Is this class a scam for solo players?

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Please try my easy Celestial tempest build, it has tons of survivability and still some nice DPS.

 

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/92741-easy-condi-tempest-solo-build/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-1386296

 

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, TheDarkness.6947 said:

 

So here's what I don't understand.  People seem to think that anet hates ele.  But if you look at it - look at the HUGE number of skills and all the accompanying animations they've developed for it - someone(s) has done a LOT of work here.  Probably more than any other profession.  Heck, weaver added like 50 new skills.  Somebody at anet loves or at least did love ele.

 

So what happened?  Did the dev that championed it leave?  Does s/he just get ganged up on and out-voted by by the other devs at the balance meetings?

 

You'd think with the huge amount of work that's gone into ele, they'd want people to play it rather than complain how bad it is.  So, why not make it more accessible to people who want to play it by making it either A) not so terrible or B) not so punishing to learn.  I'm honestly not sure whether A or B is the truth at this point.  But it's definitely one of them.

Thats true, the "50 new skills" is maybe a bit...too much but actually yes. Weaver got a lot of skills but tbh its really the trash class out of all. At least when it comes to solo or needing to survive.
I dont want to be rude but these ascalon story mode can be done by every class easily and you cant be sure if it will be like that in lvl 80 areas and whatever.
Ascalon story mode is a joke tbh and nothing compared to hot champs or whatever.
I also outdps berserker in lvl 80 area with my chrono by far, but in low lvl areas its not like that. That ascalon solos dont mean a lot. At least in my opinion.

Edit: sorry i forgot to say: i did not watch the videos and u maybe also Showed Level 80 content and even if not, that builds obv can maybe also do well in lvl 80 areas. I just dont want that someone missunderstands me. If there is no Level 80 content: it would maybe be good to show it because...you dont always hang around in low Level areas..however. 

Also try to put the 11.6k hp vipers or berserkers rotation on ur boss while none other actually cares about the boss dps bc they have 15k+ hp or other sustain and neednt to care about high damage hits because you are not 1 or 2 hit...unless you are ele or thief...at least thief can dodge it really well.
You know the heropoint under tarir? the extremely easy one? I saw a power tempest with over 360 mastery points dying there after 2 minutes of trying to kill it. While with something like necro or revenant u swap in devastation or sth like that and auto attack and u r basically unkillable by it.

Well maybe i shouldnt compare it to them but you maybe get what i mean.

Most classes have fair sustain in their dps builds already and ele has to swap out skills or traits to get sustain, thats a damage decrease none would be happy with. Swapping out dmg traits or skills to survive...who would even like it. And even then eles sustain is under average by far. 

People often look at numbers in that snowcrows benchmark and say: nerf, buff.
People dont look at boons or sustain or conditions like vuln that increases damage also by a big amount.

The dodge rate as ele is extremely high what also means damage decrease. The rotation is compared to other classes "hard" so its harder to bring it like that in a bossfight.
Most classes dont have issues like that.

Dont get me wrong, Ele is able to solo well, but honestly every or nearly every other class does better.
There is a boon increase needed such as a "constant" sustain increase.

There are skills like Stone resonance that gain really good sustain but...its for 5 seconds with a 50 sec cooldown.
So its basically a "Kill the enemy before your shield goes down". And if you cant do it, say bye. Its possible to solo the balthasar hp in auric basin, yes I did it myself. But only because that boss has such low hp so its as i told you before. Bosses with higher hp are a different side of the page.

Ele lacks in constant sustain and self-boons. The damage in overall is fine.

Was not really meant only for u, just quoted bc i liked your main statement, was more to all here that are reading it.

So yea Ele is scam for soloing in my opinion - compared to other classes.
You can do fine with it anyway tho. Even if there are obvious needed changes.

Just my opinion.

But honestly, play whatever you guys like to play. I mean, i will never change my favourite class even if the balance team doesnt like it or whatever. What matters is the fun right?

Every class is able to solo, you just have to find the right build.

 

Well i didnt want to talk ele trashy here, there are also other classes that need changes like damage, boon, support, sustain buffs or even nerfs for 1-3. But thats the ele forum.

Everything is just my opinion. So maybe you might not agree.
I also talked about PvE only here.

Edited July 23, 2021 by SeTect.5918

[Downstate.4697]

As far as pvp and wvw roaming goes, this is the first time in 8 years where I truly felt that ele was frustrating to play. Maybe its the fact I hate weaver and never bothered learning it, but I think I want to move on to other classes. Its not that core is bad, just everything else is better. All the weapons feel the worsed they have ever been. EoD spec better blow me away if I want to play ele again.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

6 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

As far as pvp and wvw roaming goes, this is the first time in 8 years where I truly felt that ele was frustrating to play. Maybe its the fact I hate weaver and never bothered learning it, but I think I want to move on to other classes. Its not that core is bad, just everything else is better. All the weapons feel the worsed they have ever been. EoD spec better blow me away if I want to play ele again.

 

 

I have the same feeling.

Weaver / elem was my main class for roaming in wvw, and also the class with I did most of pvp content, AT, etc.

 

Here some explanation (and salt) if you want

 

In summary, you're a manual car riding on two wheels ; it's exciting at first, it's all fun and worthy and you're showing off in front of girls ; until you see more and more automatic cars overtaking you every months, while developpers keep pushing you with  sticks.

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Jski.6180]

Seems i was summoned here.

 

This game for pve favors tanklyness in not just gear but in skills. Ele out side of weaver has to give up all of its aggression to play def (weaver gets attks that gives them an def effect after the attk as well as the ability to give them self barrier with no cast time so they can still stay on the attk). 3 Blocks on a 45 sec cd dose not cut it when you have classes with much higher hp / def getting take 0 dmg for x sec. Keep in mind pve a mobs not going to swap its dmg type to deal with your counter physical dmg effect the AI is just not that smart or that good.

 

High dmg is fun but dmg is "free" in pve if your doing more then 1 dmg your going to win out in the fight unless your on some type of timer. So a glass canon class like ele (sadly just glass no real canon) going all in not going to work well.

 

Ele as a class is very much lacking in pve this has a lot to do with its base balancing of being a Jake-of-all-triads class ideal but at the same time being the one class that lacks the most effects in the game. There realty no class in the game that can do dmg on some level and support on some level to justified balancing any class as Jake-of-all-triads.

 

In short anet hates the ele class because the game is made for ele to be balanced but anet only seems to care about making the ele class under-power with out touching the other classes whom are very much overpower.

 

Added note an ideal i been playing with:

 

I suggest to fix ele is to cut 3/4 of its wepon skills. Make it have 1 set of skill with the atument only to change the added effect of that skills set they all share the same cd. Having 20 sec vs 5 skills when the balancing is as bad as it is now is not worth it due to the after cast of thoughts skills (your only using 1 skill at a time so quantity of skills hits a point where is less effective then the quality of skills).

Edited July 23, 2021 by Jski.6180

[TheDarkness.6947]

1 hour ago, Jski.6180 said:

Added note an ideal i been playing with:

 

I suggest to fix ele is to cut 3/4 of its wepon skills. Make it have 1 set of skill with the atument only to change the added effect of that skills set they all share the same cd. Having 20 sec vs 5 skills when the balancing is as bad as it is now is not worth it due to the after cast of thoughts skills (your only using 1 skill at a time so quantity of skills hits a point where is less effective then the quality of skills).

 

That’s an interesting thought.  I’ve often wondered if greatly reducing the CDs - even eliminating CDs for weak skills -but then moving to some kind of spell point system that throttles the amount/power level of skills you can cast in a given period of time would make ele easier to balance without making it all clunky like it is now.  That’s kind of how rev works isn’t it?

 

I think part of the clunkiness for me is that sometimes you have to wait on a CD to even see if the skill you might need is on its own separate CD.  It’s like you have to think in past, present, and future at the same time to master ele lol.

Edited July 23, 2021 by TheDarkness.6947

[Eddbopkins.2630]

Ele got poor designers compaired to other claases of the same defence and health. Thf got invis, teleports, evades, and constant blind spam. Gaurd got heals, blocks, and teleports. Mesmer got invis, teleports, and interput cc spam and more health. 

What did ele get for its low af health pool and defence? nothing. Not a single block, no evade skills(sword dont count cuz it a specialization), no invis, one measly usless 900 teleport that under preforms compaired to any other teleports, invulns that cant counter attack with so they become usless in actual combat. Weak hitting skills, slow cast times. I can keep going. But i think my point is clear. Ele got the rawest end dirtiest set up in gw.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Downstate.4697]

The trade off for having the lowest hp in the game was the most access to boons like regen and protection. Now we do less damage, have bad boon durations and boon removal is stronger than ever. Ele just needs its damage back.

[Jski.6180]

5 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

The trade off for having the lowest hp in the game was the most access to boons like regen and protection. Now we do less damage, have bad boon durations and boon removal is stronger than ever. Ele just needs its damage back.

Not only that the strongest boons are not there for the ele class but they are for every other class in the game. As well for what ever reason every other class has what ele use to do for dmg.

[Guybrush.4762]

Unpopular opinion: while the elementalist is below average, the balance is not as horrible as the memes imply.

 

You can certainly play solo elementalist with a fair bit of success and if you like the play-style you should absolutely do so. The trick is to not copy blindly the builds you find on the internet. Most of them are tailored for specific stuff like raid or meta events and they are awesome at what they do, yet they are typically not good for solo play. A good raid build will assume that you will have access to most buffs with full uptime, that you will be at 90%+ health constantly for rune of the scholar, etc. And this is just unrealistic if you are facing a champion alone.

 

For solo play you typically want to add some sustain, tankyness and basic boon access whether it comes from gears or traits. Condition cleanse and stun break are also nice to have for specific situation. You may be afraid that the damage lost will slow you down but more damage means nothing if you die and have to repeat your fight... or you know, loose the entire event for the other 49 people (yes twisted marionette I am looking at you, we had our fun! 😄).

 

Quite frankly even if the elementalist is currently not meta across the board, it is still very playable in most scenario. Tempest healer can do great in pug fractal and Celestial weaver is awesome in WvW roaming for example... these options are however often overlooked because other more popular classes exist.

 

So no, it is not unplayable and it is not a scam IMHO... still, some aspects of the class are lagging behind the 'ambient power creep' and I would certainly welcome a buff or two on the core traits for example.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Guybrush.4762
typo

[Jski.6180]

1 hour ago, Guybrush.4762 said:

Unpopular opinion: while the elementalist is below average, the balance is not as horrible as the memes imply.

 

You can certainly play solo elementalist with a fair bit of success and if you like the play-style you should absolutely do so. The trick is to not copy blindly the builds you find on the internet. Most of them are tailored for specific stuff like raid or meta events and they are awesome at what they do, yet they are typically not good for solo play. A good raid build will assume that you will have access to most buffs with full uptime, that you will be at 90%+ health constantly for rune of the scholar, etc. And this is just unrealistic if you are facing a champion alone.

 

For solo play you typically want to add some sustain, tankyness and basic boon access whether it comes from gears or traits. Condition cleanse and stun break are also nice to have for specific situation. You may be afraid that the damage lost will slow you down but more damage means nothing if you die and have to repeat your fight... or you know, loose the entire event for the other 49 people (yes twisted marionette I am looking at you, we had our fun! 😄).

 

Quite frankly even if the elementalist is currently not meta across the board, it is still very playable in most scenario. Tempest healer can do great in pug fractal and Celestial weaver is awesome in WvW roaming for example... these options are however often overlooked because other more popular classes exist.

 

So no, it is not unplayable and it is not a scam IMHO... still, some aspects of the class are lagging behind the 'ambient power creep' and I would certainly welcome a buff or two on the core traits for example.

Very unpopular opinion and non of the ppl your talking about who runs the ele class in "popular class" are going to even look at these forms as they are mostly free to play players mule numbers at best a real trick of numbers.

[SeTect.5918]

1 hour ago, Guybrush.4762 said:

Unpopular opinion: while the elementalist is below average, the balance is not as horrible as the memes imply.

 

You can certainly play solo elementalist with a fair bit of success and if you like the play-style you should absolutely do so. The trick is to not copy blindly the builds you find on the internet. Most of them are tailored for specific stuff like raid or meta events and they are awesome at what they do, yet they are typically not good for solo play. A good raid build will assume that you will have access to most buffs with full uptime, that you will be at 90%+ health constantly for rune of the scholar, etc. And this is just unrealistic if you are facing a champion alone.

 

Obviously...i mean you dont wanna run vipers in solo gameplay against champions...maybe as scourge or guardian but ofc not as ele.
Its not hard to make a solo build at all and made mine also myself and it works veeeery good...for being ele i mean.

 

 

1 hour ago, Guybrush.4762 said:

For solo play you typically want to add some sustain, tankyness and basic boon access whether it comes from gears or traits. Condition cleanse and stun break are also nice to have for specific situation. You may be afraid that the damage lost will slow you down but more damage means nothing if you die and have to repeat your fight... or you know, loose the entire event for the other 49 people (yes twisted marionette I am looking at you, we had our fun! 😄).

 

Pretty sure ele has no basic boon access in solo. Or yes it has...to maybe 2 boons that are halfbaked.
Stun breaks are also pretty rare with ele. Or do you want to swap out your best utility dps skills for 1 little stunbreak that you wont need for most bosses? In PvE enemies hit slow so you often get out of stun without stunbreak before the next attack of a champ hits u. And since ele has no good constant sustain, you ll need the dps utilities to kill the enemy fast.
 

1 hour ago, Guybrush.4762 said:

Quite frankly even if the elementalist is currently not meta across the board, it is still very playable in most scenario. Tempest healer can do great in pug fractal and Celestial weaver is awesome in WvW roaming for example... these options are however often overlooked because other more popular classes exist.

 

So no, it is not unplayable and it is not a scam IMHO... still, some aspects of the class are lagging behind the 'ambient power creep' and I would certainly welcome a buff or two on the core traits for example.

The topic was about "solo" so i guess fractal or wvw arguments wont work here. I agree tho. Its not unplayable but the post was not about fractals. Also in solo its not unplayable but if u look at other classes it will let it seem so. Ele in solo is the ultimate trash out of all classes but not the ultimate trash if you dont look at other classes.
Thats my opinion.

Ele (Weaver) is my fav class because of the (compared to other classes) "hard" rotation and the unique playstyle and also because of the colours. But that it is also the worst solo pve class makes me sad, since its what i do the most time: running around in open world and killing champions.

I dont even want a dmg buff for ele tbh, i would be more for a boon buff and some constant sustain.
And a pure dmg buff would just shoot ele up to the dps benches and that leads to nerfs again.
 

[Guybrush.4762]

I kindly disagree with the stun break argument. As a Tempest for example every Overload is a stun break which is super neat, and if you run a condition build the glyph of elemental power is a low cd stun break mixed with a not so bad damage buff. I would agree though that it is very tempting to cast those on cooldown (and not doing so kinda skimp your damage, I give you that). For the boon access, Elementalist can generate an above average level of might with combos, Overload fire, Heat sinc (aka Fire Warhorn 4). Plus the Arcane trait line is filled with quite frankly basic yet serviceable boons so once again I kindly disagree.

 

For the rest of your points, the picture looks a bit brighter from where I stand but otherwise... yeah I am pretty much on the same page. Look, Revenant and Necromancer to name a few are insane solo classes and Elementalist does not compares to those. Is it below average ? Yes. Is it deserving some love? Absolutely. Does the fact your elementals disappear when you mount makes me sigh? You bet it does. Do my butter fingers awkwardly switch to the wrong atunement sometime? You cannot prove it! But still... it is not orange juice on freshly brushed teeth level of bad IMHO.

[Head Kracker.4790]

4 hours ago, Guybrush.4762 said:

Unpopular opinion: while the elementalist is below average, the balance is not as horrible as the memes imply.

 

You can certainly play solo elementalist with a fair bit of success and if you like the play-style you should absolutely do so. The trick is to not copy blindly the builds you find on the internet. Most of them are tailored for specific stuff like raid or meta events and they are awesome at what they do, yet they are typically not good for solo play. A good raid build will assume that you will have access to most buffs with full uptime, that you will be at 90%+ health constantly for rune of the scholar, etc. And this is just unrealistic if you are facing a champion alone.

 

For solo play you typically want to add some sustain, tankyness and basic boon access whether it comes from gears or traits. Condition cleanse and stun break are also nice to have for specific situation. You may be afraid that the damage lost will slow you down but more damage means nothing if you die and have to repeat your fight... or you know, loose the entire event for the other 49 people (yes twisted marionette I am looking at you, we had our fun! 😄).

 

Quite frankly even if the elementalist is currently not meta across the board, it is still very playable in most scenario. Tempest healer can do great in pug fractal and Celestial weaver is awesome in WvW roaming for example... these options are however often overlooked because other more popular classes exist.

 

So no, it is not unplayable and it is not a scam IMHO... still, some aspects of the class are lagging behind the 'ambient power creep' and I would certainly welcome a buff or two on the core traits for example.

I understand your opinion, but honestly I cant get behind it. I have soloed alot, many many hours as Warrior, Thief, Guardian, Necro, Revenant, Ranger, and Mesmer. While Mesmer is the most uncomfortable of them all at lower levels none of the other classes felt as bad and as need to try harder than ele.

 

Now group play is a completely different beast since any deficiencies get masked by others boons and output unless your looking at a dps meter but even then I should not have to do 12 button presses verses other classes three to gain the same output. Being a difficult class can have its rewards true. But the cycle of actions you need to take is way denser than any other class for honestly less value. The two examples you use are one group play build which is very usefull and can out put some very nice healing numbers , and a wvw build which is a hybrid build in a very different game mode than pve since all damage coefficients are lowered overall making any incidental conditions you may apply much more value.

 

Also the Twisted Marionette is a squad based run at something that a is not designed for a squad sized 50 group. The amount of fails to success was directly tied to the extra 30+ people in the publics this time since mechanically bugs and non-experienced players with only the tiniest bit of lag could wash that event out in a private go. Whereas while the public had more players it also had more flex in the amount of issues that could crop up and not be so close to the redline.  That isnt a call to nerf the private or a knock on anyone that likes tough content but I would bet Druids and Mesmer's would be more useful overall than Eles in any slot just since they have more independence from their mechanics in some ways than Ele. And even if they got stuck with only themselves on one platform the druid or mesmer could probably outpace the Ele in both damage and heals for the duration to solo the champion in most cases.

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, Head Kracker.4790 said:

I understand your opinion, but honestly I cant get behind it. I have soloed alot, many many hours as Warrior, Thief, Guardian, Necro, Revenant, Ranger, and Mesmer. While Mesmer is the most uncomfortable of them all at lower levels none of the other classes felt as bad and as need to try harder than ele.

 

Now group play is a completely different beast since any deficiencies get masked by others boons and output unless your looking at a dps meter but even then I should not have to do 12 button presses verses other classes three to gain the same output. Being a difficult class can have its rewards true. But the cycle of actions you need to take is way denser than any other class for honestly less value. The two examples you use are one group play build which is very usefull and can out put some very nice healing numbers , and a wvw build which is a hybrid build in a very different game mode than pve since all damage coefficients are lowered overall making any incidental conditions you may apply much more value.

 

Also the Twisted Marionette is a squad based run at something that a is not designed for a squad sized 50 group. The amount of fails to success was directly tied to the extra 30+ people in the publics this time since mechanically bugs and non-experienced players with only the tiniest bit of lag could wash that event out in a private go. Whereas while the public had more players it also had more flex in the amount of issues that could crop up and not be so close to the redline.  That isnt a call to nerf the private or a knock on anyone that likes tough content but I would bet Druids and Mesmer's would be more useful overall than Eles in any slot just since they have more independence from their mechanics in some ways than Ele. And even if they got stuck with only themselves on one platform the druid or mesmer could probably outpace the Ele in both damage and heals for the duration to solo the champion in most cases.

 

Druid is a better solo class than ele now?  I'm skeptical...

[SeTect.5918]

10 hours ago, Guybrush.4762 said:

I kindly disagree with the stun break argument. As a Tempest for example every Overload is a stun break which is super neat, and if you run a condition build the glyph of elemental power is a low cd stun break mixed with a not so bad damage buff. I would agree though that it is very tempting to cast those on cooldown (and not doing so kinda skimp your damage, I give you that). For the boon access, Elementalist can generate an above average level of might with combos, Overload fire, Heat sinc (aka Fire Warhorn 4). Plus the Arcane trait line is filled with quite frankly basic yet serviceable boons so once again I kindly disagree.

 

For the rest of your points, the picture looks a bit brighter from where I stand but otherwise... yeah I am pretty much on the same page. Look, Revenant and Necromancer to name a few are insane solo classes and Elementalist does not compares to those. Is it below average ? Yes. Is it deserving some love? Absolutely. Does the fact your elementals disappear when you mount makes me sigh? You bet it does. Do my butter fingers awkwardly switch to the wrong atunement sometime? You cannot prove it! But still... it is not orange juice on freshly brushed teeth level of bad IMHO.

Well I agree basically, I think I just wrote wrong, I was talking about Weaver with this 2 halfbaked boons, because weaver reaches 10-20 stacks of might and no other boon except maybe protection if you swap out serrated stones. Or fury if you play power but thats a pretty bad idea in solo anyway as weaver.

 

The thing with arcane is that you will lose over 200 condi dmg if you wear trailblazers. You will also lose passive effects of signets or a lot condi remove (depending what you chose) and you ll get 10% more damage and 7% if you were on earth attunement...for having more boons..ofc arcane has other advantages but i d say its not worth it. The damage is higher with earth spec and you ll get a damage decrease of 10-17%. Its depending on the Player with which spec you can play better imo. I d say they r both on par in overall.

 

Tempest is sth different obv. You reach Bonus boons by each overload by a trait of tempest + the already exististing boons on overloads. 

Well Tempest Was the support spec out of the specs so yea...

Weaver has the worse boon Generation. 

The fact that weaver gives like 1-2 boons that are halfbaked is sad, they are not even for your team, just for urself.

Tempest has better boon Generation but other cons like..you need a large hitbox for good dps. Most bosses dont have a large hitbox.

 

I never disagreed with u tho. Just with some little points. Weaver is ofc playable and thats good. But as you also already said: 

11 hours ago, Guybrush.4762 said:

Is it deserving some love? Absolutely. 

By far imo.

 

Its like as i said already, i just want 

15 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

a boon buff and some constant sustain.

And a pure dmg buff would just shoot ele up to the dps benches and that leads to nerfs again.
 

Not even too much sustain, just a small one. 

Like a small buff in pve of signet of Restoration from 202 to 250. Thats a 23,8% buff of passive effect. 

And a barrier buff of Elemental refreshment in pve too. Like from 434 to 760 which is a 75,1% buff. That sounds big but is actually just like 300 barrier. 

Actually that are no World changing buffs but i wanted to stay realistic.

 

That are all of the sustain increases i would like for weaver specifically. 

Some boon buffs would be nice to see in core. Every spec, except arcane, gives like 1 boon. 

 

I am not the right person to talk about tempest because i mostly play weaver. 

 

Buuuuuut there will never appear buffs for ele anyway. So Dreams stay Dreams.

[Arheundel.6451]

14 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

Druid is a better solo class than ele now?  I'm skeptical...

100% yes

[AliamRationem.5172]

Just now, Arheundel.6451 said:

100% yes

 

I'm curious what kind of DPS values you typically see in boss solos with your preferred druid build?  And do you have or know of any video on a similar build?

[SeTect.5918]

8 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

I'm curious what kind of DPS values you typically see in boss solos with your preferred druid build?  And do you have or know of any video on a similar build?

I d say druid has Lower dps but better sustain which is also more constant. The boon Generation is also better and the Pet also brings a lot advantages. 

If you are downed the Pet can rev u.

[Khalisto.5780]

I think ele is still top 4 solo class, only behind necro, guardian and rev. Maybe I'm much better as ele than any other class and the ones are listed are borderline broken. 

 

Even core ele has some viable options, like fresh air or earth fire arcane condi build

[AliamRationem.5172]

5 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

I d say druid has Lower dps but better sustain which is also more constant. The boon Generation is also better and the Pet also brings a lot advantages. 

If you are downed the Pet can rev u.

 

That's fair.  I guess for me, weaver has more than enough sustain.  The only thing holding it back from being among the best solo play classes is the lack of a ranged weapon swap.  Ranged is generally safer, good for buying time to recover, and then you have mechanics like phase shifted where you simply can't do anything without a ranged weapon.  I do feel that the top solo classes (especially renegade and scourge which were over-buffed by the torment change) have an unfair and unnecessary sustain advantage, given they do have a ranged weapon swap and just as much if not more damage than weaver in solo play.

[Jski.6180]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

That's fair.  I guess for me, weaver has more than enough sustain.  The only thing holding it back from being among the best solo play classes is the lack of a ranged weapon swap.  Ranged is generally safer, good for buying time to recover, and then you have mechanics like phase shifted where you simply can't do anything without a ranged weapon.  I do feel that the top solo classes (especially renegade and scourge which were over-buffed by the torment change) have an unfair and unnecessary sustain advantage, given they do have a ranged weapon swap and just as much if not more damage than weaver in solo play.

It sustain and def that lets classes solo more then dps. Weaver has oddly more def effects then core ele and tempest so it is a better solo class. Now only if we could see say barriers on aura for tempest and core ele barriers on swaps. Barriers are far better then healing when it comes to solo play due to passive healing effects such as reg when it comes to solo game play (realty all game play truth be told.)

[Khalisto.5780]

45 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

It sustain and def that lets classes solo more then dps. Weaver has oddly more def effects then core ele and tempest so it is a better solo class. Now only if we could see say barriers on aura for tempest and core ele barriers on swaps. Barriers are far better then healing when it comes to solo play due to passive healing effects such as reg when it comes to solo game play (realty all game play truth be told.)

Yup, barrier addition to earth traitline would be really good

[AliamRationem.5172]

55 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

It sustain and def that lets classes solo more then dps. Weaver has oddly more def effects then core ele and tempest so it is a better solo class. Now only if we could see say barriers on aura for tempest and core ele barriers on swaps. Barriers are far better then healing when it comes to solo play due to passive healing effects such as reg when it comes to solo game play (realty all game play truth be told.)

 

I would say its both. More specifically, the best solo play classes can sustain under heavy pressure while dealing very high damage.  Renegade and scourge are extremely overtuned in PvE by this measure since the torment change.  They were already top of the list prior to that.

[Esorono.1039]

Elementalists can be rather bulky, between aggro managing using four earth elementals that can survive several nukes, a rather easy access to a stunbreak, protection, and stability, as well as a lot of healing abilities. My Tempest can survive a bit more easily than my Reaper or Herald when playing passively. The trade off though is that the DPS is BAD, the set-up takes a while, and the DPS rotation would bore people to death. So it isn't the way I always play, but if there is difficult content and I don't feel like using my brain at all, it's pretty solid, which is fitting because it's mostly Earth. It's not as good as Reaper or Herald for solo play as both of them can actually kill things, but when focused on living ele can technically solo things if just because it's not going to die.

 

I would rate Elementalist, beating things to death with a spoon while wearing adamantium armor out of ten. In terms of solo ability.