Elementalist is not "in a very good place"

[Jski.6180]

5 minutes ago, TheDarkness.6947 said:

As a new player who recently leveled an ele to 80, I have to say I’m disappointed.  Feels like kind of a noob-trap to be honest.  Ele feels super clunky to play, and extremely squishy.  I could live with those things if I could articulate an upside to playing one, but I can’t. 

 

My buddies who started with me on other profs (we are all experienced MMO gamers) seem to be having a much easier time achieving better results.  Nothing about ele feels spectacular, other than that the visuals are cool.  Your reward for performing all the maniacal button pressing and CD tracking well is that you don’t die.  Sometimes.  Neither the DPS nor the flexibility seem much better than what you’d get from another prof.

 

So I’m going to re-roll another profession to main.  Hopefully ele will get some love sooner or later so I can dust it off, and it won’t feel like all that play time was wasted.  I wanted to love this prof but to me it seems pretty neglected and over-nerfed, at least in my experience.

It very much is a trap of a class your way better off level up gurad as a new player.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

18 minutes ago, TheDarkness.6947 said:

As a new player who recently leveled an ele to 80, I have to say I’m disappointed.  Feels like kind of a noob-trap to be honest.  Ele feels super clunky to play, and extremely squishy.  I could live with those things if I could articulate an upside to playing one, but I can’t. 

 

My buddies who started with me on other profs (we are all experienced MMO gamers) seem to be having a much easier time achieving better results.  Nothing about ele feels spectacular, other than that the visuals are cool.  Your reward for performing all the maniacal button pressing and CD tracking well is that you don’t die.  Sometimes.  Neither the DPS nor the flexibility seem much better than what you’d get from another prof.

 

So I’m going to re-roll another profession to main.  Hopefully ele will get some love sooner or later so I can dust it off, and it won’t feel like all that play time was wasted.  I wanted to love this prof but to me it seems pretty neglected and over-nerfed, at least in my experience.

Ele might just feel clunky because you are new to the class. Once you get a bit of practice in it has some of the most fluid and enjoyable rotations in the game, especially as weaver. That being said I wouldnt recommend ele for open world content. There are builds that can do well but its not really worth the effort.

[TheDarkness.6947]

4 minutes ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Ele might just feel clunky because you are new to the class. Once you get a bit of practice in it has some of the most fluid and enjoyable rotations in the game, especially as weaver. That being said I wouldnt recommend ele for open world content. There are builds that can do well but its not really worth the effort.

 

There could be truth to that.  I actually started in Tempest because I’m more interested in a caster or at least ranged play style vs. a melee battle mage.  The way it’s performing in open world and dungeons, I don’t even want to take it into any fractals, raids or PvP/WvW content.  I realize those are different builds and might perform quite differently.  But just based on my experience so far, I feel like it’s sort of a gamble to find out - might just be wasting more time when I could level something more fun.

 

I admit it could be a PEBKAC, but I’ve been successful with squishy caster classes in other games.  This one feels bad to me.

[Loke.1429]

On 5/18/2021 at 7:31 PM, TheDarkness.6947 said:

 

There could be truth to that.  I actually started in Tempest because I’m more interested in a caster or at least ranged play style vs. a melee battle mage.  The way it’s performing in open world and dungeons, I don’t even want to take it into any fractals, raids or PvP/WvW content.  I realize those are different builds and might perform quite differently.  But just based on my experience so far, I feel like it’s sort of a gamble to find out - might just be wasting more time when I could level something more fun.

 

I admit it could be a PEBKAC, but I’ve been successful with squishy caster classes in other games.  This one feels bad to me.

Its probably not PEBKAC / user error, it's just currently quite weak, at least for wvw. It has a fundamental problem in that it has some very complex standstill rotations that give decent dps, but those can never be performed in pvp/wvw due to standing still for so long and their complexity (long period with only dps focus where an interruption makes dps a lot worse for the following period after the interruption). This fundamental problem affects pvp and wvw because the devs balance every game mode with dps meters from pve raids as a benchline (at least it seems like that to me).

Edited June 1, 2021 by Loke.1429

[vilkanor.3072]

On 5/18/2021 at 7:17 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Ele might just feel clunky because you are new to the class.

at least when it comes to wvw, after 3.000 hrs with Ele I confirm that it's clunky, and with an astonishingly high risk vs a ridiculously low reward mechanic (aka "the pianist").

[Jski.6180]

Few things as long as ranged skills auto turn your never going to see d/d or melee ele get any real play as ranged attks will always be better because you cant out flank them. Seeing how most of ele ranged attks are on the slow side they are mostly melee ish. So unless your target is standing still your never going to be that dps class.

 

The game is just not made for slow ranged attk and the ai for them often gives you wild attks such as attking up if some one simply jumps. This game is not made for ele and never will be.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

2 hours ago, vilkanor.3072 said:

at least when it comes to wvw, after 3.000 hrs with Ele I confirm that it's clunky, and with an astonishingly high risk vs a ridiculously low reward mechanic (aka "the pianist").

On weaver I would argue that all the weapons (except staff) have very fluid rotations and their skills are pretty responsive with only a few outliers. Though I would kind of agree that core ele and tempest feel pretty clunky and outdated.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

On weaver I would argue that all the weapons (except staff) have very fluid rotations and their skills are pretty responsive with only a few outliers. Though I would kind of agree that core ele and tempest feel pretty clunky and outdated.

 

I think some of the cast times could be shaved a little or some self quickness added, but otherwise I agree. 

[tekfan.3179]

As someone who played the ele since the beta, I feel the current implementation and place of the profession is a disaster. The least fun I ever had with the profession, is now.

At this point I have doubts that the devs at Anet even play the game anymore, or at least no one plays the elementalist I assume.

I can only agree to the class feeling clunky. Also: Unrewarding, squishy and weak.

It's almost as if they balanced the ele around youtube-vids of raid-build dmg-rotations at the test-golem, totally disregarding the effects of general movement, dodging and casting-times outside of strictly controlled environments.

I feel every other class feels more dynamic, is more forgiving if you need to pick up a rotation after dodging or movement and is more resilient. The latter not just because ele has the lowest armor-rating and amount of HP, but because other classes seem to have more synergy in their passive effects from traits or skills.

[Junkpile.7439]

Anet just didn't give ele any real defense. Defence is to abuse lamest weapon in game off hand focus or play some bruiser build that just smash buttons whole time and keep auras and boons up.