Guild Wars 2

Blaine Tog.8304:

snip

If you’re going to only quote my stuff out of context and ignore all the explanation further down, then why even respond? You’re obviously not interested in improving the Ele, merely playing Negative Nancy.

Kaleban.9834:

Blaine Tog.8304:

snip

If you’re going to only quote my stuff out of context and ignore all the explanation further down, then why even respond? You’re obviously not interested in improving the Ele, merely playing Negative Nancy.

You made a lot of points in a quick sequence. Would you rather I simply ignored them?

And again, just because I don’t agree with your proposal doesn’t mean I think the Ele couldn’t use some help. A bit less reliance on our active defenses and more universal access to active defenses would help open up our build options a LOT. That + trait cleanup + tuning would go a lot further than a radical redesign to give us nothing but boring, binary skills with a very low skill ceiling.

Blaine Tog.8304:

You made a lot of points in a quick sequence. Would you rather I simply ignored them?

And again, just because I don’t agree with your proposal doesn’t mean I think the Ele couldn’t use some help. A bit less reliance on our active defenses and more universal access to active defenses would help open up our build options a LOT. That + trait cleanup + tuning would go a lot further than a radical redesign to give us nothing but boring, binary skills with a very low skill ceiling.

I’d rather you actually post something constructive and concrete rather than general stuff that every professions wants/needs. Not sure how relying less on active defense but having more access to such would help.

But you are either oblivious to, or missing on purpose the core problem of the Elementalist. It has double the skills of any other profession, yet those skills are designed the same as any other profession, meaning out-of-the-gate all Ele skills are watered down to at least half effectiveness, sometimes more if a potential combo is designated “OP.”

I mean, why have four attunements, with a plethora of skills, if all of them just boil down to the same usage as any other profession? A Warrior playing dual Axe plays very differently from a Warrior using a Rifle or Longbow, or even dual swords. Longbow Ranger plays very differently from a Sword/Torch Ranger.

An Ele, depending on the weapon, plays the same in every single attunement. Direct damage, a condition or two, some CC, maybe a movement skill on every attunement, on every weapon. You keep saying that my idea would lead to boring skills with low skill ceiling, but that’s entirely untrue. The flavor of “sameness” on Ele skills is quite overpowering, I mean Cone of Cold and Drake’s Breath are just colored differently, both do damage exactly the same while one heals and one inflicts burning. Not exactly a huge amount of skill required to use them, nor to differentiate between them based on F/X. But they do nearly the exact same thing, which defeats the whole purpose of basically having four weapon swaps. Regardless of which weapon an Ele is using, he’s putting all his big skills on cooldown every fight, because of the design limitations, instead of using skills tactically and situationally.

IF ANet took my design philosophy, each attunement would be highly specialized, differentiated, and require more skill to utilize correctly, due to the need to be more tactically aware. That way, no matter which weapon set the Ele picked, it would actually feel to the player as if they had options, rather than “if I get caught while in Staff I die” or “I have to build bunker to be able to survive since none of my attunements focus on defense”, etc., etc.

Kaleban.9834:

An Ele, depending on the weapon, plays the same in every single attunement. Direct damage, a condition or two, some CC, maybe a movement skill on every attunement, on every weapon. You keep saying that my idea would lead to boring skills with low skill ceiling, but that’s entirely untrue. The flavor of “sameness” on Ele skills is quite overpowering, I mean Cone of Cold and Drake’s Breath are just colored differently, both do damage exactly the same while one heals and one inflicts burning. Not exactly a huge amount of skill required to use them, nor to differentiate between them based on F/X. But they do nearly the exact same thing, which defeats the whole purpose of basically having four weapon swaps. Regardless of which weapon an Ele is using, he’s putting all his big skills on cooldown every fight, because of the design limitations, instead of using skills tactically and situationally.

So just because a skill has the same area application and part of a similar effect, that qualifies as sameness and boring?

Does that mean Ranger Poison Volley and Split Blade are the same? They’re both just fan AoEs, both pierce and can hit a target multiple times at point blank, both do damage per projectile and both apply a damaging condition…They’re even on two different weapons so there’s no excuse.

Fire Breath and Cone of Cold are, like, the last skills I’d be harping on for being bland copies. Both are on the same weapon and deal with the same fundamental natural phenomenon (heat and the absence of heat) yet do widely different things. One can be a set-up for a skill that does more damage to burning foes while the other is set-up to deal its optimal damage to a vulnerable one, one is primarily a damage tool while the other doubles as a self heal and an ally heal.

Kaleban.9834:

Not sure how relying less on active defense but having more access to such would help.

Ok, so basically the problem the Ele is running into, with respect to build diversity, is that you’re too squishy if you don’t go bunker. You HAVE to spec heavily into defense just to operate at a baseline level. Consequently, raising the Ele’s baseline defensive capabilities (while proportionately reducing how much defense you get by speccing bunker) would help open up build options.

The Ele is not alone in being able to do everything (Damage, Control, Support) all the time. Everyone’s built like this. It’s a cornerstone of the game that every single character can provide a measure of all three aspects regardless of spec. You can certainly focus but no one gets to shunt all their Damage into Support or all their Control into Damage. Abilities in GW2 are messy and complex precisely to allow them to be big and flashy without resulting in Assassins that instagib squishies or Dervishes invulnerable to virtually everything.

So, the Ele’s weapon skills have their foci per Attunement but keep the foundational complexity on which the system is built (which leaves room for high skill ceilings and personal expression). To put it simply, Churning Earth doesn’t have only 1000 base damage because it has so many other aspects to it. It has so many other aspects to it because it’s not allowed to have more than 1000 base damage.

Lol, erm excuse me? Shelving all our Ele’s? I’ll tell you what that is, that’s a bunch of bad FoTM players jumping onto the next most powerful and OP spec because Anet nerfed it. It happens in every MMO. Plus, you don’t even know if that is true, cmon its such a subjective bias to bring to this debate you’re having with Blaine.

I could point out how many Thieves in my guild have recently transferred to another profession due to nerfs and the feeling that the profession is lackluster. Yet, behold all the posts in this forum section in particular praising thieves superior abilities, even though I kill far more thieves than Ele’s, so much more easily. Subjective arguments like this aren’t prudent, especially when Arenanet is the only party involved in this affair with actual data, anything we have is just speculation.

I hate to play devil’s advocate, but maybe Anet has a reason for the changes they’ve made we don’t know about, such as hardcore tests in a controlled environment proving the contrary, or they are lining the Ele up for a big buff on other areas it needs by nerfing the most OP aspects of it etc. This should always be considered a possibility, and I’m not even a big faithful of Anet anymore.

may i ask why “balance” discussions devotes ONLY around PvP?

PvE is the most unbalanced game i ever played at this moment.
WWW is quite really unbalanced.

Ele has:
1 viable average-good build for PvP
1 buffbot subpar build for WWW
0 viable builds for PvE

Possibly one of the 2 worst professions in the game when you look at overall game

War? king of PvE good in WWW bad in PvP
Thief? King in www, decent in PvP viable in PvE
Ranger is King of PvP and good in WWW and even in PvE not so bad as people says.

Now its quite clear that currently despite all its problem PvP is the most balanced part of the game..

And PvE and WWW needs really lot of attention….that is not slight random buffs to scepter/staff

Ele

Great in PvP
Good in WvW
Viable in PvE. What are you talking about? Have you never seen a high level fractal group?

This is by far the hardest PvE content in game, and look at the level. More Ele’s than any other class in both, so what the hell are you still on about? I see you post over and over how bad Ele is in pvE, when its evident you just can’t play.

Stop heaping us all together with your terrible gameplay. Ele is still viable and greatly used in a lot of groups, stop QQing about how bad it is just because you can’t play it.

Also, I’ll repeat, warrior isn’t the king of pve, it pales in comparison to Guardian. Guardians are the only profession you need for certain content, they are also the only profession where you can have a party of 5 of them and face tank every boss apart from maybe lupicus and fractals in the game.

I’ll also add more just to make you look like a fool.

Here’s an Ele fighting a fairly well known skilled mesmer (which is considered to be the most broken class for 1v1’s) named Osicat. Ele staff is tremendously helpful in zerg fights and apart from group encounters you will encounter small scale fights like this. Here’s how well a D/D ele can stand up to one of the hardest professions to beat in a 1 on 1 ingame:

You won’t fight many skillful mesmers in WvW anyway, so most won’t even be as hard as that, let alone other professions being less of an issue in most cases.

So would you stop complaining? I hate having to think that just because you’re bad at playing Ele that new players get turned off from the profession.

PistolWhip.2697:

Ele

Great in PvP
Good in WvW
Viable in PvE. What are you talking about? Have you never seen a high level fractal group?

Pre-Patch (Big QQ one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Oi1ycdp4U

Post-Patch (Big QQ one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNIkL_NGwfw

This is by far the hardest PvE content in game, and look at the level. More Ele’s than any other class in both, so what the hell are you still on about? I see you post over and over how bad Ele is in pvE, when its evident you just can’t play.

Stop heaping us all together with your terrible gameplay. Ele is still viable and greatly used in a lot of groups, stop QQing about how bad it is just because you can’t play it.

Also, I’ll repeat, warrior isn’t the king of pve, it pales in comparison to Guardian. Guardians are the only profession you need for certain content, they are also the only profession where you can have a party of 5 of them and face tank every boss apart from maybe lupicus and fractals in the game.

Just one question why EVERY post you make do you have to attack ele profession and complain for poor thieves?

For that vids i already talked about:
1) that guard is doing all the work…toggle it and see the Group fail at veterans
2) ele was ninja NERFED (or bugged as you prefer) bad last patch expecially in fractal…..have fun using 4 eles now….

Seems you know more of thieves than eles… ._.

LordByron.8369:

PistolWhip.2697:

Ele

Great in PvP
Good in WvW
Viable in PvE. What are you talking about? Have you never seen a high level fractal group?

Pre-Patch (Big QQ one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Oi1ycdp4U

Post-Patch (Big QQ one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNIkL_NGwfw

This is by far the hardest PvE content in game, and look at the level. More Ele’s than any other class in both, so what the hell are you still on about? I see you post over and over how bad Ele is in pvE, when its evident you just can’t play.

Stop heaping us all together with your terrible gameplay. Ele is still viable and greatly used in a lot of groups, stop QQing about how bad it is just because you can’t play it.

Also, I’ll repeat, warrior isn’t the king of pve, it pales in comparison to Guardian. Guardians are the only profession you need for certain content, they are also the only profession where you can have a party of 5 of them and face tank every boss apart from maybe lupicus and fractals in the game.

Just one question why EVERY post you make do you have to attack ele profession and complain for poor thieves?

For that vids i already talked about:
1) that guard is doing all the work…toggle it and see the Group fail at veterans
2) ele was ninja NERFED (or bugged as you prefer) bad last patch expecially in fractal…..have fun using 4 eles now….

Seems you know more of thieves than eles… ._.

I’m defending thieves in this particular thread because they seem to keep coming up. They really aren’t that good. I’m just sick of you denouncing Ele’s. Do you not know how insulting it is for other Ele’s who actually do a great job and win a lot of fights thanks to their skill when all you say is that we lose, we die, we can’t do anything, we’re useless. All you’re doing is thinking of it from your perspective.

Some of us are still having a blast on the profession, some of us still use it to do a lot of content, some of us are open minded in nerfs and buffs, and don’t want to keep bringing up other professions.

I have brought many up yes, but it is only ever in reply. Ele needs work, its not as bad as you make it out to be though, and that is whats highly annoying.

So unless i say thief are fine and ele deserved whack a mole nerfs that even dev with time noticed were excessive…

I am close minded to nerfs and buffs….

I posted facts ….i informed on interviews, i checked forums to understand what led to current state of the game.

What are you putting on the plate of the balance in order to say i am closed minded?

I say:
Huge decrease of elementalist roamers…in www
Many nerfs of a PvE class you possibly don t even know if so please list them…you play an ele so you ll have noticed all ninja nerfs

if you don t back up your nerf claims with something happens that people get suspicious.

we had too many thieves players posting in ele section to not be.

Thief players in ele sections? See this is your issue. You seem to think the whole thief populace has this weird agenda. Thieves never had an issue with D/D Bunker Cantrip wtf spam skill ele’s to begin with. Their burst was most of the time enough to out do the Bunker.

What I’m trying to say is, you keep on lumping us all together in this one ele playerbase that is apparently terrible. I don’t appreciate it.

Its not that Thieves come here to post stuff (Wtf?) It is that many Ele’s have different view points because we’re all players with different experiences.

I’m saying you’re lose minded because you wont conceded on anything. Do you honestly believe Ele’s needed no nerfs? That our broken state was fine in various game modes?

Not once have I seen you concede on Ele’s needing any adjustment apart from buff buff buff. That is why I call you close minded. I have accepted their are parts of the profession which need tweaking and reduction, but I also strongly feel the profession needs adjustment and buffing in other areas.

You could plausibly say Ele’s post in other professions forums, which they do, because forums often intermingle anyway. I’am just as informed as you on the subject, I check just as many balance notes and I have just as valid of an opinion as you, so why do you keep ignoring us Ele’s who have and are able to cope with the changes and still come out on top?

Also, the 1550 was a bug fix, a bug FIX. When something is working as not intended and it is changed to work as intended like that, it is a fix. Would you call a 1550-1200 reduction on the Warrior GS 5 Rush a nerf? or a Bug fix?. Its a fix for an oversight.

Also, I hope you know other classes have Ninja nerfs too, it happens, and it sucks but it happens to everyone. Instead of hating on every other profession but Ele, how about you join hands with other professions and agree with their players on fair and objective fixes rather than post everywhere how bad every Ele is? (which we aren’t.)

still waiting you to talk about eles instead of posting random facts and personal Attacks…..

Wich stealth nerfs did ele received in PvE last big patch?

p.S. answering with questions is useless i asked you that because you seems your experience with ele is not adequate for discussing of balance…or you have other issues with ele i can t know..

So you refuse to address any of my points? Why should I address yours? Give me one good reason. Just one?

Answer my points, then I guarantee I will answer your silly question.

At the risk of putting this thread back on track – I do not see the point of the OPs suggested changes. I like having to change attunements to maximize damage. Its great that my combo finishers are in Earth which happens to be my defensive attunement which I kinda need to drop the bomb in melee range. If I was still in Fire for the finisher I’d be much squishier and in any case i’d have to change to earth / water after burst to fall back / heal. From what I can tell you are simply moving the att. change from mid-chain to post-chain.

Personally, I prefer that the attunement changes are a part of my skills chain rather than a pre-ordained and limited functionality associated with each element. As it is the elements have a flavour (AoE, Heal, Single/Mobility, Defensive/Conditions). That doesn’t mean that they have to be completely devoid of other capabilities (like the ability to apply some pressure while in Water or Earth)

I also agree with Raven. I enjoy the changing of attunements to chain skills as it provides a nice enjoyable and active play style. I love how fast paced my ele feels.

Jack of all trades is a master of none… if ele gets to do damage comparable to thief or warrior, anet would NEED to remove their ability to heal and do AoE crowd control effectively, if spec’d for damage, otherwise it would just disadvantage other classes. Such a change would be exactly against the philosophy of ele being the jack of all trades. With anet’s philosophy in mind, ele should be specced for one thing, at which it would be somewhat inferior to other classes specced for the same thing (damage for example), but in return still have access to all the other things like healing, crowd control and defense while the other classes do not. That is what it means to be the jack of all trades, and that is what the ele is now.

To be honest there is absolutely nothing wrong with elementalist in tpvp. It has an incredibly good burst build (0/20/0/20/30 s/d 2 arcanes can pull off a burst combo that brings down any non-tank target while still being tanky itself and having access to team support and awesome crowd control), tanky build with cantrips and a mixed d/d build that works just fine.

In WvW elementalists used to be a niche that worked wonders at times and was decent but nothing special at others. This has not changed, the only difference is that you need to spec 20 in air now to get 32 sec cd on RTL instead of 20s before, but that’s not enough to kill a class completely, just hinder it a little. There are many classes that are far worse at this point, but only a handful of the ones that are actually any better.

In PvE elementalists were never especially strong, but I fail to see where the problem is with that arrangement. PvE has no competition, nobody is going to steal your boss, kill you, win over you in any way if you take 20 seconds longer to finish off a group of mobs. I have leveled my elementalist the good old way and there was no content I couldn’t handle by myself just fine. If you are a PvE speed freak, just roll a warrior anyway, no other class is going to make the cut compared to them.

Silferas.3841:

Jack of all trades is a master of none…

you can find this exact sentence in most profession forums XD…..
No anet desn t want that.

In PvE elementalists were never especially strong, but I fail to see where the problem is with that arrangement. PvE has no competition, nobody is going to steal your boss, kill you, win over you in any way if you take 20 seconds longer to finish off a group of mobs. I have leveled my elementalist the good old way and there was no content I couldn’t handle by myself just fine. If you are a PvE speed freak, just roll a warrior anyway, no other class is going to make the cut compared to them.

Do you know how many layers play PvE and how much PvP?
Also how much can complete lvl 48 fotm and arah without guardians and warriors?
It seems you don t like PvE so you don t know why DPS makes life EASIER not only faster….

If you don t like PvE don t undervalue the most part of GW2 players without wich this game wouldn t exist please…

There is only a tiny fraction playing PvP and WWW compared to PvE….

P.S: and it is my fault but when i read a balancing posts in ele section by a player with most messages in thief forum….i get suspicious due to a long tradition in this forum…..

P.P.S: best PvP players tried to make DPS ele work some times ago….they failed.
If you can well you should show players how to do that.

Silferas.3841:

Jack of all trades is a master of none… if ele gets to do damage comparable to thief or warrior, anet would NEED to remove their ability to heal and do AoE crowd control effectively, if spec’d for damage, otherwise it would just disadvantage other classes. Such a change would be exactly against the philosophy of ele being the jack of all trades. With anet’s philosophy in mind, ele should be specced for one thing, at which it would be somewhat inferior to other classes specced for the same thing (damage for example), but in return still have access to all the other things like healing, crowd control and defense while the other classes do not. That is what it means to be the jack of all trades, and that is what the ele is now.

Yup, this is how I was thinking too about the OP.

Even if all the damage was locked in fire or earth, all the CC was in air and all the snares and healing was in water, wouldn’t you still have to have them watered down just like now? Everything else kept the same, not much would really change except you wouldn’t be able to attack while you’re snaring/healing or you couldn’t apply CCs while you do your blast finishers and you’d be locked out of attunements for a hefty period while you do so.

If the attunement cooldowns were nixed, then you’d have to water down traits (which should be doing the opposite…they should be more drastic gameplay changers!). As is, Elementalist isn’t in a bad spot, just not as prolific in their gameplay (to me, it feels the main thing ele does right is swapping attunements and applying boons…condition application could be improved a bit).

Molding them so each attunement primarily does one aspect of combat doesn’t change that they still have these aspects of combat at their finger tips to take advantage of and therefore wouldn’t leave their skills open to be suped up much more than they could be now.

That said, they still have room to supe up some of the current skills a tad, like improving some of the combos and buffing certain attacks and utilities. As is, I have never bothered to use the FotM 30/30 arcane/water build yet. I’ve used a burst arcane build, a glyph build (which technically is close to the arcane/water build but I made that way back before I even read the forums) and now my versito build and they work for what they’re for, namely PvE and some WvW. If the OP’s idea came to pass, it’d practically destroy every possible build currently for an unknown amount of viable builds to take their place.

Am I afraid of change? Not really, but there is a difference between changes and monumental shifts. You shift everything out from under the playerbase’s feet, and you whole games could die in the process. Again, it’s a fun thought experiment to see what might be if changes are made but it’s not healthy to expect them all to be made true, especially when they affect more people than yourself.

LordByron.8369:

Do you know how many layers play PvE and how much PvP?
Also how much can complete lvl 48 fotm and arah without guardians and warriors?
It seems you don t like PvE so you don t know why DPS makes life EASIER not only faster….

Honestly, I’d sooner expect Anet to change dungeons before they change Elementalist to be as powerful as Mesmer, Guardian or Warrior.

A lot of people dislike how stifled the content is and if it were to change or be added to, if you don’t like it you can play a different instance or part of the game. If they just screw around with the base of how a profession plays, there’s really nothing you can do but play something else (likely another game).

But yeah, I’d sooner expect them to introduce more mobs that resist direct damage, nerfs to reflect in general, nerfs to specific reflect skills, mobs that can only be kited, mobs that interrupt channels, mechanics to require more cooperative play, etc to be added to dungeons so you don’t end up with tough bosses being destroyed in 48sec…

Its getting hard to keep track of all those different opinions. What i’ve learned so far from all those complaining threads is that there is no solution for all. Since 2005 i played GW and i am used to Anets questionable decisions, but this is going ridiculous.

I remember, the whole OP discussion started when 8 Eles pulverize a 30 people zerg. Voices become louder and louder how OP Eles were and i was suprised how unusual fast Anet react on those complaints.

I really like to hear a statement from Anet about this situation, but so far they cover themselves in silence as it wouldnt exist.

For now they should just revert those changes until they come up with something thats works so we can switch back to normal.

PistolWhip.2697:

I’ll also add more just to make you look like a fool.

Here’s an Ele fighting a fairly well known skilled mesmer (which is considered to be the most broken class for 1v1’s) named Osicat. Ele staff is tremendously helpful in zerg fights and apart from group encounters you will encounter small scale fights like this. Here’s how well a D/D ele can stand up to one of the hardest professions to beat in a 1 on 1 ingame:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9XsgmP54DU

You won’t fight many skillful mesmers in WvW anyway, so most won’t even be as hard as that, let alone other professions being less of an issue in most cases.

So would you stop complaining? I hate having to think that just because you’re bad at playing Ele that new players get turned off from the profession.

I showed that awesome collection of duels to a friend and he started laughing at 0:14 mark. Bare in mind that first duel starts at 0:07-0:08.

PS. If you ever include links to youtube or wherever else, please use them properly so there won’t be a gigantic area of white spaces.

PistolWhip.2697:

Ele

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Oi1ycdp4U

Impressive.

4 elementalist while fighting level 75 fract against a level 84 veteran dps check in the second section of grawl.

This video sort of throws alot of arguments about elementalist being weak in pvE out the window.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Ok, so basically the problem the Ele is running into, with respect to build diversity, is that you’re too squishy if you don’t go bunker. You HAVE to spec heavily into defense just to operate at a baseline level. Consequently, raising the Ele’s baseline defensive capabilities (while proportionately reducing how much defense you get by speccing bunker) would help open up build options.

Yes, that’s exactly the problem. But how do you raise the Ele’s defensive capabilities? If you do it via traits, then bunkers will get it too. If you do it via skill nerfs or buffs, then bunkers will get it too. Basically, anything you do to the Ele affects the strongest builds the least, while marginalizing the weaker builds that don’t spec for defense. That’s my entire point really is to come up with a viable alternative way to design the class so that multiple builds are in fact viable, which would require giving every build active defense options in the skills, and reducing the amount of defense inherent in traits. Which will require a big re-design, because at the moment the Ele’s defense is centered healing through damage and cleansing. The Ele needs a LOT more options for defense, such as Smoke or Dark fields, more access to Magnetic Aura via skill combos and Auras in general to give bunker spec a run for its money.

The Ele is not alone in being able to do everything (Damage, Control, Support) all the time. Everyone’s built like this. It’s a cornerstone of the game that every single character can provide a measure of all three aspects regardless of spec. You can certainly focus but no one gets to shunt all their Damage into Support or all their Control into Damage. Abilities in GW2 are messy and complex precisely to allow them to be big and flashy without resulting in Assassins that instagib squishies or Dervishes invulnerable to virtually everything.

But each profession does it differently. A Warrior doesn’t Bleed with Axes, and doesn’t engage in melee with a Rifle. Each weapon on other professions has a relatively specific function, and while some overlap (bows and axes on Rangers for example) that’s due to them having access to many more weapons and combinations. An Ele only has access to four different weapon types, with very polarized ranges and design. The fact that the Ele has four swaps on each weapon combo should be a hint that there needs to be more specialization on skills to enable the Ele to actually deal with situations as they arise.

So, the Ele’s weapon skills have their foci per Attunement but keep the foundational complexity on which the system is built (which leaves room for high skill ceilings and personal expression). To put it simply, Churning Earth doesn’t have only 1000 base damage because it has so many other aspects to it. It has so many other aspects to it because it’s not allowed to have more than 1000 base damage.

Having all skills do a little damage, a little CC and a little of everything else doesn’t make for complexity, or a high skill ceiling, it allows players to mash buttons and still do okay. An Ele should play out like a chess match, always a few steps ahead of your opponent, not a noob button mashing on a fighting game. And fighting games are a great example actually of how I’d like the Ele to play out. In many of those types, you’ll have four to six basic moves, but how you chain them together determines a lot, and there are special moves and other things you can do, all from those six basic moves.

Knowing how to get the most out of those six basic attacks determines your skill with the game. And they can be pretty darn complex, with very high skill ceilings. However, the Ele plays exactly the opposite of this, since all available skills in general have a little bit of everything on them. No matter what attunement you’re in, you’ll be able to do some damage, some CC, some fields or finishers, etc.

I mean, what’s REALLY the difference between switching between all four attunements to maximize DPS, and staying in Fire and doing the same? Just pushing more buttons, using artificial complexity to try to approach the same baseline that every other profession has. Why even have four attunements and four skill bars per weapon set when they all generally do the same thing? Why not differentiate them as is done on other professions? Especially when you consider the Ele has no active defense built in as other professions do?

If a complete re-design is not an option then how about something like differentiate the type of attacks by weapon, but vary the ranges? So Daggers are PBAoE weapons, Scepter is single target, Focus purely defensive, and Staff ground targeted AoE. Then vary the ranges by attunement, so an Ele can melee in Fire and Earth, but Water and Air are longer range attacks. That way, no matter the weapon an Ele has options at differing ranges, then the choice of weapon boils down to what you’re going after, such as Scepter/Focus being excellent in sPvP but also good in 1v1s and 1v2s in WvWvW, whereas the majority of PvE and WvWvW would be better served using Daggers or Staff. Heck, it would be awesome to change Dagger Air AA to an electrical Nova type spell, and be able to port over the Nova-Sorc from Diablo 2 lol. Or having a skill like GW1’s Starburst in Dagger Fire, where hitting more than one opponent would refund Endurance or something.

loseridoit.2756:

Impressive.

4 elementalist while fighting level 75 fract against a level 84 veteran dps check in the second section of grawl.

This video sort of throws alot of arguments about elementalist being weak in pvE out the window.

Those totems are clearly overpowered in the hands of eles and the reason why you can’t use them anymore.

I agree with the OP on all except that water probably could never be turned into a pure healing element. It would either have to be horribly kitten or it would turn the ele into a dedicated healer which is in direct violation of Anet’s intentions. Instead I think they should add more chill effects and vulnerability to water spells. Chill would vastly improve synergy with fire and earth as aoe and attrition elements respectively, and vulnerability would improve synergy with air as a single target spike element. The different attunement spells as they are now are pretty homogenous.