Guild Wars 2

What?: Elementalists, have the lowest health and armor in the game in addition the more “powerful” attacks such as Staff fire 5, Daggers Earth 5 and Lightning 4,5 combo Scepter/focus Dragon’s tooth. are telegraphed in an extreme way.

They are considered to have some of the lowest damage in PvP and are outdamanged by other classes in many cases in PvE.
They have all the aspects of a glass cannon with none of the damage one would expect in return.

Objective: To get elementalist damage to at least par with the current meta classes, warrior and thief , if possible to raise the damage slightly above both to compensate for the lowered armor and health. Considerations to health and armor also a possibility.

Outline; An elementalist is the classic damage dealing class in a trinity system, but without a trinity one would expect elementalists to be suited to everything as the jack of trades class, Fire for direct damage, Water for healing, Air for control , Earth for condition.
I’m going out outline several suggestions, in 2 categories, Drastic, and minimal. I don’t expect any of the drastic changes to be acceptable but may provide insights
The first thing to keep in mind is that you have to give each class a weakness, something that makes it fall apart, I feel cooldowns can play a large part in the elementalists, they get one shot at bringing down another player, they mess up they die.

Minimal:
These points all mention players,the improvements would also functionally help in PvE.

1. Remove the stationary requirement on all elementalist attacks, the game uses twitch based combat and a light armor class cannot face tank four seconds of damage to pull off their only life threatening attacks.
A counter to potential arguments that this would overpower the class
-Meteor shower has random hit placement and most players I have fought ignore the field completely anyway, the ability to move during the cast does not remove visual indications.
-Churning Earth, the damage on this skill is quite low and the bleeding can be removed easly, it is also the single most telegraphed skill in the game, a player can easily dodge this attack.

2. Convert Churning Earths damage to multiple packets, the risk to reward is too high on this attack, you’ve likely lost most of your health from being stationary for 4 seconds and a single block will completely negate any impact.

3. Raise the damage of Churning earth or Dagger fire 5 to be on par with that of a thieves backstab (8k) or warriors gs 2 (8-12k) the attack currently doesn’t hamper heavy armor classes at all.

4. Add a stun to meteor shower, this will stop people ignoring standing in a meteor showers field. The time from impact of the first meteor to full effectiveness provides plenty of time to dodge.

5. Improve the Elementalists passive heal signet, copying the warriors healing signet would be a good step. All elementalist heals tend to be drip, so large bursts down us instantly, this will at least help us to be good at maintaining our health through drip heals.

6. Raise the damage or lower the cast/travel time on most elementalist 1 skills , they are off par with 1 skill damage dealing attacks which output 1-2k DPS , where including travel time a fireball falls below this.

7. Daggers and Staff lightning skills could do with a look, in both cases 5 is used for a stun 4 for speed , skill 1-3 are not often used.

8. Dragons tooths time till the damage packet is delivered could do with being lowered it is again quite easy to completely dodge.

Drastic:
1. Remove Armor and Health differences between armor tiers leaving it cosmetic. As opposed to buffing the elementalist it brings other classes in line with their life expectancy, is completely unviable as in the current form would just allow Warriors and thieves even more killing power.

Issues I don’t have particular ideas on:
-Thieves, Elementalists currently go down in as little as 3 hits to these guys, they can go invisible which with our skills , short of getting a lucky hit leaves us defenseless , we need some counter to them, I have never successfully won a fair fight between us.

-Warriors , not going to say much on this as it’s going to be a common issue, they have no weakness, They deal the most damage, control as well as a guardian and can take as much damage. Personally I think they should be the lowest on the pyramid of damage, a warrior is a generic meat stick, even with trinity aside.

- Guardians, seem quite balanced, they won’t kill me but I can’t kill them either.

Additional notes:
-In Pvp I am using soldiers with a Zerker jewel.
-In Pve my standard equipment is Zerker staff, with celestial gear.

Speaking from a PvE-only perspective, it seems like you don’t really don’t understand the elementalist. They have to be squishy and have low HP to counteract the insane damage output. And just as a tip, drop the celestial. Its literally the worst set in the game. If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.

In PvE, Ele’s are fine. A full berserker staff ele or LH ele (completely ignoring FGS) are two of the strongest damage sets in the game. Ele’s also have an amazing ability to stack might and fury to a party which is a huge damage buff for the group, which you could argue should count towards the Ele’s overall damage.

I don’t know anything about PvP, but Ele’s are definitely glass WITH cannon in PvE. Your test comparison seems likely biased as you should compare the best damage spec on warrior over, say, a minute over, say, 30 seconds to a minute, to the best damage spec on an elementalist (pre-buffing might/fury).

Clumsy.6257:

Speaking from a PvE-only perspective, it seems like you don’t really don’t understand the elementalist. They have to be squishy and have low HP to counteract the insane damage output. And just as a tip, drop the celestial. Its literally the worst set in the game. If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.

After 1000 hours I am quite sure I understand how the elementalist works,
I have no issue with them being squishy I’ve come to expect that in every game. Their damage output is however not insane, as an aside I did run a full Zerker build but I am currently trying out celestial, the gain in survivability is quite comparable and as you’re not loosing any critical multiplier with celestial the damage drop is quite low.

Clumsy.6257:

“If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.”

That statement is completely untrue, celestial gear has a higher total stat gain per item so logically could not happen.

Bumbler.7581:

In PvE, Ele’s are fine. A full berserker staff ele or LH ele (completely ignoring FGS) are two of the strongest damage sets in the game. Ele’s also have an amazing ability to stack might and fury to a party which is a huge damage buff for the group, which you could argue should count towards the Ele’s overall damage.

I don’t know anything about PvP, but Ele’s are definitely glass WITH cannon in PvE. Your test comparison seems likely biased as you should compare the best damage spec on warrior over, say, a minute over, say, 30 seconds to a minute, to the best damage spec on an elementalist (pre-buffing might/fury).

A bezerker staff Elementalist will in no way do comparable damage, aoe or single target to that of a bezerker warrior. I played in full Zerker for quite a while and never saw a damage packet hit 10k , or 6k , I believe the most I saw in regular play (i.e not a FGS against a wall) would be from the FGS, where the skill 1 attack sequence did 7k damage.

As for party considerations, my concern is solo ability both in PvE and PvP, especially with Pvp, which is the idea of class balance.
An elementalist can self stack reasonable to 12 stacks of might, which adds maybe 600 damage to an attack?.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Clumsy.6257:

Speaking from a PvE-only perspective, it seems like you don’t really don’t understand the elementalist. They have to be squishy and have low HP to counteract the insane damage output. And just as a tip, drop the celestial. Its literally the worst set in the game. If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.

After 1000 hours I am quite sure I understand how the elementalist works,
I have no issue with them being squishy I’ve come to expect that in every game. Their damage output is however not insane, as an aside I did run a full Zerker build but I am currently trying out celestial, the gain in survivability is quite comparable and as you’re not loosing any critical multiplier with celestial the damage drop is quite low.

Clumsy.6257:

“If you combined 1 piece of several different prefixes you’ll come out with much higher stats.”

That statement is completely untrue, celestial gear has a higher total stat gain per item so logically could not happen.

Apparently you don’t if you can’t see how high the elementalist’s damage is. On single targets thief and mesmer (with 3 phantasms) are close seconds. Taking cleave into account or bosses with large hit-boxes, elementalists are so far ahead there is literally no comparison.

A bezerker staff Elementalist will in no way do comparable damage, aoe or single target to that of a bezerker warrior. I played in full Zerker for quite a while and never saw a damage packet hit 10k , or 6k , I believe the most I saw in regular play (i.e not a FGS against a wall) would be from the FGS, where the skill 1 attack sequence did 7k damage.

As for party considerations, my concern is solo ability both in PvE and PvP, especially with Pvp, which is the idea of class balance.
An elementalist can self stack reasonable to 12 stacks of might, which adds maybe 600 damage to an attack?.

Before you continue on your largely uninformed tirade, you should know that warriors are closer to the bottom than they are to the top of the dps chart. Please refer to http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/88754-updated-profession-pve-dps-rankings/ to see that its not just me that says this. You weren’t using full berserker if your lava fonts weren’t even ticking for 6k. Using full rare berserker armor/trinkets my lava fonts tick for over 6k.

Staff build potential:“http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/”

Additionally, setting aside the staff and examining lightning hammer. With 25 might and like 10 stacks of vulnerability, my lightning hammer crits go something like 6-8k, 6-8k, 10-14k. This damage is done in the same amount of time as a warrior’s 100b and is comparable damage, if not greater since I can do this for 25-30 seconds.

Ele is by far the highest DPS class in the game. That is why the fastest Giganticus Lupicus solo kill is with an Ele. Why my Ele autos for 12k-12K-18K with Lighting hammer. And you see all new speed clear videos with at least 1 Ele. The problem is most Ele players don’t know how to trait away from 0/10/0/30/30. You are not going to be doing mad deeps with that kind of build even in full Berserker. Higher DPS traits like 30/10/10/10/10 staff or 30/10/10/20/0 LH are going to out DPS standard ele builds by two or three fold.

In tPvP you haven’t lived until your entire team with protection dies to a single Staff burst from a glass Ele on a point. The problem is that in PvP an Ele can’t go full DPS without being absurdly squishy and will often die to a Thief before they can make a difference. Or deal incredibly mediocre DPS and still be very squishy with practically any other build. Even a full Bunker Ele is relativity squishy to other Bunker builds by other classes. PvE Ele doesn’t have this problem since the difficulty of PvE is fairly low and your team can simple dodge or reflect the damage.

Conski Deshan.2057:

-Warriors , not going to say much on this as it’s going to be a common issue, they have no weakness, They deal the most damage, control as well as a guardian and can take as much damage. Personally I think they should be the lowest on the pyramid of damage, a warrior is a generic meat stick, even with trinity aside.

Actually warriors in this game are much more characterized than in others.

Do not make them “generic meatstick”. This is not a Korean game.

From the sticky:

Be concise. Our time is limited and we can’t read walls of text because it will prevent us from having the time to read as many posts as possible. Bullet points or numbered lists are very easy for us to read!

Be mindful of scope. It takes design, development and testing time in order to make a new feature or revise an old one. Keep scope/work/time/resources in mind when you make your suggestions.

Your suggestions are far too drastic to be realistic.

Bumbler.7581:

Staff build potential:“http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/”

Additionally, setting aside the staff and examining lightning hammer. With 25 might and like 10 stacks of vulnerability, my lightning hammer crits go something like 6-8k, 6-8k, 10-14k. This damage is done in the same amount of time as a warrior’s 100b and is comparable damage, if not greater since I can do this for 25-30 seconds.

I went to cursed shore just now and have equipped my full zerker, and my traits are Identical to the ones displayed on the “balanced” build in the post you linked, I had to change the runes from scholar from air, which seems to leave me with 1% more critical damage and 100 less power.
2096 power 3262 attack
1805 pre 66% crit
80% crit damage
I ran up to a few mobs planted lava font and fired off a burst to get fury, damage did not go above 3k on crits? (also this method grants no might?)

edit: taking the second blast heal and using both blasts give me 6 stacks , still not helping to anywhere near the numbers claimed?

Gokil.2543:

From the sticky:

Be concise. Our time is limited and we can’t read walls of text because it will prevent us from having the time to read as many posts as possible. Bullet points or numbered lists are very easy for us to read!

Be mindful of scope. It takes design, development and testing time in order to make a new feature or revise an old one. Keep scope/work/time/resources in mind when you make your suggestions.

Your suggestions are far too drastic to be realistic.

Can I get your opinion on why each of the Minimal class points are too drastic? none of them are game changing?, 3 of them don’t actually propose to change the damage delivered at all.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Bumbler.7581:

Staff build potential:“http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/”

Additionally, setting aside the staff and examining lightning hammer. With 25 might and like 10 stacks of vulnerability, my lightning hammer crits go something like 6-8k, 6-8k, 10-14k. This damage is done in the same amount of time as a warrior’s 100b and is comparable damage, if not greater since I can do this for 25-30 seconds.

I went to cursed shore just now and have equipped my full zerker, and my traits are Identical to the ones displayed on the “balanced” build in the post you linked, I had to change the runes from scholar from air, which seems to leave me with 1% more critical damage and 100 less power.
2096 power 3262 attack
1805 pre 66% crit
80% crit damage
I ran up to a few mobs planted lava font and fired off a burst to get fury, damage did not go above 3k on crits? (also this method grants no might?)

edit: taking the second blast heal and using both blasts give me 6 stacks , still not helping to anywhere near the numbers claimed?

What food/potions and sigils are you using? Why runes of the air? Using them over scholars loses somewhere around (guesstimate) 9.7% damage.

I was using none, tried sticking Sharpening stones and Fire veggie chili on (power and crit respectively) it pushed the damage up to 3473 on the highest crit. Tried with a powerful potion of undead slaying replacing the stone but that appears to actually lower the damage slightly.

edit: I’m using the sigil of force as the build recommends,the staff is an Ascended zerker staff. , Air runes cos scholars are 2.5g a pop and the last time I used my Zerker armor was against Liandri so I had been experimenting with different rune combinations to help.

Clusmy where are you getting 6k+ minimum? , do you prehaps mean over the entire duration of a single lava font as opposed to a single damage packet?

Don’t use fire veggie chili, instead try plate of steak and asparagus. Much better for less than 1s. I’m not sure if you’ve said this but I assume your trinkets are full berserkers? And I’m getting 6k just about everywhere that I’m at 80 and not downscaled. edit: Thats per tick meaning about 24k total. And thats not even close to what you should be doing with full buffs

This may be overpowered, but one thing I thought would be really cool for Meteor Shower is if each meteor was a blast finisher. I mean, it makes sense and the meteor shower field is bigger than most fields anyway, so not all of them would hit.

But could you imagine meteor shower over a water field or fire field? It would be epic!

I like the proposal for Churning Earth. I like that it’s difficult to land, but the concept of it ticking damage to enemies inside the field with smaller damage more times rather than one high damage hit is interesting. Visualize the Elite Earth skill from Guild Wars 1, Unsteady Ground. Something like that.

Tom.8029:

This may be overpowered, but one thing I thought would be really cool for Meteor Shower is if each meteor was a blast finisher. I mean, it makes sense and the meteor shower field is bigger than most fields anyway, so not all of them would hit.

every meteor being a blast finisher would be too OP. But at least a 30% chance or something like that would be a cool thing.

ITT: People thinking getting carried by OP bufffood and gear means their class is fine.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Drastic:
Remove Armor and Health differences between armor tiers.

Agree. This should have been the case since the start. The difference in health and armour is preposterous, making certain classes incredibly strong and others incredibly weak.

Conski Deshan.2057:

6. cast/travel time on most elementalist skills , they are off par with 1 skill damage dealing attacks which output 1-2k DPS , where including travel time a fireball falls below this.

Not only attunement cooldowns but also “cast timers”,for a mediocre spells.For the sake of balance.

I would just like one auto attack on staff that isnt a slow moving projectile with a 1s cast time and a huge arc. Maybe turn water blast (staff water 1) a cone AOE or something.

About pve

I play ele till bwe, i feel it really weak.. i play also war, guard and i know very well ( in spvp) necro and thief… the only way for do some dmg is lh and go full zerker, but u have a ridicoulus survivability in front of other classes, like thief but he canhide and go away… so whats the point about play ele? With my war i do same dmg but i have alot more survivability then lh ele.. and wtf i ele i dont wanna use conjured, i wanna use the elements force!!!!!