actually staff air 5 but I feel that some sort of rapid hitting AoE spell with focus on high sustained damage rather than heavy burst like meteor and an added effect (vulnerability or a fraction of a second of weakness per strike) would be perfect.

EDIT: I feel this specific change would greatly help core ele staff builds and weaver.. it would also allow builds to function better without it being absolutely necessary to carry Glyph of storms.. not to mention it's make playing staff more fun.

Personally I wouldn't delete staff air 4, It's a usefull skill in WvW for example. That said I'd buff it by adding fury to swiftness. I believe that wouldn't be to much for a 20s CD skill (or even for a 25s CD if it's seen as needed).

The main offender on staff's air attunment is

lightning surge

's cast time. If a skill need to be reworked it's this one since it does have a strong effects but the cast time make it a poor skill to use in any situation. I'd be in favor of reducing heavily the damage to get it on a 1/4s cast time (anyway, you don't use it for damage due to the cast time).

Can you name a use for air #4 in WvW that would bring value to a staff elementalist (asking this not in a challenging way, I'm just curious how you're making use of it)? The reason I feel it's outdated is when used as a cleanse for movement impairing conditions, there are far better options.. If for the tiny bit of swiftness you can simply blast the lightning field (low cooldowns on both earth and water). The issue I find with air beyond that is that attunement is heavily reliant on either traiting for lightning rod or an external factor of having your allies capitalize on an area you've dropped the current staff #5. There's no follow-up for the elementalist itself; not within air on its other skills and not within the staff skills itself given the duration of the stun - this also applies to all its utilities.

The suggested skill I mentioned would not only synergize well with the rest of air but it would make staff a meta weapon set bringing elementalist back into being a desirable class for WvW AND endgame PvE.

Ultimately though, most of these conversations will go no where, not like anet is going to spend time adding a new skill or making staff better at this point. <---- would love to be wrong on this.

I'd rather have the instant aoe swiftness on the move in WvW than be reliant on blast+lightning field combo. You might not value simplicity, but personally I do, especially when you mostly need swiftness on the move instead of when you don't move. (Well you might find it less needed now that there is the mount, but still it's invaluable whenever you move around. If ANet were to just add fury on top of it, like I said, it would just be perfect.)

I know what you suggest. You suggest damage on staff air attunment. I understand that it's something attractive but ANet clearly designed staff air attunment as a support throught control set, not as a damage set.

[Jski.6180]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@"Jski.6180" said:That is my point lol or at least that classes are being balanced in a gen. way that MAKES them into a class type they are not. It is the only way to fix some massive problem to the ele class.

I want ele to be a mages (or paper) but right now every thing is being balanced as an soldiers (or rock) and it only means that the ele class is become less of an mages over time. The weaver is only meta because it dose not play like a mages at all. Anet has messed up with simple balancing and class ideals.

That logic does not work at all in Gw2 period.Gw2 already breaks traditional role based archetypes usually featured in fantasy games, which is why Gw2 does not have a Tank/Mage/Cleric role designation to Professions.All Professions can perform any role to some capacity, while some does it better than others.

And that is where yur logic fails : Eles are in fact one of the tankiest and hardest Professions to kill by rotating their defensive cooldowns properly, and this is without sacrificing damage.

"Mage" in Gw2 is more or less just an aesthetic.Ever heard of Battle Mages?They have been a staple of fantasy games like DnD and in some mainstream games like Elder Scroll for a long time.

In fact, if Anet tries to shoehorn classes into stereotypical archetype, it will bring the overall powerlevel of the class down, because if yu relegate Eles to only be "Mages" which either spells DPS or Support, their amount of effective roles decrease and their build options become stifled.

And this will lead to the entire Profession to die if their damage or support capabilities do not match equal power levels with another Profession which can do more.

That's the entire problem with Profession balance in the game right now :Guardians, more specifically Firebrands, do way too much.Other Professions like Thief and Necro have strangulated build options.Revenants and Eles have 1 or 2 niche builds.

If we want Eles to become better, we need to either directly increase the amount of things it can achieve which will lead to Power creep, or we nerf the overperformers like Firebrand which will lead to people just slapping on more Firebrands, because Anet has historically never balanced with foresight and just do numbers stamping to keep things "tame".

If there is anything Ele needs, it's more fluidity between Elements, and overall DPS of all 4 Elements roughly the same, which may mean lowering Fire and Air a little and increasing Water and Earth.

Eles usually dip DPS when attuning to Water and Earth, so they should have, for example, stronger Auto attacks to compensate for their heal/protection based Attunement.

It dose though and the 3 class system has nothing to do with the paper rock scissors balancing as often in games with that system can have mages whom are tankly etc..

Battle mages would do dmg though magic as well as physical attk or it would just be a war like class not a battle MAGE.

Ele should be tankly though its magic but not all of the ele classes have magic as means of being tankly. Offte we see the same magic tanklyness on other non mage classes as well so the very ideal of what makes ele an ele is taken by all of the other classes whom are not mages.

WEAVER is the power creep as its the best dmg set up for ele AND the most tankly for ele. It has build in free hp def and double effectiveness for healing power. That all has a lot to do with weaver being the less ele class of the eles elite spec. the "rock" of the ele.

Ele can use its channel and after cast skills at the same time as swamping its wepon makes it seem fluidity but its the only class in the game that offten has the WORST channel and after cast effects. So it makes an illusion of fluidity but realy its just slow moments that seems to flow. Ice dose flow but its not fluid.

Nothing about water or earth should do less dps on there dps skills. I understand a healing skill doing less dmg (though i must say i see a lot of high dmg spikes from healing skill from other classes so i am not sure if that logic comply holds up) but the dmg skill on these 2 atuments should do dmg. That the problem with ele a lot of the time the atuments rolls take over the full weapons effect. Water only heals fire only dmg and realy they should be full effect where a fire skill can support and water skill can do dmg or your always going to have a set of atuments have no effect due to you build.

[Lacko.6572]

@KelyNeli.4516 said:I always wanted to play elementalist in this game because it looked really fun to have all those diverse offensive skills available to me just like that especially with weaver spec. So i made one and got him to lvl 80 and got all the points needed for all traits.I have tried him both condi, power weaver and tried some tempest and i have to say, this profession is utter garbage, sorry this comes from a mouth of a player who always played warrior berserker even before the buffs.I die too much, and even if dont die and do some weird healing defense rotation my damage is completely useless and it takes many deaths to do any solo content. Never did i had so much problems playing a profession through storyline, but on elementalist i did, thanks to the pathetic health pool and defenses.The rotation of skills for DPS is completely insane, i still cant learn it and i just give up trying, because that makes no sense at all. I dont see elementalist EVER surpassing my mediocore berserker with marauders in dps, which not only has way easier rotation but is three times as tanky as elementalist ever will be.I have read a ton of comments and information on the internet and it seems like the class is OVERNERFED horribly and that Arenanet has some stupid vendetta against this fun to play profession, why?The might changes, the many many different condi build nerfs, that just doesnt make sense. I barely see anyone playing elementalist today, and you keep nerfing him, why?To clarify im only talking about PVE content here, solo, dungeons, fractals you name it, in all of them this profession struggle.Poor newbie players who find themselves unable to progress the story because how garbage this class is, this kitten is what drive players away from this game.

Weaver is not garbage, you are bad... get better. thx

[Jski.6180]

@Lacko.6572 said:

@KelyNeli.4516 said:I always wanted to play elementalist in this game because it looked really fun to have all those diverse offensive skills available to me just like that especially with weaver spec. So i made one and got him to lvl 80 and got all the points needed for all traits.I have tried him both condi, power weaver and tried some tempest and i have to say, this profession is utter garbage, sorry this comes from a mouth of a player who always played warrior berserker even before the buffs.I die too much, and even if dont die and do some weird healing defense rotation my damage is completely useless and it takes many deaths to do any solo content. Never did i had so much problems playing a profession through storyline, but on elementalist i did, thanks to the pathetic health pool and defenses.The rotation of skills for DPS is completely insane, i still cant learn it and i just give up trying, because that makes no sense at all. I dont see elementalist EVER surpassing my mediocore berserker with marauders in dps, which not only has way easier rotation but is three times as tanky as elementalist ever will be.I have read a ton of comments and information on the internet and it seems like the class is OVERNERFED horribly and that Arenanet has some stupid vendetta against this fun to play profession, why?The might changes, the many many different condi build nerfs, that just doesnt make sense. I barely see anyone playing elementalist today, and you keep nerfing him, why?To clarify im only talking about PVE content here, solo, dungeons, fractals you name it, in all of them this profession struggle.Poor newbie players who find themselves unable to progress the story because how garbage this class is, this kitten is what drive players away from this game.

Weaver is not garbage, you are bad... get better. thx

Weaver is not bad because of the massive power creep and the added def effects that you find other classes get for free. If you Power creep any thing it become viable sooner or later till anet nerf it for the next elite spec. That simply not a good way to balance the ele class the Core needs an massive update as well as tempest (and i imagen weaver after the expansion nerf that will come.)

Ele is a mages with out having mages skills.

[KelyNeli.4516]

Update on topic, gave elementalist a longer try and:

1. Any power crit based build on it simply cannot compete with others its the garbage beyond garbage, long animations on low scaling skills on a paper "cannon" profession. Berserker gear is completely useless, marauders arent better, any mix of vit and thoughness puts you on low power and you cant manage might properly, you will be lucky to maintain at least 10.
2. The only build that is worth playing is tanky condi with trailblazers or dire. Viper builds have bigger damage, but they suffer the same as power.
3. Weaver is competitive spec, tempest is a joke, core well you tell people you hate to play core thats what found out.

You could play condi weaver well and it coulx perform, but forget about being a top lvl dps its never going to happen, there always going to be some crazy firebrand or revenant that will outdps you.One playable build for open world, 1 underwhelming support healer, 1 full dps build that is extremely frustrating to play. Thats it.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"KelyNeli.4516" said:Update on topic, gave elementalist a longer try and:

1. Any power crit based build on it simply cannot compete with others its the garbage beyond garbage, long animations on low scaling skills on a paper "cannon" profession. Berserker gear is completely useless, marauders arent better, any mix of vit and thoughness puts you on low power and you cant manage might properly, you will be lucky to maintain at least 10.
2. The only build that is worth playing is tanky condi with trailblazers or dire. Viper builds have bigger damage, but they suffer the same as power.
3. Weaver is competitive spec, tempest is a joke, core well you tell people you hate to play core thats what found out.

You could play condi weaver well and it coulx perform, but forget about being a top lvl dps its never going to happen, there always going to be some crazy firebrand or revenant that will outdps you.One playable build for open world, 1 underwhelming support healer, 1 full dps build that is extremely frustrating to play. Thats it.

I will say ele seems unnecessarily stingy when it comes to boons. This has a huge impact in both group and solo play. Can't self-stack might very effectively. Has good synergy with certain boons, but has to take too many traits spread across too many trait lines to make it work without giving up everything else. No group boons (quickness, alacrity?). Yet it's also the most reliant on boons for performance?

That's pretty broken and I wish they'd reevaluate the boon situation. If we're going to be so reliant on boons, then give us some boons. If we're not going to have access to the good boons, then make it easy on us with the other boons. Just give us something on this one!

[Emberheart.8426]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"KelyNeli.4516" said:Update on topic, gave elementalist a longer try and:

1. Any power crit based build on it simply cannot compete with others its the garbage beyond garbage, long animations on low scaling skills on a paper "cannon" profession. Berserker gear is completely useless, marauders arent better, any mix of vit and thoughness puts you on low power and you cant manage might properly, you will be lucky to maintain at least 10.
2. The only build that is worth playing is tanky condi with trailblazers or dire. Viper builds have bigger damage, but they suffer the same as power.
3. Weaver is competitive spec, tempest is a joke, core well you tell people you hate to play core thats what found out.

You could play condi weaver well and it coulx perform, but forget about being a top lvl dps its never going to happen, there always going to be some crazy firebrand or revenant that will outdps you.One playable build for open world, 1 underwhelming support healer, 1 full dps build that is extremely frustrating to play. Thats it.

I will say ele seems unnecessarily stingy when it comes to boons. This has a huge impact in both group and solo play. Can't self-stack might very effectively. Has good synergy with certain boons, but has to take too many traits spread across too many trait lines to make it work without giving up everything else. No group boons (quickness, alacrity?). Yet it's also the most reliant on boons for performance?

That's pretty broken and I wish they'd reevaluate the boon situation. If we're going to be so reliant on boons, then give us some boons. If we're not going to have access to the good boons, then make it easy on us with the other boons. Just give us something on this one!

This has been a huge issue for a long time and a huge gripe of mine, but I don't expect it to be fixed until the next set of elite specs. You have to remember that core ele is actually not that bad in terms of boons compared to other core specs, especially if you include combos into the mix. However, when elite specs got introduced that is when elementalist started seeming lacking in the boon department, especially weaver which is the most group-reliant spec that the game has ever seen.

Tempest actually did increase the boon access of elementalist, but some of the boons are indeed spread out because of the different aura traits in all the core lines. This reliance on aura boons plus no access to quickness and alacrity kinda hampered it in terms of boon support. However, it still has pretty good boon access overall. Weaver actually has even worse boon access than core ele, because the dual attunement system hampers combos and sword doesn't have any combos capable of generating boons.

On top of that you need to keep in mind that weaver is a very messy concept that required a lot of design space just to be made even playable. When you look at the weaver traits and utilities, you quickly realize that a lot of it gives you stuff like barriers, bonus hp, mobility, evades etc. The devs had to put in a lot of stuff to make it even remotely possible to play elementalist in melee, and that means that there was no space left to add any boons. This is not quite as bad in PvP, because these mechanics are quite strong there, but in PvE it is devastating, especially when solo.

The next elite spec will presumably not have the clunkiness of the dual attunement system and melee holding it back, so it is highly likely to have better boon access in my opinion.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"KelyNeli.4516" said:Update on topic, gave elementalist a longer try and:

1. Any power crit based build on it simply cannot compete with others its the garbage beyond garbage, long animations on low scaling skills on a paper "cannon" profession. Berserker gear is completely useless, marauders arent better, any mix of vit and thoughness puts you on low power and you cant manage might properly, you will be lucky to maintain at least 10.
2. The only build that is worth playing is tanky condi with trailblazers or dire. Viper builds have bigger damage, but they suffer the same as power.
3. Weaver is competitive spec, tempest is a joke, core well you tell people you hate to play core thats what found out.

You could play condi weaver well and it coulx perform, but forget about being a top lvl dps its never going to happen, there always going to be some crazy firebrand or revenant that will outdps you.One playable build for open world, 1 underwhelming support healer, 1 full dps build that is extremely frustrating to play. Thats it.

I will say ele seems unnecessarily stingy when it comes to boons. This has a huge impact in both group and solo play. Can't self-stack might very effectively. Has good synergy with certain boons, but has to take too many traits spread across too many trait lines to make it work without giving up everything else. No group boons (quickness, alacrity?). Yet it's also the most reliant on boons for performance?

That's pretty broken and I wish they'd reevaluate the boon situation. If we're going to be so reliant on boons, then give us some boons. If we're not going to have access to the good boons, then make it easy on us with the other boons. Just give us something on this one!

This has been a huge issue for a long time and a huge gripe of mine, but I don't expect it to be fixed until the next set of elite specs. You have to remember that core ele is actually not that bad in terms of boons compared to other core specs, especially if you include combos into the mix. However, when elite specs got introduced that is when elementalist started seeming lacking in the boon department, especially weaver which is the most group-reliant spec that the game has ever seen.

Tempest actually did increase the boon access of elementalist, but some of the boons are indeed spread out because of the different aura traits in all the core lines. This reliance on aura boons plus no access to quickness and alacrity kinda hampered it in terms of boon support. However, it still has pretty good boon access overall. Weaver actually has even worse boon access than core ele, because the dual attunement system hampers combos and sword doesn't have any combos capable of generating boons.

On top of that you need to keep in mind that weaver is a very messy concept that required a lot of design space just to be made even playable. When you look at the weaver traits and utilities, you quickly realize that a lot of it gives you stuff like barriers, bonus hp, mobility, evades etc. The devs had to put in a lot of stuff to make it even remotely possible to play elementalist in melee, and that means that there was no space left to add any boons. This is not quite as bad in PvP, because these mechanics are quite strong there, but in PvE it is devastating, especially when solo.

The next elite spec will presumably not have the clunkiness of the dual attunement system and melee holding it back, so it is highly likely to have better boon access in my opinion.

Weaver/dual attunement mechanics are pretty out there, I admit. Although I must say I really enjoy the feel of it better than any class I've played in GW2 or any other MMO. It's really unique and the tradeoffs feel impactful. You get some really powerful effects from choosing weaver, but it comes along with some pretty huge drawbacks and the overall effect is to change the feel of the class dramatically. I think it's pretty brilliant.

Having said that, I agree that weaver is far too dependent on support and I don't understand why power is so weak without every boon in existence (at which point it's meta!). I wish they could do something to address this and stop shaving all the boons off of this class!

[Emberheart.8426]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"KelyNeli.4516" said:Update on topic, gave elementalist a longer try and:

1. Any power crit based build on it simply cannot compete with others its the garbage beyond garbage, long animations on low scaling skills on a paper "cannon" profession. Berserker gear is completely useless, marauders arent better, any mix of vit and thoughness puts you on low power and you cant manage might properly, you will be lucky to maintain at least 10.
2. The only build that is worth playing is tanky condi with trailblazers or dire. Viper builds have bigger damage, but they suffer the same as power.
3. Weaver is competitive spec, tempest is a joke, core well you tell people you hate to play core thats what found out.

You could play condi weaver well and it coulx perform, but forget about being a top lvl dps its never going to happen, there always going to be some crazy firebrand or revenant that will outdps you.One playable build for open world, 1 underwhelming support healer, 1 full dps build that is extremely frustrating to play. Thats it.

I will say ele seems unnecessarily stingy when it comes to boons. This has a huge impact in both group and solo play. Can't self-stack might very effectively. Has good synergy with certain boons, but has to take too many traits spread across too many trait lines to make it work without giving up everything else. No group boons (quickness, alacrity?). Yet it's also the most reliant on boons for performance?

That's pretty broken and I wish they'd reevaluate the boon situation. If we're going to be so reliant on boons, then give us some boons. If we're not going to have access to the good boons, then make it easy on us with the other boons. Just give us something on this one!

This has been a huge issue for a long time and a huge gripe of mine, but I don't expect it to be fixed until the next set of elite specs. You have to remember that core ele is actually not that bad in terms of boons compared to other core specs, especially if you include combos into the mix. However, when elite specs got introduced that is when elementalist started seeming lacking in the boon department, especially weaver which is the most group-reliant spec that the game has ever seen.

Tempest actually did increase the boon access of elementalist, but some of the boons are indeed spread out because of the different aura traits in all the core lines. This reliance on aura boons plus no access to quickness and alacrity kinda hampered it in terms of boon support. However, it still has pretty good boon access overall. Weaver actually has even worse boon access than core ele, because the dual attunement system hampers combos and sword doesn't have any combos capable of generating boons.

On top of that you need to keep in mind that weaver is a very messy concept that required a lot of design space just to be made even playable. When you look at the weaver traits and utilities, you quickly realize that a lot of it gives you stuff like barriers, bonus hp, mobility, evades etc. The devs had to put in a lot of stuff to make it even remotely possible to play elementalist in melee, and that means that there was no space left to add any boons. This is not quite as bad in PvP, because these mechanics are quite strong there, but in PvE it is devastating, especially when solo.

The next elite spec will presumably not have the clunkiness of the dual attunement system and melee holding it back, so it is highly likely to have better boon access in my opinion.

Weaver/dual attunement mechanics are pretty out there, I admit. Although I must say I really enjoy the feel of it better than any class I've played in GW2 or any other MMO. It's really unique and the tradeoffs feel impactful. You get some really powerful effects from choosing weaver, but it comes along with some pretty huge drawbacks and the overall effect is to change the feel of the class dramatically. I think it's pretty brilliant.

Having said that, I agree that weaver is far too dependent on support and I don't understand why power is so weak without every boon in existence (at which point it's meta!). I wish they could do something to address this and stop shaving all the boons off of this class!

Quickness and alacrity are simply essential if you are doing a quick rotation like weaver's. Then add in the attunements that are also affected by alacrity. Weaver makes you rotate attunements even more, which means more reliance on these boons than before. You also need 10 might for power overwhelming, with weaver having the most difficult time gaining might out of all ele specs.

And they simply haven't shaven any boons except fury on fire blast finisher, which was not used by sword weaver anyway. Weaver has always been bad at boons, as I described above.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"KelyNeli.4516" said:Update on topic, gave elementalist a longer try and:

1. Any power crit based build on it simply cannot compete with others its the garbage beyond garbage, long animations on low scaling skills on a paper "cannon" profession. Berserker gear is completely useless, marauders arent better, any mix of vit and thoughness puts you on low power and you cant manage might properly, you will be lucky to maintain at least 10.
2. The only build that is worth playing is tanky condi with trailblazers or dire. Viper builds have bigger damage, but they suffer the same as power.
3. Weaver is competitive spec, tempest is a joke, core well you tell people you hate to play core thats what found out.

You could play condi weaver well and it coulx perform, but forget about being a top lvl dps its never going to happen, there always going to be some crazy firebrand or revenant that will outdps you.One playable build for open world, 1 underwhelming support healer, 1 full dps build that is extremely frustrating to play. Thats it.

I will say ele seems unnecessarily stingy when it comes to boons. This has a huge impact in both group and solo play. Can't self-stack might very effectively. Has good synergy with certain boons, but has to take too many traits spread across too many trait lines to make it work without giving up everything else. No group boons (quickness, alacrity?). Yet it's also the most reliant on boons for performance?

That's pretty broken and I wish they'd reevaluate the boon situation. If we're going to be so reliant on boons, then give us some boons. If we're not going to have access to the good boons, then make it easy on us with the other boons. Just give us something on this one!

This has been a huge issue for a long time and a huge gripe of mine, but I don't expect it to be fixed until the next set of elite specs. You have to remember that core ele is actually not that bad in terms of boons compared to other core specs, especially if you include combos into the mix. However, when elite specs got introduced that is when elementalist started seeming lacking in the boon department, especially weaver which is the most group-reliant spec that the game has ever seen.

Tempest actually did increase the boon access of elementalist, but some of the boons are indeed spread out because of the different aura traits in all the core lines. This reliance on aura boons plus no access to quickness and alacrity kinda hampered it in terms of boon support. However, it still has pretty good boon access overall. Weaver actually has even worse boon access than core ele, because the dual attunement system hampers combos and sword doesn't have any combos capable of generating boons.

On top of that you need to keep in mind that weaver is a very messy concept that required a lot of design space just to be made even playable. When you look at the weaver traits and utilities, you quickly realize that a lot of it gives you stuff like barriers, bonus hp, mobility, evades etc. The devs had to put in a lot of stuff to make it even remotely possible to play elementalist in melee, and that means that there was no space left to add any boons. This is not quite as bad in PvP, because these mechanics are quite strong there, but in PvE it is devastating, especially when solo.

The next elite spec will presumably not have the clunkiness of the dual attunement system and melee holding it back, so it is highly likely to have better boon access in my opinion.

Weaver/dual attunement mechanics are pretty out there, I admit. Although I must say I really enjoy the feel of it better than any class I've played in GW2 or any other MMO. It's really unique and the tradeoffs feel impactful. You get some really powerful effects from choosing weaver, but it comes along with some pretty huge drawbacks and the overall effect is to change the feel of the class dramatically. I think it's pretty brilliant.

Having said that, I agree that weaver is far too dependent on support and I don't understand why power is so weak without every boon in existence (at which point it's meta!). I wish they could do something to address this and stop shaving all the boons off of this class!

Quickness and alacrity are simply essential if you are doing a quick rotation like weaver's. Then add in the attunements that are also affected by alacrity. Weaver makes you rotate attunements even more, which means more reliance on these boons than before. You also need 10 might for power overwhelming, with weaver having the most difficult time gaining might out of all ele specs.

And they simply haven't shaven any boons except fury on fire blast finisher, which was not used by sword weaver anyway. Weaver has always been bad at boons, as I described above.

They shaved might with pyromancers puissance so that the trait is detrimental to personal dps in group play and makes it impossible to self stack for solo play as well. It's a pretty big mistake imo.

[Emberheart.8426]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"KelyNeli.4516" said:Update on topic, gave elementalist a longer try and:

1. Any power crit based build on it simply cannot compete with others its the garbage beyond garbage, long animations on low scaling skills on a paper "cannon" profession. Berserker gear is completely useless, marauders arent better, any mix of vit and thoughness puts you on low power and you cant manage might properly, you will be lucky to maintain at least 10.
2. The only build that is worth playing is tanky condi with trailblazers or dire. Viper builds have bigger damage, but they suffer the same as power.
3. Weaver is competitive spec, tempest is a joke, core well you tell people you hate to play core thats what found out.

You could play condi weaver well and it coulx perform, but forget about being a top lvl dps its never going to happen, there always going to be some crazy firebrand or revenant that will outdps you.One playable build for open world, 1 underwhelming support healer, 1 full dps build that is extremely frustrating to play. Thats it.

I will say ele seems unnecessarily stingy when it comes to boons. This has a huge impact in both group and solo play. Can't self-stack might very effectively. Has good synergy with certain boons, but has to take too many traits spread across too many trait lines to make it work without giving up everything else. No group boons (quickness, alacrity?). Yet it's also the most reliant on boons for performance?

That's pretty broken and I wish they'd reevaluate the boon situation. If we're going to be so reliant on boons, then give us some boons. If we're not going to have access to the good boons, then make it easy on us with the other boons. Just give us something on this one!

This has been a huge issue for a long time and a huge gripe of mine, but I don't expect it to be fixed until the next set of elite specs. You have to remember that core ele is actually not that bad in terms of boons compared to other core specs, especially if you include combos into the mix. However, when elite specs got introduced that is when elementalist started seeming lacking in the boon department, especially weaver which is the most group-reliant spec that the game has ever seen.

Tempest actually did increase the boon access of elementalist, but some of the boons are indeed spread out because of the different aura traits in all the core lines. This reliance on aura boons plus no access to quickness and alacrity kinda hampered it in terms of boon support. However, it still has pretty good boon access overall. Weaver actually has even worse boon access than core ele, because the dual attunement system hampers combos and sword doesn't have any combos capable of generating boons.

On top of that you need to keep in mind that weaver is a very messy concept that required a lot of design space just to be made even playable. When you look at the weaver traits and utilities, you quickly realize that a lot of it gives you stuff like barriers, bonus hp, mobility, evades etc. The devs had to put in a lot of stuff to make it even remotely possible to play elementalist in melee, and that means that there was no space left to add any boons. This is not quite as bad in PvP, because these mechanics are quite strong there, but in PvE it is devastating, especially when solo.

The next elite spec will presumably not have the clunkiness of the dual attunement system and melee holding it back, so it is highly likely to have better boon access in my opinion.

Weaver/dual attunement mechanics are pretty out there, I admit. Although I must say I really enjoy the feel of it better than any class I've played in GW2 or any other MMO. It's really unique and the tradeoffs feel impactful. You get some really powerful effects from choosing weaver, but it comes along with some pretty huge drawbacks and the overall effect is to change the feel of the class dramatically. I think it's pretty brilliant.

Having said that, I agree that weaver is far too dependent on support and I don't understand why power is so weak without every boon in existence (at which point it's meta!). I wish they could do something to address this and stop shaving all the boons off of this class!

Quickness and alacrity are simply essential if you are doing a quick rotation like weaver's. Then add in the attunements that are also affected by alacrity. Weaver makes you rotate attunements even more, which means more reliance on these boons than before. You also need 10 might for power overwhelming, with weaver having the most difficult time gaining might out of all ele specs.

And they simply haven't shaven any boons except fury on fire blast finisher, which was not used by sword weaver anyway. Weaver has always been bad at boons, as I described above.

They shaved might with pyromancers puissance so that the trait is detrimental to personal dps in group play and makes it impossible to self stack for solo play as well. It's a pretty big mistake imo.

That was certainly a pretty odd change, but doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things. A trait that wants you to camp fire for might was always a bad trait in my opinion. It was only really decent in PvP because they increased the stacks to 2 per cast in that mode. In PvE I simply don't remember any situation that you would have used this. Even in solo, persisting flames was better because the field duration enabled combos better, and it gave fury too. That is in addition, to simply making fire fields do more total damage. Camping an attunement is pretty much impossible on weaver, while tempest was pretty good at might anyway and didn't need the trait at all.

It is a loss of boon access to be sure, but this is one that simply doesn't bother me too much.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

from my understanding, power ele needs to range and kite in pve, or at least ‘midrange’ to compensate for having lowest hp and armor. the issue i see with this is that ele range weapons for some reason have century-long cast times, and also takes eons to land/take effect. imo what power ele really needs is a major rework to staff/scepter so it can range and kite as seemingly intended w/o feeling like a total clunk-fest

this is what seems to make power tempest playable to many - it is not strictly the boons that sets it aside from power sword weaver, but mainly the ability to kite with a spammable ‘midrange’ air overload. on the contrary, overload animation-lock is a major detriment to tempest since it cannot dodge without interrupting cast and losing a chunk of damage

sword weaver places power ele where it frankly doesnt belong and introduces global attunement lockout which removes the ability to water/earth on demand, and the ability to switch out quickly w/o fresh air. because there are no reliable mitigation skills in fire or air, sword power weaver just simply not being the epitome of squish is a distant dream far from becoming reality

more accessible boons would be openly accepted as well, although i feel it would need to be full-on if to compensate for (power) eles continued squishiness and or clunkiness

[Infusion.7149]

I'm not sure why there's so much complaining about weaver. You have a vitality trait in the weaver line if you decide to run power weaver and marauder is only around 15% (might be less due to Ferocious Winds) less damage which is more palatable now that weaver has one of the highest DPS benchmarks (using only 2 attunements unlike tempest or condi weaver).

Pyromancer's Puissance should not have the might expulsion thing added because it hurt solo weaver builds as well as WVW builds, but that is a separate issue. Fury uptime should be decent if you run air traitline due to Raging Storm which is used everywhere you don't have a "exposed" breakbar to burst into (fractals).

If you play power fresh air tempest you should have high protection uptime and stability whenever you overload ; blasting fire fields generates might even if you don't overload fire or use heat sync. That's not to mention the meta 10 man content tempest builds use Tempestuous Aria which grants mights on shouts despite not running shouts.

[Downstate.4697]

Why did pyro piussance even change? Just seems like every trait change caters to weaver

[Infusion.7149]

@"FrownyClown.8402" said:Why did pyro piussance even change? Just seems like every trait change caters to weaver

Here's what the patchnotes said:

In this balance iteration, we're looking at the elementalist's grandmaster Fire traits. Persisting Flames is expected to push into more of a damage-over-time role, while Pyromancer's Puissance is getting a few changes focused toward group support and burst damage. With these changes, we are looking to also slightly reduce burning damage output in order to keep overall damage from going significantly higher in raid rotations.Persisting Flames: This trait no longer grants fury when using a blast finisher with a fire combo field. Instead, this trait will now grant the elementalist an additional 1% damage for 15 seconds for each target struck with a fire field. This effect stacks up to 10 times.Pyromancer's Puissance: In addition to granting might for each ability used while in fire attunement, this trait will now trigger Flame Expulsion when leaving fire attunement or finishing a fire overload.Flame Expulsion: After a brief delay, the elementalist releases a fiery explosion at their location that removes up to 10 stacks of might from them. Allies are granted might for 15 seconds based on the amount of might that was removed, while the damage of the explosion is increased by 10% per stack removed.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2020-07-07#Elementalist

I don't think anyone runs Pyromancer's Puissance in a support role, this was a flawed premise. The trait could have been "any stacks of might you gain over 25 are used as flame expulsion" and it would be usable.

[Downstate.4697]

@Infusion.7149 said:

@"FrownyClown.8402" said:Why did pyro piussance even change? Just seems like every trait change caters to weaver

Here's what the patchnotes said:

In this balance iteration, we're looking at the elementalist's grandmaster Fire traits. Persisting Flames is expected to push into more of a damage-over-time role, while Pyromancer's Puissance is getting a few changes focused toward group support and burst damage. With these changes, we are looking to also slightly reduce burning damage output in order to keep overall damage from going significantly higher in raid rotations.

Persisting Flames

: This trait no longer grants fury when using a blast finisher with a fire combo field. Instead, this trait will now grant the elementalist an additional 1% damage for 15 seconds for each target struck with a fire field. This effect stacks up to 10 times.

Pyromancer's Puissance

: In addition to granting might for each ability used while in fire attunement, this trait will now trigger Flame Expulsion when leaving fire attunement or finishing a fire overload.

Flame Expulsion

: After a brief delay, the elementalist releases a fiery explosion at their location that removes up to 10 stacks of might from them. Allies are granted might for 15 seconds based on the amount of might that was removed, while the damage of the explosion is increased by 10% per stack removed.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2020-07-07#Elementalist

I don't think anyone runs Pyromancer's Puissance in a support role, this was a flawed premise. The trait could have been "any stacks of might you gain over 25 are used as flame expulsion" and it would be usable.

Its easy to build 25 might with glyphs+glyph trait. Could totally do fresh air tempest and then pop 25 might every time your heal is off cooldown.

[Infusion.7149]

@"FrownyClown.8402" said:Its easy to build 25 might with glyphs+glyph trait. Could totally do fresh air tempest and then pop 25 might every time your heal is off cooldown.My point was the trait was made clunky.

If you wanted to build might then you can run power might tempest which doesn't even use Pyromancer Puissance.

https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/power-might-tempest