Elementalist is not "in a very good place"

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

With the patch notes, the state of ele is looking pretty worrying. Its hard to predict exactly how the pvp meta will shift, but there are some undeniable issues that have been ignored for a long time. Traits in particular have always been an issue for ele because they are specifically designed for one attunement, with arcane being generally useful (mandatory) on most builds. While this already restricts trait options because of poor synergies, it gets worse because there are a lot of very bad traits which dont really have any use in any type of content. Note that this is mainly from a pvp and wvw perspective

 

Traits:

 

Fire:

The fire traitline is good for condi builds, but its very difficult to justify taking it for power builds. Power overwhelming and pyromancers puissance are interesting and fun to play with, but generally perform poorly compared to air. Losing most of your might after you swap out of fire is a pretty huge downside, and the damage of flame expulsion with low might stacks is pretty pathetic and is easy to avoid. Other than those 2 traits there really isnt any reason to take fire for power damage as persisting flames rarely stack to their full potential, blinding ashes is mediocre and incredibly boring, and the other traits are either defensive or dont support power builds.

 

Air:

Air is one of the stronger traitlines, with fresh air and lightning rod being the key parts to every power build right now. While they are interesting & powerful traits that change gameplay significantly, it feels kind of bad that a single trait is the only thing keeping power builds alive.

 

Water:

Water is possibly the worst traitline, and is only really taken because of aura sharing on support builds. I cant think of any reason any build would take soothing ice or piercing shards, cleansing wave and flow like water are extremely underwhelming, and soothing power is pretty terrible (also it seems to be bugged from my testing in pvp). Water needs a pretty big overhaul as at least half the traits are useless in all types of content.

 

Earth:

Earth is a mediocre choice for condi and support builds. earths embrace is bad for obvious reasons, rock solid is interesting but impractical, earthen blessing is awful (10 condis = 1 dodge). The only thing earth really has going for it is the multiple damage reduction sources which help with eles low health pool and armor.

 

Arcane:

Arcane is by far the strongest traitline, and is mandatory in most builds. The main reason for this is because it is the only easy way to get swiftness, protection, regen, vigor, and fury, and evasive arcana is a powerful skill on most builds.

 

Tempest:

Tempest has some pretty good options, however lucid singularity is pretty lacking for a GM trait.

 

Weaver:

Weaver has some strong defensive traits, but the utility/damage traits are pretty bad. Elemental pursuit is one of the worst traits ele has and just comparing it to holosmiths crystal configuration: zephyr makes me sad. Elements of rage is going to be a very underwhelming GM trait with the power damage nerf, and woven stride has negligible effects unless you purposefully combine it with cleansing water and swift revenge for a weird cleansing build.

 

Utility: Again many of the elementalist utility skills are lacking in effectiveness or just completely outdated.

 

Cantrips:

Armor of earth cd is far too long to make it usable which is a shame since it is one of the few stability and protection sources ele has. Cleansing fire is again a ridiculously long cooldown to cleanse 3 condis. Mist form, again, is too long of a cooldown. Compared to elixir S, 66% movement and the inability to interact with things after activation is not worth an extra 15s cd.

 

Arcane:

Arcane shield is a powerful stunbreak, but its not really worth taking without the cd reduction trait. Arcane power is pretty bad and honestly feels like a skill that has been forgotten about.

 

Conjures:

Conjures feel like they have been completely forgotten about given how there hasnt been a single meaningful update to them over the entire games history. 3 of the 5 are completely useless in pvp, and frost bow and flame axe are absolutely awful in all gamemodes and need to be completely reworked. The projectiles are slow and miss half the time, the damage is weak, and they offer nothing that ever makes them worth using. Again comparing conjures to engineer with their kits, conjures should arguably be more powerful than kits because they have cast times, limited duration / 2 uses, and relatively long cooldowns.

 

Glyphs:

Glyphs are pretty mediocre, and i have a lot of hate for the rez glyph but thats a whole other topic. Elementals are slow and rarely useful. Also glyph of elementals - air elemental is bugged where its auto attacks dont hit players.

 

Signets:

Signet of earth is not worth the utility slot for a 25s cd 3s immob, and signet of water is just not really that useful.

 

TLDR: Many parts of the elementalist's kit feels outdated or just plain useless. The lack of synergies between traits, and limited options for important boons/utility makes for stale build diversity, and a lot of the utility skills are mediocre at best.

 

 

[Jski.6180]

Ele not been in a good places for years now i still think it is mostly due to a gen. class missing effects such as quirkiness alacrity boon strip and even conversion / corruptions making it no longer a real gen. class.

[Downstate.4697]

Fire is fine for what it does.

 

Air is fine for what it does.

 

Earth needs an overhaul.

 

Water is still a staple to core ele and piercing shards is a good trait. Some traits could be reworked.

 

Arcane is fine for what it does minus 300s trait.

 

Tempest is fine for what it does. Maybe some trait reworks.

 

Weaver is fine for what it does. Its weakness is its weapon and not the traits imo.

 

Cantrips are fine but mist form is too long a cd and armor of earth could use some of that new -33% condi damage.

 

Arcanes are straight garbage and damage should be reverted.

 

Glyphs are underrated and should be used more often. GoEP needs a rework so the stunbreak makes sense. Storm glyph needs normalized cd of 30s.

 

Conjures are not worth using unless doing casual pve. It 100% should work like toolkits.

 

Signets are either niche or bad. Earth is outdated. Water is good but needs better heal scaling and a buff to res power to really shine.

 

 

 

 

[Jski.6180]

I would person love to see earth atument line take on more of an counter magic mind set. Where it would lose protection for the new condi -33% boon as well as get convit boons into bleeds and over all better counter to dmg mitigation. I would also like to see water take on the counter physical where it would get the protection and crit dmg reduction effects. Over all counter to fast attks and high evasion.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Actually with the new celestial stats being added weavers might be making it back at least in the WvW scenario. Other then that I have no clue why they would even nerf ele dmg modifiers.

[Infusion.7149]

The change to retaliation was an indirect buff to all staff elementalists in WvW. You could probably even run marauder fresh air tempest with the change ; celestial became semi-viable if damage isn't the main goal since 500 heal power nets you ~80% effectiveness of full minstrel. I feel like this thread is more about PVP than WVW because anyone who plays WvW would know this right away.

For PVP, fire weaver and support tempest were used recently. Fire has a condi clear on auras and a self clear as well. While I didn't think the Pyromancer's puissance change was a positive one, you can use blinding ashes instead and in PVP it would have much more usefulness than in WVW.

Water isn't useless as it provides added sustain = higher scholar uptime. Soothing mist affects more than 10 people in WvW squad scenarios and cannot be stripped unlike regeneration. Flow Like Water adds value to evades on weaver ; without water traitline you can't share auras on tempest either.

Arcane skills need help even if they are used in PVE and the 300s cooldown block on Lesser Arcane Shield (with charges) needs to be reworked. The 300s cooldown issue is not unique to elementalists.

Glyph of elemental power should not be used up on autoattacks, but other than that for a DPS it would function as both a stunbreak and damage boost. If you were able to follow up the glyph with a high damage single hit attack then it would be more workable.

While conjures don't see much use in PVP, people definitely use lightning hammer and fiery greatsword in WVW. With the retaliation changes it would be more potent , as typically someone would just drop the lightning field on the lightning hammer. With the changes to retaliation and celestial gear I anticipate some tempests might use frost bow again for when they are out of water attunement.

Signet of Water isn't completely useless , it heals about as much as Merciful Intervention in competitive modes and actually has a passive effect.

Armor of earth cooldown could be reduced but generally you would use lightning flash (it isn't a stunbreak for some reason).

Edited May 3, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Juan.6124]

21 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Water:

Water is possibly the worst traitline, and is only really taken because of aura sharing on support builds. I cant think of any reason any build would take soothing ice or piercing shards, cleansing wave and flow like water are extremely underwhelming, and soothing power is pretty terrible (also it seems to be bugged from my testing in pvp). Water needs a pretty big overhaul as at least half the traits are useless in all types of content.

Is it april 1st again already? Just to give one example, power tempest uses water instead of fire because of the damage modifiers.

[Obtena.7952]

Instead of disagreeing with the people that control the definition, it's probably more useful discussion to try to figure out why they mean what they say. ... and no, it's not because 'ele hate'. The inability to comprehend Anet's position here shouldn't lead you to conclude they are wrong. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Downstate.4697]

I run water with fresh air tempest

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Just now, DirtyDan.4759 said:

Is it april 1st again already? Just to give one example, power tempest uses water instead of fire because of the damage modifiers.

My post is mainly focused on pvp, where the damage modifiers from water traits are split.

[Erze.7253]

I've noticed that while mist form says it's invulnerable, it isn't. I've been targeted and hit several times in mist form.

[CETheLucid.3964]

I'm thinking eles new elite spec will probably be front loaded with lots of damage modifiers given how little the class was touched in this coming balance pass. That is the goal of it; to prepare for the new EoD elite specs. It'll probably be a long range longbow/rifle sort of spec. At least that's what everyones been asking for.

 

Since staff is more AoE focused I'd wager if it happens like that the long range spec would be more single target focused with token AoE focus in fire or something. Very PvP oriented/boss sort of weapon. Big single number damage.

 

They're not wrong with their assessment overall but Guardian in general is severely overtuned. They need to either bring everyone else up to that level or bring Guardian back down to Earth with everyone else.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Just now, CETheLucid.3964 said:

I'm thinking eles new elite spec will probably be front loaded with lots of damage modifiers given how little the class was touched in this coming balance pass. That is the goal of it; to prepare for the new EoD elite specs. It'll probably be a long range longbow/rifle sort of spec. At least that's what everyones been asking for.

 

Since staff is more AoE focused I'd wager if it happens like that the long range spec would be more single target focused with token AoE focus in fire or something. Very PvP oriented/boss sort of weapon. Big single number damage.

 

They're not wrong with their assessment overall but Guardian in general is severely overtuned. They need to either bring everyone else up to that level or bring Guardian back down to Earth with everyone else.

Longbow or another 2h ranged weapon would be great, elementalist really could use more ranged options. Its hard to guess how these changes are prepping for the new elite specs, hopefully it all makes sense when we can finally test them.

[Jski.6180]

21 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Actually with the new celestial stats being added weavers might be making it back at least in the WvW scenario. Other then that I have no clue why they would even nerf ele dmg modifiers.

If and only if we where not getting an -33% condi dmg taken boon but we are so it could be a think where it just simply stays alive but dose not kill any thing the old bunker ele doing nothing.

 

Over all the update is a nerf to tempest and weaver with an odd ball buff to core ele but only vs its elite spec not vs other classes.

 

Ele was just barely in the game from the last update tempest was effectively removed from wvw meta with the shout update its gone for sure with the scraper update. Weaver was usable in wvw as a pure power dmg or a roamer i see the power dmg weaver being some what there but with less "spike numbers" and i think roamer weaver maybe dead for being able to get kills vs more groups and araze races players.

 

Ele was not in a good places before this pach and it will be in an worst place after this pach. Anet rarly adds more to the preview of there pachese so please do not hold hope for some other things.

[Razor.6392]

It's honestly very sad how out of touch ANet continues to be when it comes to anything elementalist. It's been like this for years, and it will continue feeling this way.

 

Arcane is still useless. They haven't acknowledged it in almost a year. I'm sure they have the usage stats. How can a skill worth taking a utility slot do 900-1000 damage and justify being taken? Just for elemental surge? It makes no sense. No one on their right mind would pick this over stun breaks, stability, shields or pulsing conditions.

 

Why the hell is lightning flash still the way it is? It does NOTHING and mesmer's blink puts it to shame in every single aspect.

 

The only props I can give to anet in what, almost a decade of ele? is for designing weaver. That was a genius design compared to tempest, so hopefully the new spec will also blow my mind.

[Jski.6180]

Anet seem to forgot about Sand Squall in the coming update where the boon cap is 10 sec this skill will only work well if you wait for boons to tick down by 33% of there duration most of the time impossible as an tempest doing rotations.

 

This update puts ele in an worst places then it was before some how anet HATES the ele class and every thing related to it.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

11 hours ago, Razor.6392 said:

It's honestly very sad how out of touch ANet continues to be when it comes to anything elementalist. It's been like this for years, and it will continue feeling this way.

 

Arcane is still useless. They haven't acknowledged it in almost a year. I'm sure they have the usage stats. How can a skill worth taking a utility slot do 900-1000 damage and justify being taken? Just for elemental surge? It makes no sense. No one on their right mind would pick this over stun breaks, stability, shields or pulsing conditions.

 

Why the hell is lightning flash still the way it is? It does NOTHING and mesmer's blink puts it to shame in every single aspect.

 

The only props I can give to anet in what, almost a decade of ele? is for designing weaver. That was a genius design compared to tempest, so hopefully the new spec will also blow my mind.

I agree that weaver is the best thing that has ever happened to ele. Its the only reason ive stuck with this class.

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

I agree that weaver is the best thing that has ever happened to ele. Its the only reason ive stuck with this class.

 

Weaver has to be the most convoluted class design I've ever seen.  It appears needlessly complex and restrictive.  Yet, once you get used to it, it flows like water.  I think the guys at metabattle referred to it as a "rhythmic" playstyle?  I like that description. 

 

A normal class that simply rotates between two weapons doesn't have this flow to it.  You just rotate back and forth.  Weaver is...well, how do you even describe it?  If I am in fire/air, then it would be ideal to rotate into water, earth, or fire next as air will result in cooldown lock.  Which attunement I choose next is a conflict between what I need to access of my offhand 4 seconds from now, what skills I need right now, and which dual skills are on cooldown. 

 

These combined restrictions create narrow "pathways" that the weaver flows down.  The design doesn't prevent you from cooldown locking or rotating into an awkward attunement configuration, unable to access the skills you need on your next attunement swap.  When you are first learning to play it, it feels quite awful as you frequently flow down the wrong "pathway" (I called it "clunky" at first!).  However, once you play it enough that the correct pathways occur to you more easily on the fly and you're able to balance these choices you're forced to make every few seconds, weaver feels simply amazing to play!

 

You begin to find that it is restrictive, but simultaneously flexible.  It does have 26 skills per weapon set, after all!  You just have to wrap your head around this insane way of accessing them!

 

TLDR: Agree 100%!  Weaver is amazing!  Love it!

[Jski.6180]

10 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

I agree that weaver is the best thing that has ever happened to ele. Its the only reason ive stuck with this class.

Weaver is pure power creep from core ele.  Its not a good example of good balancing or well made product from anet.

[Aigleborgne.2981]

2 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Weaver is pure power creep from core ele.  Its not a good example of good balancing or well made product from anet.

All elites are power creep from core. It's not new! 

 

Tempest didn't change from core ele where as weaver introduced a new gameplay for ele. 

First time I tried tempest, I thought those overloads were nice. But using them and having a 20s CD is against ele principles. So I quickly returned to core. 

Fun part for many ele is attunement switch, which is further emphasis with weaver. 

Weaver also brings very good synergy with all traits related to attunement switch. Something that tempest never came close to, mainly because auras are not good to start with. 

[WindBlade.8749]

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Weaver is pure power creep from core ele.  Its not a good example of good balancing or well made product from anet.

that all depend if you think core should be sidegrade of sepcs or specs should be upgrade, which a lot of people things they should, and specs should be pure upgrade (which seem to be the case for close to every specs).

 

and weaver is way better than tempest in term of gameplay to ... since tempest basicly just remove your ability to swap element for x time when you use his new skills.

Edited May 6, 2021 by WindBlade.8749

[Arheundel.6451]

5 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

13 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

Weaver has to be the most convoluted class design I've ever seen.  It appears needlessly complex and restrictive.  Yet, once you get used to it, it flows like water.  I think the guys at metabattle referred to it as a "rhythmic" playstyle?  I like that description. 

 

A normal class that simply rotates between two weapons doesn't have this flow to it.  You just rotate back and forth.  Weaver is...well, how do you even describe it?  If I am in fire/air, then it would be ideal to rotate into water, earth, or fire next as air will result in cooldown lock.  Which attunement I choose next is a conflict between what I need to access of my offhand 4 seconds from now, what skills I need right now, and which dual skills are on cooldown. 

 

These combined restrictions create narrow "pathways" that the weaver flows down.  The design doesn't prevent you from cooldown locking or rotating into an awkward attunement configuration, unable to access the skills you need on your next attunement swap.  When you are first learning to play it, it feels quite awful as you frequently flow down the wrong "pathway" (I called it "clunky" at first!).  However, once you play it enough that the correct pathways occur to you more easily on the fly and you're able to balance these choices you're forced to make every few seconds, weaver feels simply amazing to play!

 

You begin to find that it is restrictive, but simultaneously flexible.  It does have 26 skills per weapon set, after all!  You just have to wrap your head around this insane way of accessing them!

 

TLDR: Agree 100%!  Weaver is amazing!  Love it!

 

Only sword and dagger flow properly with Weaver maintaining that rhythmic sequence where staff and scepter dual skills in some instances leave much to desire: 

 

scepter:

-fire/air burst is overnerfed and doesn't feel like anything despite the CD

-water/air moves so slow that is almost an insult to put it there

-fire/water is slow too and the retreat covered is almost non-existent

 

staff:

-water/air and fire/air...again slow animations on top of being projectiles ..they really love to screw you over on ele, weaver is amazing when it comes to close combat...ranged combat I do 100 times better on core ele 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Arheundel.6451

[Arheundel.6451]

6 minutes ago, WindBlade.8749 said:

that all depend if you think core should be sidegrade of sepcs or specs should be upgrade, which a lot of people things they should, and specs should be pure upgrade (which seem to be the case for close to every specs).

 

and weaver is way better than tempest in term of gameplay to ... since tempest basicly just remove your ability to swap element for x time when you use his new skills.

Weaver is definitely not better than Tempest, they are different in style and it's not easier or harder to survive on one compared to the other, although tempest requires less reaction time and it's faster in reaching your defensive skills plus...overloads are stunbreaks on a 20s CD which is the biggest selling point for me on tempest

[WindBlade.8749]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Weaver is definitely not better than Tempest, they are different in style and it's not easier or harder to survive on one compared to the other, although tempest requires less reaction time and it's faster in reaching your defensive skills plus...overloads are stunbreaks on a 20s CD which is the biggest selling point for me on tempest

well i'm more on pve side of things so yes, survivability is nice but if dps don't follow at least to be viable (which tempest do nothing, it's even do less dps than repear and scrapper dps).

Well i will never use it, it's need to be viable first so yea i'm not really fair on it but aenet to is not fair on it...

[katniss.6735]

I forget what all the patch changes are that will help us, but 1 of them is that retaliation will no longer reflect damage back at us.

Quote

• The Retaliation boon has been renamed Resolution.
• Incoming condition damage is decreased by 33%. Stacks duration.

This will make power staff much safer. 

 

I still feel like melee range is in a horrible place for both damage and defense when it comes to roaming.