Am I missing something? (Ele)

Am I missing something? (Ele)

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

Why in the world does Fire seem so much stronger than the other affinities in PvE, especially on Staff and Scepter?

I feel like I can’t even stay in any of the other attunements for more than a few seconds without seriously crippling myself in a given fight. The context doesn’t even matter. It’s absolutely hilarious how all-around atrocious Air on both Scepter and Staff is. It’s also hilarious how much damage Water has to sacrifice just because it heals. It basically means you can never make much use it when solo, which is bad design.

Is there something I’m missing? How have things like this persisted for 1.5 years?

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Posted by: Jzaku.9765

Jzaku.9765

Because you’re supposed to stance-dance?

Rotate in, do your other things, stall for some time, rotate back to Fire for deeps

Also I’m fairly certain that if you’re running Scepter your main sustained damage comes from Air attunement.

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Posted by: MightyMicah.7451

MightyMicah.7451

The way I see it, Anet set it up the way it is I guess you could say to make it realistic. Remember you’re like a friggin avatar bending elements.

Fire: Naturally this one does the most damage. You play with fire, you get burned (and hopefully, others do too.)
Water: Everyone knows water is for healing, though it can do some damage.
Air: Air benders always use air in sneaky ways to their advantage. It’s like a utility attunement.
Earth: Earth benders are the toughest of the tough. They survive while still dealing decent damage.

When you think of it in this light, things make a little more sense when viewing the skills. To answer your question, though, fire attunement isn’t the only one for dealing damage. I’d recommend going D/D, or S/D to maximize your damage a bit more.

This is that new sound. Ya’ll ain’t ready.

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

ANet seems to have balanced the ele (and to some degree the engineer) around the “attunement dance”.

This because the game do not have a overall energy mechanic, and so a high APM elementalist player can in theory burst out twice the weapon skills of a warrior (the baseline ANet seems to balance everything else around).

As such, the attunements have their individual DPS curtailed.

As i think about it, i wonder if ANet did a poor job on the traits system.

This by tying the traits lines to sets of primary and secondary stats. Instead they should have been built around weapons (or attunements in the case of elementalists) so that going down a specific line would innately boost specific weapon(s) without having to pop percentage traits.

This way they could favor staying in specific weapons or attunements rather than have this constant recharge hunt (see the PVE warrior DPS spec where one expends the 100B of a greatsword, pop to axe, burn through those skills and then pop back, repeat until mob is dead).

ANet seems to have thought they could action up a RPG. But what they ended up with was a action game with a awkward UI and some vestigial RPG elements.

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

Sorry, but the “need to attunement dance” explanation makes zero sense to me, and if that’s the intention, the design is utterly moronic.

The Elementalist’s specialty is supposed to be versatility, and that’s supposed to be born from the attunement system. When you make the DPS of their individual attunements poor (even though Fire’s alone typically isn’t), the attunements are no longer about versatility and they are instead about needless complexity, raising the skill floor of the class substantially with no actual tradeoff. I shouldn’t be required to constantly swap attunements just so my DPS is mediocre instead of terrible. My DPS should be relatively steady, and swapping attunements should be about the utility they provide.

What happens now is that Fire is often the only viable spec for DPS, so you end up having to stay in it 80% of the time when solo, and falling back to it frequently even when grouped. What if I want to play a Water Mage? There’s no way to do this currently, because Water is a utility-only attunement. Is there a reason it has to sacrifice so much DPS just because it heals? Some, yes. The majority? No. Air is also beyond terrible without tons of crit, making it nigh unusable until you get to high level. Earth is the only one that comes kinda close to Fire in general usage, but still falls quite short.

There’s no way anyone will convince me that this is good design.

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Posted by: Eve.1580

Eve.1580

You HAVE to use all your attunements, albeit its not as required with staff. If you’re hanging out in 1 attunement you’re face will get rearranged very soon. The attunements what what give versatility to your build, try your best to find a way to utilize everything.

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

You HAVE to use all your attunements, albeit its not as required with staff. If you’re hanging out in 1 attunement you’re face will get rearranged very soon. The attunements what what give versatility to your build, try your best to find a way to utilize everything.

My point is that the attunements should be for versatility in utility – dancing between them, or staying in Fire all the time, shouldn’t be required to sustain even mediocre DPS.

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Posted by: Eve.1580

Eve.1580

You HAVE to use all your attunements, albeit its not as required with staff. If you’re hanging out in 1 attunement you’re face will get rearranged very soon. The attunements what what give versatility to your build, try your best to find a way to utilize everything.

My point is that the attunements should be for versatility in utility – dancing between them, or staying in Fire all the time, shouldn’t be required to sustain even mediocre DPS.

But.. They weren’t designed that way? This is like saying mesmers should have high dps and no clones, because thats how you want them to be. Eles are supposed to swap attunements.. Even on staff, there is just less repercussions for not swapping attunements, but you need to swap to be viable..

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

You HAVE to use all your attunements, albeit its not as required with staff. If you’re hanging out in 1 attunement you’re face will get rearranged very soon. The attunements what what give versatility to your build, try your best to find a way to utilize everything.

My point is that the attunements should be for versatility in utility – dancing between them, or staying in Fire all the time, shouldn’t be required to sustain even mediocre DPS.

But.. They weren’t designed that way? This is like saying mesmers should have high dps and no clones, because thats how you want them to be. Eles are supposed to swap attunements.. Even on staff, there is just less repercussions for not swapping attunements, but you need to swap to be viable..

Optimal, yes. Not merely viable. The effect of the current implementation is that I feel pressured to swap out of attunements that aren’t Fire as quickly as I can just about anytime I’m playing solo. That isn’t good. Mesmers can do reasonble DPS without clones depending on their build, but even then clones are baked into the class, they don’t add layers of complexity and artificially raise the skill floor to play them.

(edited by Einlanzer.1627)

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Posted by: Simon.3794

Simon.3794

as far as i understand, i’m too lazy to swap, and i want to do insane damage while healing in one attunement, so i won’t need to swap ever again.

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

as far as i understand, i’m too lazy to swap, and i want to do insane damage while healing in one attunement, so i won’t need to swap ever again.

Well then you have very poor comprehension skills and are prone to using hyperboles and strawman fallacies.

Those things usually all go together.

(edited by Einlanzer.1627)

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Posted by: Simon.3794

Simon.3794

as far as i understand, i’m too lazy to swap, and i want to do insane damage while healing in one attunement, so i won’t need to swap ever again.

Well then you have very poor comprehension skills and are prone to using hyperboles and strawman fallacies.

Those things usually all go together.

Then please tell me what you wanted to say in simple phrases.

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

as far as i understand, i’m too lazy to swap, and i want to do insane damage while healing in one attunement, so i won’t need to swap ever again.

Well then you have very poor comprehension skills and are prone to using hyperboles and strawman fallacies.

Those things usually all go together.

Then please tell me what you wanted to say in simple phrases.

I already did, but I’ll try again:

I want to not have to stay in Fire most of the time when doing anything solo. I want to have the option of roaming and staying primarily in Water, Air, or Earth, depending on my build, and retain reasonable general performance.

This involves neither being amazing at both healing and DPS simultaneously nor being completely optimal without ever switching attunements.

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Posted by: RyuDragnier.9476

RyuDragnier.9476

If you’re using Scepter and think Fire is the best, you’re being a fool. Scepter is one of the more balanced weapons, with each attunement being as useful as the others.

Air is great sustained damage due to how fast the auto-attack hits and that #2 and #3 do not disrupt the auto-attack at all.

Earth is good condition auto-attack with the fast bleeding, a shield that increases toughness and that can be fired at the opponent, and a line AoE blind.

Water does somewhat fast auto-attack damage, a slow but powerful AoE and an AoE heal.

Fire has a slow but powerful auto-attack, a very slow but powerful target AoE, and an attack AoE that removes conditions and gives vigor when it returns to you.

You do NOT just stay in one stance while using Scepter, you’re not using your full power if you do.

[hS]
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

If you’re using Scepter and think Fire is the best, you’re being a fool. Scepter is one of the more balanced weapons, with each attunement being as useful as the others.

Air is great sustained damage due to how fast the auto-attack hits and that #2 and #3 do not disrupt the auto-attack at all.

Earth is good condition auto-attack with the fast bleeding, a shield that increases toughness and that can be fired at the opponent, and a line AoE blind.

Water does somewhat fast auto-attack damage, a slow but powerful AoE and an AoE heal.

Fire has a slow but powerful auto-attack, a very slow but powerful target AoE, and an attack AoE that removes conditions and gives vigor when it returns to you.

You do NOT just stay in one stance while using Scepter, you’re not using your full power if you do.

Really? Because I try switching to Air often and nearly die every time I do and have to hurriedly switch back to Fire, which kills single targets about twice as fast while also having AoE. Earth is not horrible and can replace fire with high condition builds, but Air and Water both are both more or less garbage outside off highly specific scenarios.

It’s probable that Air gets better with high crit builds, but you don’t really have access to those until high level. So, at best, the scaling for Air is really borked.

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Posted by: Eve.1580

Eve.1580

You HAVE to use all your attunements, albeit its not as required with staff. If you’re hanging out in 1 attunement you’re face will get rearranged very soon. The attunements what what give versatility to your build, try your best to find a way to utilize everything.

My point is that the attunements should be for versatility in utility – dancing between them, or staying in Fire all the time, shouldn’t be required to sustain even mediocre DPS.

But.. They weren’t designed that way? This is like saying mesmers should have high dps and no clones, because thats how you want them to be. Eles are supposed to swap attunements.. Even on staff, there is just less repercussions for not swapping attunements, but you need to swap to be viable..

Optimal, yes. Not merely viable. The effect of the current implementation is that I feel pressured to swap out of attunements that aren’t Fire as quickly as I can just about anytime I’m playing solo. That isn’t good. Mesmers can do reasonble DPS without clones depending on their build, but even then clones are baked into the class, they don’t add layers of complexity and artificially raise the skill floor to play them.

Dude I’m still trying to figure out what the hell you want. I feel like your objective here is to complain, not criticize the class, which would be an incredible waste of time for everyone. I mainly say this because of your reaction in criticism coming at you from the dude below me.

Viable in any PvP setting.. If you’re a warrior and you only spam 1.. You’re not exactly viable in PvP, same thing with PvP for Ele.. Learn to swap your attunements.

Maybe you’re used to fighting mobs that stand still and attack what’s closest to it.. But I’m used to people attacking me.. If I stay in fire while getting rushed by a thief, how ‘viable’ do you think I would be? How many seconds would I survive? Think I can out dps him? No. An ele that doesn’t know how to swap attunements, count his boons, properly time his earth and air stuns, properly time his water heals and chills, and properly time and aim his spikes is an ele that would survive. An ele that stands there in fire while getting spiked is a dead ele.

Also, try a mesmer. Clones do add complexity and raise the skill requirements, and if you don’t play without them, you’re as dead as an ele that refuses to swap out of his personal sense of honor. (Or whatever thin argument you have)

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Posted by: pmnt.4067

pmnt.4067

The discussion is not about whether or not the ele should switch attunements (the answer to that is pretty obvious), but why the ele should attunement dance:

1. Attunement dance for baseline dps
2. Attunement switches to adapt to a new combat situation

The concept of the ele is (2), but currently the ele is busy switching because of (1). The change to the attunement cooldown did nothing to help (2), but pushed the elementalist further to (1).

What the ele really needs are 4 attunement sets that are viable on their own on each weapon combination (with different focus on damage, support, cc, single target/aoe). Then the ele could finally use the attuments strategically and not stance dancing for auto attack dps.

I can’t wait until ANet releases the game promoted in the manifesto.
Until that, I’ll play GW2.

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Posted by: Neko.9021

Neko.9021

You are in fact missing something, and it’s difficult to explain it.

I remember I used to think the exact same thing when I first started. A lot has happened in the hundreds of hours I’ve played the class, and I don’t really know where exactly to specify your line of thinking might be missing something.

But yes, uhhh, a 30 in Fire Ele with Persisting Flames and Fire CDR will do massive damage with Lava Font, that’s good I guess.

Maybe look at Dekeys’ Fractal Ele guides in the Ele Subforum to see high level Ele PvE play. Maybe that will open your mind to how attunement swapping can be useful even in PvE.

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Posted by: Eve.1580

Eve.1580

The discussion is not about whether or not the ele should switch attunements (the answer to that is pretty obvious), but why the ele should attunement dance:

1. Attunement dance for baseline dps
2. Attunement switches to adapt to a new combat situation

The concept of the ele is (2), but currently the ele is busy switching because of (1). The change to the attunement cooldown did nothing to help (2), but pushed the elementalist further to (1).

What the ele really needs are 4 attunement sets that are viable on their own on each weapon combination (with different focus on damage, support, cc, single target/aoe). Then the ele could finally use the attuments strategically and not stance dancing for auto attack dps.

That would just lower the skill cap of the class and simplify it if you had the option to just stick with one attunement. Its not ‘strategic’ to stick with fire and just burst the entire time while in fire, or stick with air and keep them cc’d 90% of the time.. Its strategic to be in air, cc them, then switch to fire to burst them, then earth to mitigate inc damage and water to heal the damage.. I don’t see giving the option for people to stick with 1 attunement is in any way ‘strategic’.

Then the ele could finally use the attuments strategically and not stance dancing for auto attack dps.

You.. shouldn’t be auto attacking.. Unless you’re talking about staff I guess.

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Posted by: pmnt.4067

pmnt.4067

Splitting the other classes’ auto-attack-equivalent across 4 attunements does not create complexity but only APM. Or: rotating F123F223F323F423 over and over is not any more complex than 1111111.

Attunements should be about chosing the right tools at the right time. What’s wrong with the idea of staying fire as long as possible for damage if you don’t need to defend yourself? I know that it’s not a good idea in the current state of the ele, but why should you dance attunements, if sustained damage is all you need?

I don’t want burst options on a single attunement. I really like the cross-attunement bursts, but they should be rewarding (they lock your attunements/defensive tools after all) and not a spammable rotation that is damage-wise comparable to a auto-attack-chain. I’m thinking of a toned-down version of S/D with some sustained damage during that 40s cooldown.

I can’t wait until ANet releases the game promoted in the manifesto.
Until that, I’ll play GW2.

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Posted by: vinceftw.5086

vinceftw.5086

Like pmnt said and what Einlanzer means is that now, the elementalist rotates through his attunements to have optimal control/damage. He needs to go to water to keep his DPS and control going, instead of attacking with the weak earth auto-attack, thus wasting a heal which could prove useful 3 seconds later.

What you want to play is an Engineer. I created after seeing this lack of “free will” in the Elementalist (even though I still love it) and it’s really close to what you want. Need DPS, go to bombs and grenades, use toolkit if you want damage mitigation with blocks, go DPS again with another set of grenades or kite with your pistol. Engineer offers that quick adapting to the situation-gameplay (even though it has its own problems) that few other classes offer.

You ALWAYS have a solution close at hand, while with the Elementalist, that solution might be forced on to you because of your lack of damage if you don’t cycle attunements. If you really want what you ask, try Engineer.

Elxyria – Engineer / Deluzio – Mesmer
Quickblade Vince – Thief
The Asurnator – Elementalist

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

as far as i understand, i’m too lazy to swap, and i want to do insane damage while healing in one attunement, so i won’t need to swap ever again.

Well then you have very poor comprehension skills and are prone to using hyperboles and strawman fallacies.

Those things usually all go together.

Then please tell me what you wanted to say in simple phrases.

I already did, but I’ll try again:

I want to not have to stay in Fire most of the time when doing anything solo. I want to have the option of roaming and staying primarily in Water, Air, or Earth, depending on my build, and retain reasonable general performance.

This involves neither being amazing at both healing and DPS simultaneously nor being completely optimal without ever switching attunements.

This seems to echo the issue i have with PVE builds in general, in how DPS trumps all. An the issue is not with the stats, it is with the PVE mobs. They are specifically tuned to force every last build dodge.

There is kitten all difference in the frequency of dodge between DPS and bunker, except under very specific scenarios (every going high healing power and spamming AOE heals while stacking).

And you can see how much spike DPS the mobs put out any time someone wrecks a boss using a reflect skill. This because it turns the mobs numbers back at him.

Just look at any Lupi video where a mesmer is involved. There is one spray of projectiles in phase 2, and 1/3 of lupi’s health just evaporates. This because each one of those projectiles are specifically tuned to ruin your day if you get hit, no matter if you are running bunker or DPS.

But this flips over completely when going any kind of PVP, where the ongoing issue is that high defense, high healing power can be nearly indestructible. This because there is a true tradeoff between DPS and surviability in PVP, thanks to the opponents being so much closer together in numbers.

and i noticed the issue with attunements on ele early on. equip staff, set to fire, find some lonely mob and start attacking. Rinse and repeat with water. End result was that i had more health left in fire than in water. That is kitten backwards given that water is healing me on every last shot once the mob is in my face.

In PVE, defensive builds are pretty much bunk. I ran the numbers, got myself one set with high effective health, one with low, attack the same kinds of mobs wearing both, and found that my difference in health after a fight didn’t change in any meaningful way.

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Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I usually main hand the dagger, and Air Attuenement has the highest sustained damage with the dagger, due to the strongest auto attack. It goes well with fresh air, which lets you pop into other elements for their utility, then immediately switch back to air to maintain damage.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

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Posted by: Lheimroo.2947

Lheimroo.2947

Like pmnt said and what Einlanzer means is that now, the elementalist rotates through his attunements to have optimal control/damage. He needs to go to water to keep his DPS and control going, instead of attacking with the weak earth auto-attack, thus wasting a heal which could prove useful 3 seconds later.

What you want to play is an Engineer. I created after seeing this lack of “free will” in the Elementalist (even though I still love it) and it’s really close to what you want. Need DPS, go to bombs and grenades, use toolkit if you want damage mitigation with blocks, go DPS again with another set of grenades or kite with your pistol. Engineer offers that quick adapting to the situation-gameplay (even though it has its own problems) that few other classes offer.

You ALWAYS have a solution close at hand, while with the Elementalist, that solution might be forced on to you because of your lack of damage if you don’t cycle attunements. If you really want what you ask, try Engineer.

I understand the complaint being raised by the OP; I really do. God knows I’ve raged about having to do three times the work to get 3/4ths the result sometimes, on my elementalist.

Yet I feel there’s a validity to the alternate perspective that if all attunements dealt relatively the same damage, the general lack of need for utility in pve would turn the class into something very boring.

Vinceftw has a point when he brings up the engineer. It’s a great class and it does function kinda like what the OP wants – you bring up your kits when you have a certain situation at hand, or depending can stay in them almost constantly.

Perhaps the situation would be better for those of us getting carpal tunnel syndrome if each attunement specialized in a certain situation, ala engineer kits. Fire is for aoe, air is for single target, water is for healing and condition removal, and earth is for stability and reflects and condi damage.

As it is, fire is both the best single target and aoe damage. Air is for certain builds; water is for filler in between the more useful attunements, and earth is to pop a reflect or blast finisher now and then.

(edited by Lheimroo.2947)