Guild Wars 2

Reverence.6915:

Ele has to make extreme risk/reward choices in terms of dps/survivability, something other classes don’t have to do (Dire/Carrion stats in WvW).

Instead of buffing ele, just make every other class have the same risk/reward system eles do. Though tbh, our trait lines need a huge rework. They’re just not synergised.

Elementalist trait lines are a flat out lie, ignore the names on the lines and just look at the stats they buff like any other class… The trait lines names (and many of the traits therein) make a very strong suggestion towards some kind of element specialization (GW1 ele) where you could be overwhelmingly powerful but otherwise DOA without an epic monk, or you could be epic defensive (GW1 ele tanked stuff way better than any warrior all day long, was only outdone by shadow form), or you could have a pretty decent mix of both.

GW2 Ele is made to look like that, but in reality it’s just a far more complicated (with much smaller reward) version of any other class and nothing more

What exactly was GW1 Ele design?

LordByron.8369:

He changed quite a lot of builds then… i tried some and quit due to being extremely boring as i said.

p.S. and imho traits are almost fine….weaponskills needs work.

You’re putting at least 40 points into defense, don’t expect the level of warrior damage potential who spends 70 points into offense,

LordByron.8369:

No i use that build because i don t want to play the dumbed down version of the ele i consider being the conjured elementalist…..

You’re not alone. Most people have difficulty providing notable DPS if they’re not willing to run a DPS build.

I run D/F 30/30/0/0/10 with Scholar’s runes and zerker trinkets, as seen and explained in this video. It does excellent damage, and the offhand focus provides a lot of utility.

Wintel.4873:

What exactly was GW1 Ele design?

Same as every other GW1 class, but similarly you put your points into a named attribute to power abilities which were tied to that specific attribute.

So more “Air magic” means more damage from shocker air magic skills, and air magic only. And the same with the other elements.

As opposed to GW2 here where the “traits” and attributes are the closest things together…traits being attributes with perks along the way basically.
It should be noted also, the entire system is different here beyond simply that…it is not the same class in any way, shape or form beyond being skinned as a magic user in light armor. GW1 had hundreds of skills available for each class, and you could attribute up to fit exactly what you wanted to do… and every element tree in GW1 was possessed of some means of DPS (water magic was nerf dps in pve for some never explained reason, but it was still very much there), some useful condition, and a number of other things… similar to gw2 you had enough attribute points to max 2 different attributes, or make the exact same splits we have here. (12/12/3) vs (30/30/10)

In gw2, your choice of traits has some impact on the element for which the line is named, but “water magic” does NOT give you any dps to speak of, any more than “arcane” traits (formerly energy storage in gw1) gives you healing etc…
Again, class is different beastie totally here… they designed it around this weird attunement swapping thing probably as a band-aid to keep it from having a unique or somewhat longer system of attributes/traits to handle people like me who hate what they did with lightning/air magic for example…

To be clear, the way I would have my ele would basically require them make 4 (or 5, but by lore only 4) different versions of the class and tie 4 said trait lines (1 for each element) to the same system we have now… while it could have been done, it would have been a bit of extra work and like my poor, poor ranger (ele is second choice) they have announced many times that it isn’t worth their time/money to spend the resources to redesign the things.

My ele works, but like the engi, or a thief, it takes a whole lot of doing where i could just go hop on my warrior, go GS mash #2 and win. That is why i would love seeing the extra work put into the ele, ranger, etc…and the fact that it isn’t worth the time/money/effort isn’t going to stop me from voicing my typically ignored opinions

We are past the classes not being like GW1 I never played GW1 but it is just kind of pointless to bring it up. Even your example you say it is a much deeper difference then just the attunement system and that it is also tied to the way attribute points work etc.

I thought you where just gonna give a suggestion of make it like gw1 and it would be easy in the current system but the difference is the entire system not just attunements. That is not this game no point to even be mad about it 1.5 years later.

haviz.1340:

LordByron.8369:

He changed quite a lot of builds then… i tried some and quit due to being extremely boring as i said.

p.S. and imho traits are almost fine….weaponskills needs work.

You’re putting at least 40 points into defense, don’t expect the level of warrior damage potential who spends 70 points into offense,

I do not agree….

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Striking
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Piercing_Shards

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evasive_Arcana
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Attunement

I just skip traits centered around the use of a single attunement (fire) that as i said are totally boring and goes against ele philosophy.

And once again i remember you how that was called burst build and how a mesmer 0/20/0/25/25 was considered DPS.

oZii.2864:

We are past the classes not being like GW1 I never played the class but it is just kind of pointless to bring it up. Even your example you say it is a much deeper difference then just the attunement system and that it is also tied to the way attribute points work etc.

I thought you where just gonna give a suggestion of make it like gw1 and it would be easy in the current system but the difference is the entire system not just attunements. That is not this game no point to even be mad about it 1.5 years later.

Meh, i’m pointing out that the current system is a lazy patch band aid to make the class work with the same system as everyone else with the bare minimum effort, and that it suffers horribly from weird complexities caused the lack of available skills to choose from.. and that gw1’s system was better for what it’s supposed to do.
Basic issue: 5 weapon skills no matter what you carry (unless you DO wanna nerf yourself intentionally), broken down into 4 “elements” and 4 different sets of cooldowns that are tied together in a rather clunky dance around need for swapping. Certainly, the ele gets “moar skillz” at their disposal than any other, and for the moment the band-aid is holding…but the only gripe the devs are likely not to tl;dr at is the skill line up issue.
The lineup of the 20 elementalist weapon skills for any set is a weird dance around individual skill cooldowns, attunement cooldowns and “what do i actually need at this second.” The trait lines are effed up because if you want more healing, or more damage, or reduced cooldowns out of a specific line of elements, you have to spend points in those…but you also have to dance around the fact that there is a 5th line almost totally unrelated to the rest that governs the cooldowns on the attunement swaps too…

Ignoring specific abilities staff or scepter it goes something like so:
Fire does dps…good.
OH NOES SPIKE INC /earth
“HRNG IM DYING” /water
—fire still on cooldown, needs dps—- /air
CC mob cause not much damage here
—5 second later—
NUUU NEEDS HEALZ /water
@*&^#%$&^ fire back on CD
—runs around like crackhead for a few seconds—
/fire and win
fight done.

^This is about the average fight for most ele when solo and anything of otherwise medium difficulty gets involved, and it has to do with the cooldown dance, the lack of weapon ability synergy across elements.. The whole thing just feels clunky to most of us i would imagine, and it’s so hard to put into words because it’s not one small thing or other that would need changing to fix the current system.

Inimicus.7162:

The whole thing just feels clunky to most of us i would imagine, and it’s so hard to put into words because it’s not one small thing or other that would need changing to fix the current system.

For months people askied for better autoattacks….
Staff:
Fire is totally slow and unreliable
Air is just awful
Water can stay as it is
Earth dunno.

Scepter:
Fire: >_____> what s that?
Air: cool
water: its a low damage attu anyway
earth: ok maybe

Dagger:
Fire: unreliable
air: awesome but glitchy
Water: can stay
earth: >______> what’s this?

LordByron.8369:

I do not agree….

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Striking
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Piercing_Shards

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evasive_Arcana
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Attunement

I just skip traits centered around the use of a single attunement (fire) that as i said are totally boring and goes against ele philosophy.

And once again i remember you how that was called burst build and how a mesmer 0/20/0/25/25 was considered DPS.

You’re using piercing shards with d/d? That would explain your lack of dps. Do you use hard hitting skills like churning earth and swap to water in midcast?

Evasive arcana is 30 trait points spend on an additional blast finisher and boon duration, while elemental attunement gives your party 1 stack of might, totally worth it.

Fire magic line is taken for persisting flames, burning rage and burning precision or pyromancer’s alacrity, none of which are centered around the use of single attunement.

0/20/0/20/30 was (is) burst, with VI and X in air and a scepter in main hand with different utilities. And burst doesn’t matter in pve excluding few gimmicks, it’s about sustained damage.

haviz.1340:

Do you use hard hitting skills like churning earth and swap to water in midcast?

EDIT: for it and for the times i use bow as 5th attunement, i also use water 4 with zephyr boons (fury etc)

But my dps is not to be discussed.

Someone said ele can dps and have defense because has focus
I answered focus lowers your dps by a lot
He ansered l2p use hammer.

There is something wrong in that….. try to answer people derailing discussions rather on my build that is my choice…( i already used many “DPS builds of the month”)
I m not saying i could not do more damage…i said, that active and risky gameplay like the one promoted by D/D should have better numbers compared to 1111111 or 22222222 builds with most skills only used to get might OOC.

LordByron.8369:

Inimicus.7162:

The whole thing just feels clunky to most of us i would imagine, and it’s so hard to put into words because it’s not one small thing or other that would need changing to fix the current system.

For months people askied for better autoattacks….
Staff:
Fire is totally slow and unreliable
Air is just awful
Water can stay as it is
Earth dunno.

Scepter:
Fire: >_> what s that?
Air: cool
water: its a low damage attu anyway
earth: ok maybe

Dagger:
Fire: unreliable
air: awesome but glitchy
Water: can stay
earth: >______> what’s this?

well, these are all small things lol.

I can make some decent enough pve spike damage on my ele doing the attunement dance the dev’s so love (they have said in the past that the swapping is at the core of their design…then they made the attunement recharges longer couple months ago) while i generally do ok.. the ele is only slighly less complicated than the engi to get right lol, but yes… they removed the aftercasts from so many skills and that made the ele playable, but i hope they keep at it and tweak those issues because i’m 100% with you on those, and do something for us regarding the attunement two step we all gotta do to make the thing work no matter what weapons we carry lol.

I’m curious how it might turn out if they make attunement recharge rates bound to putting points in that specific trait’s line… sorry, but the ele concept is way too complex to get right given the structure of the trait system, and the limit on the number of weapon skills (further made awkward with having chosen to jury rig what amounts to 5 themed skills into each of 4 different skill sets)

EDIT: 5 skills into 4 otherwise basically unrelated sub-sets of skills, and have it work

Anet had different design philosphies for the elementalist since the launch of the game. Early on, we were meant to be glass cannons – high damage, low defense, and a reliance on active defenses. Some months since the game is out, we were meant to be jacks-of-all-trades, being weaker than normal at everything, but being able to do a bit of everything. Our skill diversity would be a “specialization” by itself.

The main problem with those two philosophies, is that the core elements needed to make them work are not there.

Our active defenses are heavily reliant on defensive stats (healing wants healing power and toughness and auras want vitality and toughness), which made glass cannon builds mostly unneffective (we have less evades and less blocks for more heals and auras, but what’s the point of heals and auras if we don’t have high healing power and if we don’t have enough self defense to warrant taking hits?). For this reason, only our defensive builds can make great use of our active defenses.

Meanwhile, our higher skill diversity is screwed by the amount of underpowered skills we have, especially 3 of our 4 auto-attacks in every single weapon set we have (only lightning whip, and slightly less so, fireball and arc lightning are good). Skills like Shatterstone and Fire Aura are useless, Dust Devil and Flamewall are greatly underpowered, Rock Barrier/ Hurl and several of our focus skills are only situationally decent and very mediocre otherwise. D/D has the most consistent set of useful skills, but they’re not enough to justify the melee range.

I’ve seen about two (?) times this issue about our useless skills raised to Anet, and both those times, Jon Peters has said that we “have so many skills”, which I interpret as, it’s not easy to balance them all, and making buffs to some might imply nerfs to others, and I can understand all of this. However, if our “high skill diversity” really IS meant to be our core advantage, then Anet should seriously priotize it, because as it currently is, it’s nothing but an illusion.

Fix our active defenses to make them less dependent on defensive stats, and the initial glass cannon philosophy for our class can work. Fix our useless skills, and the jack-of-all-trades philosophy might also work (although that one is still a questionable philosophy).

LordByron.8369:

But my dps is not to be discussed.

Someone said ele can dps and have defense because has focus
I answered focus lowers your dps by a lot
He ansered l2p use hammer.

There is something wrong in that…..

what about the other guy (me), who said you can use a dagger with your focus and have good dps?

DiogoSilva.7089:

Anet had different design philosphies for the elementalist since the launch of the game. Early on, we were meant to be glass cannons – high damage, low defense, and a reliance on active defenses. Some months since the game is out, we were meant to be jacks-of-all-trades, being weaker than normal at everything, but being able to do a bit of everything. Our skill diversity would be a “specialization” by itself.

The main problem with those two philosophies, is that the core elements needed to make them work are not there.

Our active defenses are heavily reliant on defensive stats (healing wants healing power and toughness and auras want vitality and toughness), which made glass cannon builds mostly unneffective (we have less evades and less blocks for more heals and auras, but what’s the point of heals and auras if we don’t have high healing power and if we don’t have enough self defense to warrant taking hits?). For this reason, only our defensive builds can make great use of our active defenses.

Meanwhile, our higher skill diversity is screwed by the amount of underpowered skills we have, especially 3 of our 4 auto-attacks in every single weapon set we have (only lightning whip, and slightly less so, fireball and arc lightning are good). Skills like Shatterstone and Fire Aura are useless, Dust Devil and Flamewall are greatly underpowered, Rock Barrier/ Hurl and several of our focus skills are only situationally decent and very mediocre otherwise. D/D has the most consistent set of useful skills, but they’re not enough to justify the melee range.

I’ve seen about two (?) times this issue about our useless skills raised to Anet, and both those times, Jon Peters has said that we “have so many skills”, which I interpret as, it’s not easy to balance them all, and making buffs to some might imply nerfs to others, and I can understand all of this. However, if our “high skill diversity” really IS meant to be our core advantage, then Anet should seriously priotize it, because as it currently is, it’s nothing but an illusion.

Fix our active defenses to make them less dependent on defensive stats, and the initial glass cannon philosophy for our class can work. Fix our useless skills, and the jack-of-all-trades philosophy might also work (although that one is still a questionable philosophy).

Yes, idea is good, flaw is implementation…rangers and pve thieves suffer the same thing, and there is no easy answer for any of it

But “jack-of-all-trades” and “glass cannon” are mutually exclusive as pointed out in a much earlier post… glass cannon means you dps. Only. The other means you basically can’t do anything very well at all, but you do some of it all. If this was the plan then by that metric, they might claim there is nothing wrong with the ele’s…dysfunctions

LordByron.8369:

EDIT: for it and for the times i use bow as 5th attunement, i also use water 4 with zephyr boons (fury etc)

But my dps is not to be discussed.

Someone said ele can dps and have defense because has focus
I answered focus lowers your dps by a lot
He ansered l2p use hammer.

There is something wrong in that….. try to answer people derailing discussions rather on my build that is my choice…( i already used many “DPS builds of the month”)
I m not saying i could not do more damage…i said, that active and risky gameplay like the one promoted by D/D should have better numbers compared to 1111111 or 22222222 builds with most skills only used to get might OOC.

D/F build without conjures does similar amount of damage (if not more) to LH builds. You keep attached to D/D and want it to be dps set which is similar to playing pure axe warrior. Works on paper but any decent warrior will grab a greatsword for the evade, just like focus is preferred over off-hand dagger, because it brings utility. You may not like but it’s a fact.

haviz.1340:

LordByron.8369:

EDIT: for it and for the times i use bow as 5th attunement, i also use water 4 with zephyr boons (fury etc)

But my dps is not to be discussed.

Someone said ele can dps and have defense because has focus
I answered focus lowers your dps by a lot
He ansered l2p use hammer.

There is something wrong in that….. try to answer people derailing discussions rather on my build that is my choice…( i already used many “DPS builds of the month”)
I m not saying i could not do more damage…i said, that active and risky gameplay like the one promoted by D/D should have better numbers compared to 1111111 or 22222222 builds with most skills only used to get might OOC.

D/F build without conjures does similar amount of damage (if not more) to LH builds. You keep attached to D/D and want it to be dps set which is similar to playing pure axe warrior. Works on paper but any decent warrior will grab a greatsword for the evade, just like focus is preferred over off-hand dagger, because it brings utility. You may not like but it’s a fact.

Or any warrior who cant find their evade buttons… sorry, but when i put a gs on my warrior its just to fill the ranged slot so i can swap, and mash skill 2 for adrenaline before going back to my axe

haviz.1340:

Works on paper but any decent warrior will grab a greatsword for the evade, just like focus is preferred over off-hand dagger, because it brings utility. You may not like but it’s a fact.

I hear warriors can switch between weapons in combat. Is this true?!

I wish Ele’s could do that. Over half the attunement abilities are useless.

Inimicus.7162:

Or any warrior who cant find their evade buttons… sorry, but when i put a gs on my warrior its just to fill the ranged slot so i can swap, and mash skill 2 for adrenaline before going back to my axe

Seems like I overestimated playerbase.

Wintel.4873:

I wish Ele’s could do that. Over half the attunement abilities are useless.

Yes, me too. But slight changes there and there and it should be okay.

Wintel.4873:

I wish Ele’s could do that.

I don’t, I just think our weapon’s skills should be a bit more polished to compensate for that.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Wintel.4873:

I wish Ele’s could do that.

I don’t, I just think our weapon’s skills should be a bit more polished to compensate for that.

Again, taking 4 different and otherwise unrelated aspects of game play, and trying to pack each of the 4 with their main function, some damage because this game has no pure healers, some form of CC and/or mobility and maybe a little something in the name of defence or another buff…

5 skills to do 4 things or more in each of 4 different categories with their own individual skill cooldown, each of which category has a global cooldown and will be “better” at its given “themed function” than the others, thus even if it includes some of those functions they will be underpowered to drive the point home… any guesses why the thing has the odd issues it does? XD

Wintel.4873:

What was the design philosophy with Elementalist health+armor, especially in PvE where mobs deal flat damage?

My guess is that its because they can swap through four different weapon sets (attunements) compared to just two weapon sets for the other seven classes. Each attunement functions as a different type of weapon: dps, support, defensive, condition damage etc.

Aza.2105:

Wintel.4873:

What was the design philosophy with Elementalist health+armor, especially in PvE where mobs deal flat damage?

My guess is that its because they can swap through four different weapon sets (attunements) compared to just two weapon sets for the other seven classes. Each attunement functions as a different type of weapon: dps, support, defensive, condition damage.

This is the theory, but they cobbled it together weird and added cooldowns on the attunement swaps that force the need of other strange bits to be added to make up for the 8-12 second loss of the ability to do whatever the element you had on before did… if the took it to the purest form where atunements had a .1 second cooldown to prevent spamming/accidents, attunement boons had internal cooldowns to prevent exploits, and they purified their proper vision of the elements (delusion of what air magic is about imo…diff story) then yes, they could make skill sets that made much better sense i think. but my post above outlines what i think they got themselves into quite well

Eles were originally designed to practically cope with their low health and armor through ease of accessibility to multiple arrays of offensive and defensive skills due to the class mechanic of attunement switching. It was a good design philosophy in its early stage but the “delicate” balance of allowing a class to have access to multiple survivability options like heals and defensive skills on weapon skills while at the same time pose a threat through offensive means had the devs worry of creating a monster of all trades. Hence the nerf to attunement switching, nerf to damage, nerf to healing and sustain, nerf to mobility, and since you can’t nerf the lowest base HP pool, lowest armor and lowest defensive stats overall, they fortunately remain as they were since launch. Be very very thankful for that, guys.