Guild Wars 2

Hello everybody,

I know there are a lot of whine threads about why the elementalist is terribad in general, and I hope this not to devolve into one. Instead, I want to foster actual discussion about the nature of inherent issues with the class so that some proper balancing might bring us in line with other classes, someday… Before proper balancing can be done, we have to truly understand the problem:

The Problem
#1: The underlying problem with elementalists is that survivability, even at its maximum is very poor. Having low health/armor isn’t an issue if you are given the proper tools to survive (like stealth, aegis, protection, cleansing, healing, blocks, evades, etc.). In the past, we supposedly had too much survivability b/c we could heal too well, and had mobility to get away when the fit hit the shan. However, repeated nerfs have decrease out healing, decreased our mobility, decreased our defensive utilities, and even decreased the effectiveness of our boons (boon hate, stripping, necro buffs).

#2: Very poor sustained damage. Our autoattacks are pathetically weak, and don’t hit nearly hard enough given how squishy we are. Sure, we can have a single large burst with S/D by expending everything, but then we are a sitting duck and have no defensive utility. If the opponent survives (a single dodge-roll does the trick), you are a free kill. Other glass cannons have superior sustained damage and survivabilty through stealth/mobility.

Contibuting factors
- X/F has no real survivability b/c it is forced to “stay in the pocket” due to no mobility, can’t heal (our form of defense), and can’t even out-damage its enemies while standing there because /F destroys our burst capabilities, while only adding minimal control/invulns. This weapon set wants sustained fights, but can’t achieve the sustained dps to even win. The weapon is inherently flawed.

-Forced to spec into 30 arcane and 10 water (or 20/15 at a minimum, preferably 30/15) to have any survivability (healing) which is supposed to be inherent to the class to make up for the poor armor/health. Destroys build options and the chance to go more offensive (for greater damage), exacerbating #2.

-Terrible mobility at its maximum, considering that mobility is one of the primary survival mechanisms for a squishy. RtL nerf kills most reasonable specs chance to even survive. Staff ele has some limited control options for short escapes, actually making it more survivable than X/D.

-Arcane utilities give instant-damage options, making burst specs good enough to be barely unviable. However, these utilities serve no other purpose, are incredibly boring, and make it infinitely harder to fix any of the other issues.

-Unreasonable base attunement recharge rate, forcing points into arcana and destroying build diversity (although arcana has the best traits anyway). This further exacerbates both #1 and #2, as arcana gives no actual useful stats for building offensively/defensively. The +boon duration does have a secondary effect on survivability (more protection/regen), but its efficacy has been severely nerfed. Offensively, boon duration doesn’t do much b/c ele dies before it can really get going and build up might through combo fields. Compare this to HgH engies (not optimal, but still playable), who can run around with might stacks b/c they don’t rely on combo fields.

-Staff has no ability to deal damage 1v1 reliably. Fire is o.k. b/c is it doing what it is meant to, but air 2 and 3 are absolutely terrible for what they are used for. The cast time of air 2 is way too long, and the damage way too low. The 3 ability usually misses even at point-blank range. I don’t even know why the skill exists. If you want an example of the proper implementation of aoe, however, look at staff: you stand in the aoe, the effect accumulates over time. Compare this to engie nades/bombs or necro marks: they pop once and the entire effect (damage + conditions) are applied. Nerf those to be more like staff.

-Survival utilities are selfish and on unreasonable cooldowns. There is no reason that mistform should have a longer CD than Elixir S (which also has a util to grant stealth now). There is no reason that armor of earth should have a 90s CD, while stand your ground is 30s, and shares the stab. There are no utilities (other than the unusable glyph of renewal) that can support your team-mates. Only GoEP does anything helpful for them by debuffing your opponents, but can’t be take b/c of primary issue #1.

If you have things you disagree on, or want to add, please respond below and continue the discussion.

TLDR:
-Inherent survivability methods are too weak after repeated nerfs, and too hard to trait for, destroying build diversity.
-Poor sustained damage because auto-attacks and damage scaling is very poor for the most part.
-X/F is flawed b/c it is forced to stay in the pocket without the tools to effectively survive or out-damage their opponents
-Forced to spec into 30 arcana and 15 water to get healing, which is supposed to be our primary method of survival.
-RtL nerf destroys mobility, and doesn’t even work as intended. Make it shorter CD/less range or at least unblockable.
-Arcane utilities need to be reduced so that you can fix the other stuff
-Attunement recharge rate is too long and makes arcane too necessary, also arcana has the best utilities anyway.
- Staff is terrible in 1v1 b/c its single-target skills (especially air 2 and 3) are underwhelming and useless respectively. Other aoe-skills should also deal dot in a field as opposed to single-proc.
-Selfish survival skills on an unreasonable cooldown.

Ok, deleted my post so hopefully, your posts will all be one after the other.

Here’s my original statement:

“Very nice summary of the issues that we players perceive and experience! Now if only some developers saw the issues that we see and face…”

Here’s my new thoughts after pondering your posts for a longer amount of time:

1. Being forced into a 5th trait line is nothing new to veteran elementalists dating back to GW1. Back then, we had the attribute lines for all 4 elements and the 5th attribute, “energy storage,” which increased the amount of resources we had and thus, the amount of spells we could cast. However, having to devote 20-30 points in arcane for GW2 does seem a bit too much since we have to use all 4 elements in conflicts.
2. With the sheer amount of AoE skills, it seems pretty obvious that the staff was meant to be an AoE heavy weapon. The chances that Anet would buff single target damage for the staff seems to be really low (from my viewpoint). Also, Anet would probably have to change or redo some skills which means taking more time and resources out of their staff. Pun intended? Maybe.
3. Focus definitely needs a buff or rework. If an offhand dagger is meant to be used an offensive weapon and the focus was meant to be a defensive option, where are the party benefits? Air attunement’s focus 4 skill cancels out projectiles and protects the party without the need to be traited. How come fire, earth, and water skills don’t have skills that benefit multiple people like air?
4. Cantrips were meant to be important survival skills, but since we have such low health and armor, it makes incredibly good sense to bring one or two for the bad “oh crap” situations. I don’t even know how I could live without armor of earth and lighting flash because they are that useful.
5. Arcane skills are pretty bad due to their long cooldowns and limited use. The fact that it doesn’t bring anything to add much to the elementalist’s utility makes me wonder why even bother devoting traits to these underused skills.
6. As for ride the lighting, well, I think it could have been handled better than just decreasing cooldown if it hit something. I’d rather have a 25 second cooldown with doubled the traveling range if you’re targeting someone (though, I think that would be hard to do from a technical perspective).
7. Some developers have stated that they believe elementalists are “fine” where they currently stand… Ok, so… why do these issues keep on getting brought back up? Why do many recurring issues with engineers and rangers keep getting brought back up? If we don’t know or see from your point of view, why not elaborate to us?

Dante, thanks for the very well structured response.
1. I don’t think arcana should be useless (far from it), but I think we can all agree that it shouldn’t be absolutely necessary to play the class without stinking.

2. I don’t think staff should be great at aoe, but it should have the ability to at least survive pretty well. Potential changes to earth 4 might help. I really just want to see air 2/3 fixed (especially 3).

4. Cantrips do bring survival, but they do it worse than every other class. Compare mistform to elixir s. Elixir s has a shorter cooldown, and comes with a utility to give stealth. That is 2 get out of jail free cards on one ability: 100% better than mistform. Compare armor of earth to any other stability skill (like warrior dolyak signet) and you will see it is terrible. Arcane shield is fine. Cleansing fire’s cooldown is absurd: its long enough that you can only use it 1x per fight, but loses out on other effects. Compare this to Contemplation of Purity on a Guard (full condi clear + stunbreak on a 60s cooldown), which can also only be used 1x per fight.

7. Elementalists are “fine” in that they have one stupid gimmick build (S/D burst) that can do o.k. if carried, but still does its job worse than a thief/mesmer. They are buffing staff, and I can see it becoming a viable support/control bunker perhaps. D/D is or non-burst S/D is dead, and other specs are weighed down by the primary inherent flaws.

I wonder how making staff heals better is going to help elementalists. GW2 is a game that does not require support in most circumstances. I don’t think the announced changes to staff will be very noticable, so the devs keep producing changes that miss the target again and again. Maybe that is why the complaints, that eles are too weak, keep showing up. Anet’s weird focus on conjured weapons, which usually force the elementalist into close combat, is entirely ignoring the nature of this class. Eles are the mages of GW2, which means most people probably prefer staying at range.

It’s really simple. It comes down to two things:

1. A lack of survivability. We should have the same base HP as Mesmer/Ranger (15k). There aren’t enough justifiable reasons as a class why we have 11k HP. It creates huge problems with gear selection, trait selection and utility selection.

2. 4 weapon sets. Sorry, but having access to four weapon sets creates more problems for us balance wise than we benefit from it. Just the base fact that we can’t swap from melee to ranged (full ranged) attacks with an attunement/weapon like nearly every other class in the game is terrible design.

Neither of these things will be changed or addressed any time soon. What they will do instead is continue to side step the problems and hope that changing other aspects will unravel the problem. We see this with things like them trying to boost Conjures which have low usage in order to drive usage which will get people to stop using Cantrips.

Basically they’re aiming for minimum changes for maximum results. Instead they’re getting what any sane person would expect, minimum changes for minimum results.

BlackBeard.2873:

Dante, thanks for the very well structured response.
1. I don’t think arcana should be useless (far from it), but I think we can all agree that it shouldn’t be absolutely necessary to play the class without stinking.

Absolutely, arcana should be able to boost or augment what our elements and utility skills do as a whole but with the way the current arcana traits are spread out and how it’s tied to our attunement recharge rates, arcana just doesn’t seem optional as other classes’ utility trait lines.

BlackBeard.2873:

2. I don’t think staff should be great at aoe, but it should have the ability to at least survive pretty well. Potential changes to earth 4 might help. I really just want to see air 2/3 fixed (especially 3).

Air 3’s projectile is too slow, air 2’s cast time is too long, and earth 4 is just plain terra-bad.

BlackBeard.2873:

4. Cantrips do bring survival, but they do it worse than every other class. Compare mistform to elixir s. Elixir s has a shorter cooldown, and comes with a utility to give stealth. That is 2 get out of jail free cards on one ability: 100% better than mistform. Compare armor of earth to any other stability skill (like warrior dolyak signet) and you will see it is terrible. Arcane shield is fine. Cleansing fire’s cooldown is absurd: its long enough that you can only use it 1x per fight, but loses out on other effects. Compare this to Contemplation of Purity on a Guard (full condi clear + stunbreak on a 60s cooldown), which can also only be used 1x per fight.

The thing about mist form is that pre-nerf, it allowed you to do many important things such as rez someone, and use healing/utility skills (heavy emphasis on the healing) without taking damage. This skill basically allowed 3 seconds of support with near invulnerability making it something of a must-have on skill bars.

Combine that with ether renewal, and you have the ability to remove a massive amount of conditions and have a really powerful heal that is almost uninterruptible (it all depended on what order you activated the skills and how long it would take for you to activate the second skill). This created a very potent combination of survivability and was, as I said before, something of a must-have.

As much as I hate to say it, mist form had to get hit, but with the way it got hit, it’s nothing more than a living version of our downed 3 skill that lasts 1 second longer (or as some view it, a 50% longer duration). Mist form needs attention in my opinion.

As for the other cantrips, I agree, they are in need of some attention too. Even though armor of earth is useful with the prot and stability, it’s hampered by its cooldown. Cleansing fire is a decent skill, but like armor of earth, it too is held back by a long cooldown with little to no benefit for anything else (now that the stunbreak was removed). If anything, I would love to see a small healing effect be applied for each condition removed or have the condition removal be AoE.

On the subject of arcane shield, I personally am not a fan of this skill because of its long cooldown (75 seconds) and the fact that it lasts 3 attacks. I’m not denying that it’s really useful, I just feel that it would be better if the cooldown wasn’t so long.

Looking at the cantrips individually, you can say that they are poor compared to the other options that other classes have. However, if I remember correctly, there has been a recent developer blog/post that state their intentions and views of balancing a class and granting access to certain skills to fulfill a specific role. The elementalist’s cantrips might be our answer to the engineer’s elixer s, and the warrior’s dolyak signet in one handy skill type, but we, just like them, must have our drawbacks. This may be a point that the devs keep in mind when looking at our skills.

BlackBeard.2873:

7. Elementalists are “fine” in that they have one stupid gimmick build (S/D burst) that can do o.k. if carried, but still does its job worse than a thief/mesmer. They are buffing staff, and I can see it becoming a viable support/control bunker perhaps. D/D is or non-burst S/D is dead, and other specs are weighed down by the primary inherent flaws.

We’ll have to see just what exactly will be buffed aside from possible AoE increases to the staff water line and a change to the staff earth 4 skill on Oct. 15th. Personally, I wouldn’t mind Anet taking a close examination of the player’s perceived issues with the entire staff and making some adjustments here and there… Fire 1 and 2 are too slow, and meteor shower’s tooltip doesn’t show the increase to the individual meteor’s AoE (also, it’s random, as many will have seen in older posts, I like consistency). In fact, other than one of the patches stating that meteor shower’s meteor AoE was increased, I don’t even know by how much.

In my opinion the ele is fine. It is a balanced class.

FirstBlood.7359:

In my opinion the ele is fine. It is a balanced class.

It’s not a balanced class when Ele’s fall out of the meta in sPvP. It’s not a balanced class when Top Tier servers only use Ele’s for support/CC. It’s not a balanced class when we’re forced into certain utilities just to survive.

Want more?

FirstBlood.7359:

In my opinion the ele is fine. It is a balanced class.

We might be balanced against players that are afk…

WvW wise solo roaming and DvD logic application only and nothing else.

We are balance but have no specific faceroll build like most other profession via direct 1v1 or 1v2 and a get out of jail free card. We use too. That is what everyone is talking about. Ele’s are balance but like an average warrior or thief build, not like a 1v1 spec build. We need around 1600+power, 1700+ tough, 1600+ vit, 1700+ power and 25-35% crit + 65 to 100 crit damage to power stomp someone to the ground. Your primary heal or utilities need to be change to fight a tank class or a heavy condition spec opponent. You need to mirco manage a lot know when to run when that guy facing you is your anti build. Also 30 Arcane is great but sometimes you have to let that go in WvW drop to 20 Arcane and rely on a roll with out bonuses. You can’t take condition focus fire from two seperate sources or one spamming perplexity. You can’t take a Thief back stab while fighting tow other people like a warrior or retro ele. You can still fight, down but not flag or finish off mutliple people running non exteme1v1 builds. So Anet is right we are balance, so you have to do double the work, fairly top gear, be almost 45% more skilled then your opponent to beat them. Good luck if your just a bit better than them cause one wrong more you’re dead. Didn’t I mention we don’t have an escape cards like other profession when they fail to win in a fight. Better fight close to that shiney tower door or hop off a cliff cause that’s your card.

Let’s hope Anet does something to bring back the ele..

while i agree on most of these points i see another major flaw.

imagine if the necromancer didnt have his shroud form, or the ranger didnt have his pet, etc, it didnt exist and he got nothing instead… how strong do you think the class’s would be?

my point is that is what have happened to the ele, we got NO special ability which can “reinforce” us in a heavy way… we got attunement which is more of a handicap then a bonus due to all the issue’s you have with trying to mix 4 “weapon switch” abilities into doing something others have to be able to do with 2..

i really do believe there is a serious need for an actual effective bonus mechanic, and activation of some sort instead of just the clear “weapon swap” which all other classes gets for free…

we forget to mention the traits as well, which is CLEARLY splitted up amongst elements made in a way where they buff the element and not all elements, which when we are suppose to constantly use all elements is an inharent issue as well..

made a little suggestion on an active ability for the ele.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post2825766

Erebus.7568:

while i agree on most of these points i see another major flaw.

imagine if the necromancer didnt have his shroud form, or the ranger didnt have his pet, etc, it didnt exist and he got nothing instead… how strong do you think the class’s would be?

my point is that is what have happened to the ele, we got NO special ability which can “reinforce” us in a heavy way… we got attunement which is more of a handicap then a bonus due to all the issue’s you have with trying to mix 4 “weapon switch” abilities into doing something others have to be able to do with 2..

i really do believe there is a serious need for an actual effective bonus mechanic, and activation of some sort instead of just the clear “weapon swap” which all other classes gets for free…

we forget to mention the traits as well, which is CLEARLY splitted up amongst elements made in a way where they buff the element and not all elements, which when we are suppose to constantly use all elements is an inharent issue as well..

made a little suggestion on an active ability for the ele.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post2825766

Yes. This. Anet seems to be thinking like this:

Since ele has 4 attunements, we can make the skills have 2-4 times the CD, 1/4 the effect at best, and severely limit their ability without investing 29%-43% of their traits into one line for a single bonus. That will balance the fact that they have twice as many skills available, despite losing their profession mechanic and having to frantically mash buttons to get even close to the effects that other professions have.

And the traits are split among the different elements despite encouraging the attunement dance that almost every ele has to do. It is as if they want us to swap attunements all over the world and back again twice, and yet at the same time encourage us to stick in one attunement all the time. Our weapon swap and profession mechanic and skill balance was stolen in favor of the attunement dance that the traits don’t even support.

After playing a ele for about 10hrs today in SPvP i see now why it is a weak fookin class. Anet needs to fix it.. Ill be back to ele when it is fixed…

Erebus.7568:

my point is that is what have happened to the ele, we got NO special ability which can “reinforce” us in a heavy way… we got attunement which is more of a handicap then a bonus due to all the issue’s you have with trying to mix 4 “weapon switch” abilities into doing something others have to be able to do with 2..

i really do believe there is a serious need for an actual effective bonus mechanic, and activation of some sort instead of just the clear “weapon swap” which all other classes gets for free…

we forget to mention the traits as well, which is CLEARLY splitted up amongst elements made in a way where they buff the element and not all elements, which when we are suppose to constantly use all elements is an inharent issue as well..

made a little suggestion on an active ability for the ele.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post2825766

Erebus, thanks for the feedback!

According to the devs, our “reinforcement” comes from primarily healing, with boons and mobility to round it out (as opposed to guardian boons + healing + blocks). This worked for a while, until they nerfed the healing and mobility big time.

The problem is, that in order to get our healing, we have to trait 30 into arcana, or 20 into arcana and 15 into water. If this is supposed to be a core to the class, it needs to be more accessible. The reason most eles go 30 into arcana is because it is the best way to survive. The heal+condi clear from water + ability to attunement swap more frequently allows you to piece together something resembling a whole. Most people could live without the effects on other attunements, but the water one is absolutely crucial (as well as the attunement reduction). If they made swaps easier, and gave easier access (or even different access) to the crucial skills (water dodge-heal and water swap/heal), you could see more diversity.

Mobility is likewise important, as if you choose to forego healing, you need to get in, unload, and get out. However, by nerfing that into oblivion, our aggressive builds are nothing but sub-par, and you are better taking another class.

Finally, we can all agree that the “while in X attunement” abilities are absolute rubbish, as you spend very little time in any one. These things need to be merged and made MUCH stronger, or fixed to something that is more universal to see any real play (besides eking out a bit more damage by taking +10% dmg in air).

Erebus.7568 and BlackBeard.2873 speak truth. I stand in honor of you two. All take notice! These are truth speakers, revere them.

Our class mechanic is at complete odds with many of our traits. Attunement dance and “when attuned to _ element” traits are contradictory.

Our class mechanic is overly dependent on Arcana to be even somewhat functional.

Our survivability is extremely low, with no compensation in terms of decent damage or mobility. To gain halfway decent damage we lose almost every bit of whatever little survivability we have. To gain more survivability we lose every bit of whatever little damage we have. Compared to warriors, who don’t have to worry about sacrificing damage for defense or vice versa, it’s really pathetic. This is a problem in both PvE and PvP.

Almost all of our survivability is in Water. Along with the mandatory investment in Arcana, our build options are limited. (Fresh Air is only worth taking if you’re running Scepter; otherwise, it’s pointless.)

Our skills on an individual basis (except rare gems like Phoenix) are weak and are on ridiculously long cooldowns with the rationale seemingly being “because we have access to more skills.”

Our auto-attacks (except Lightning Whip and Fireball) lack any potency.

We are stuck in one range in combat, with no ability to switch, with the exception of Conjures, which in addition to being gimmicky (which I don’t think will be fixed by the upcoming patch), lock us out of our attunements.

Another reason the focus is so unloved (besides being hard to play with): their skins are absolutely uninspired (except soul link and anomaly). Most focus look just like… nothing.

It’s bad since I like playing focus, but i agree with everything said above. We were supposed to be able to play our own style, but we are forced to spec arcana and cantrips to barely survive when some classes just have to spam 1 to get average results.

Did anyone mentioned the terrible elites? I would rather have another utility slot. Some weapon skills are even better.

Even the food buffs in WvW is unbalanced since it’s mostly based oh % of vitality/toughness which are our lowest stats to start with.

The thing is, when hits from mobs are based on our health in order to be challenging, it becomes nearly trivial for warriors. 5k damage is a lot for us, but in most cases barely noticable for warriors. Equalizing the health pools a bit would level the playing field a lot in that respect.

DanteZero.9736:

1. With the sheer amount of AoE skills, it seems pretty obvious that the staff was meant to be an AoE heavy weapon. The chances that Anet would buff single target damage for the staff seems to be really low (from my viewpoint). Also, Anet would probably have to change or redo some skills which means taking more time and resources out of their staff. Pun intended? Maybe.

Obviously the issue is that we don’t have the ability to swap weapons like other classes to move from ranged to melee or from single target to aoe damage. There should be skills in each weapon set to make up for this lack and that fact that there aren’t is just bad design.

This along with our poor base health are the 2 biggest problems IMHO.

I think most of you are being too extreme in your evaluation of the elementalist.
Most of your comments apply to PvP or WvW but make little sense for PvE.

I am only going to reply on the weapon swap comment:
We do not need weapon swaps.
1) We already have conjures
2) Lots of our skills have different effective ranges depending on our attunements
3) That would give us just way too many skills and one more mechanic to manage

Also, we have a mix of AoE and single target on every single weapon.

As for the potency of your skills, it is important to look at all the skill factors when evaluating them. Many times our skills do a bit less damage than comparable skills from other professions, but this is often compensated by having “out of the box” factors such as extra range (LW, draggon’s claw, vapor blade), location advantage (impale), non-projectile ranged (flamestrike, lightning arc), etc. This is why the devs advise us to use celestial gear: if we want to make the most out of all our skills then we are going to use all stats.

While this seems right on paper, I understand that in PvP and WvW the class can be lacking due to the meta.

The devs said the ele would be fine once they tone down the condition meta a little. I say we wait until they do this before we start screaming too loud.

Edit: remember that while they do not have a dungeon dev team, they do have a skill team! (JSharp just gave that away )

PvE is brainlessly easy. No one cares about that because getting gold medal is all the counts.

Ptolomy.6984:

FirstBlood.7359:

In my opinion the ele is fine. It is a balanced class.

We might be balanced against players that are afk…

I know it would not be a proper fix but i would love if they gave us a base hp increase. We have been striped of just about everything that justified us in bottom tier in terms of base hp. Then we might be able to not be garbage in pvp and wvw.

haviz.1340:

PvE is brainlessly easy. No one cares about that because getting gold medal is all the counts.

But … I care about PvE ! :s

FirstBlood.7359:

In my opinion the ele is fine. It is a balanced class. In a dimension where it’s always opposite day

Fixed.

All, thank you for your additions. A few points:

Glenstorm, I agree with most of what you said, however I think it is reasonable to stuck in one range if you are given the tools you need. They are trying to make conjures viable, but seem to miss the point that we have to take all defensive utilities to have any chance to survive or get a chance to use those utilities. So many things are near-instant death for an ele (Invis-burst, condis in general, immobilize especially, getting stun if you can’t stun-break) that we are forced to take all defensive utilities just to survive and keep using our skills. That is the key flaw in conjured weapons. The only time conjures will see use outside if PvE effectively are when they can give us some utility not otherwise available (using fiery greatsword to get away, using ice bow to take out a structure). We either need more base survivability without defensive utilities or conjures need to have some defensive use as well (or be overwhelmingly strong).

Zelyhn, while a lot of the issues here pertain to PvE, I have not focused as much on that game-mode because you can pull off a lot more due to the structure. Life is much easier for an ele b/c mobs are generally pretty slow and have slow attack rates, so dodging is 80% of the defense you need. As such, you can get away with a lot more things.

As for your point about taking into account the additional effects, that is true to some extent. However, this excuse, along with the access to lots of skills, is used too often when balancing our skills. It goes like this: Eles have access to a lot of skills, so each one has to be weaker than comparable skills on other classes b/c they can spam them. Eles also have access to lots of skills, so we need to put them on unreasonably long cooldowns b/c otherwise they can just spam their best skills. We are double-penalized for the number of skills we have: weaker and on longer cooldown. The cooldowns are o.k, but we need some of that damage back as per primary issue #2.

Finally, the meta isn’t what is holding down eles. We are in a bad spot b/c we were one of the few classes to build tanky first, and people didn’t know how to deal with it (and there were plenty of ways: necro has always been a near hard-counter, thieves and other burst hurts a lot, condis in general wound us down, any immobilize is near death). What happened is we got nerfed so that the things we were middle-of-the-road against the things we used to be strong against, and even weaker against our hard-counters.

The only reason staff ele works in large wvw groups is because focusing an individual target in a large group is incredibly hard. Plus, there are safe-havens that you can run back for defense. Thus, our inherent survivability concerns don’t come to bear as much, when you sit back with staff and spam aoe’s and water fields. Likewise, D/D can work in a small-medium size group because there is so much havoc that its easier to not get focused. However, when somebody can lock in on you, you will die if you can’t get to the protection of your group.

Finally, ele in PvE is going to take a big hit when they nerf FGS, or at the very least FGS-LF combo (which will happen). PvE Eles will be very upset.

Edit: TLDR

-Single-range is fine if given the right tools.
-Conjures don’t work b/c we NEED defensive utilities, and they don’t provide enough survivability. (See primary issue #1)
-Survivability is less concern in PvE: dodging is 80% of the defense you need.
-Eles are penalized x2 for number of skills: weaker skills AND longer cooldowns. The power needs to be given back (damage: primary issue #2).
-Eles have always been weak vs. conditions, but now are weak against most power setups as well due to the tanky/regen specs seen everywhere. People also learned while we were nerfed.
-PvE dps will probably get nerfed as they are going to decrease FGS efficacy, at the very least in conjunction with LF, but probably overall.

Elementalists are just at an inherent statistical disadvantage. We start off with the lowest armor/health of any class, and then ontop of that, we have to put 300 points in a line that doesn’t give any stats. By the time we’re done gearing to compensate for this fundamental disparity, we have absolutely no room left on our gear for damage.

Almost every other class gets at least 250-300 points worth of condition damage, precision damage or power from their traits and ALL have more health or armor than we do.

Where are we getting compensated for this, statistically speaking?

Zelyhn.8069:

haviz.1340:

PvE is brainlessly easy. No one cares about that because getting gold medal is all the counts.

But … I care about PvE ! :s

And in PvE, the ele is ok, though you have to be much more active than the other classes (I actually like that, even though it is sort of a negative). We aren’t talking about PvE because all the classes are fine for the content, though some shine more than others (cough Guardian and Warriors cough).

red.2387:

Elementalists are just at an inherent statistical disadvantage. We start off with the lowest armor/health of any class, and then ontop of that, we have to put 300 points in a line that doesn’t give any stats. By the time we’re done gearing to compensate for this fundamental disparity, we have absolutely no room left on our gear for damage.

Almost every other class gets at least 250-300 points worth of condition damage, precision damage or power from their traits and ALL have more health or armor than we do.

Where are we getting compensated for this, statistically speaking?

Obviously by being support.

One thing I believe ANet could do to help Eles a lot is to balance out what Glenstorm mentioned by changing most of the “Get X while in this attunement” to be skills that are short in duration but can be quite powerful when used well, things like changing the Minor Adept Earth trait from “+Lv Toughness while in Earth” to “+Lv*5 Toughness for 5 seconds after attuning to Earth or for the first 5 seconds after entering combat mode while in Earth attunement” would go a long way to making the attunement dance a useful tool for us that could be used very strategically. Similar things should be done with the other minor traits, IMO, so you can balance between having powerful effects when swapping attunement, or having faster attunements by picking between the elemental lines or the Arcana line.

My main problem with ele is basically the whole implementation of the attunement system. While it is interesting and looks great on paper, it creates problems because we are forced to switch due through unreasonable CDs and then on top, the switch CDs are too long unless you invest a lot of points into arcana, so you even become viable.

Switching elements should be encouraged and supported, not forced through long cooldowns, which only make sure that once you do your first burst (using dmg for example, could be applied to any role really), you’re forced to switch your role untill your skills are ready again.

I mean, I recently started a warrior alt and am just amazed how easy it is to do stuff. Yeah, the ele can do some of those things better (ie more boons, longer swiftness etc), but the warrior simply has incredibly short cooldowns and only uses one button to get the effect, while the elementalist will have to blow 2-3 skills with double the CD to get a slightly better buff.

Has anyone pointed out that lingering elements does not work properly since… i can’t even remember. One Mandatory trait that doesnt even benefit to us :/

Lingering elements? never heard of that.

MyPuppy.8970:

Has anyone pointed out that lingering elements does not work properly since… i can’t even remember. One Mandatory trait that doesnt even benefit to us :/

This is not a bug sadly, it has been brought up many times as something to change.

@BlackBeard
If you want examples that show the difference in weapons skills for an elementalist and other classes my favorite example currently is Windborne Speed and Charge.

Additionally, at risk for repeating myself too much, I’d like to see the attunement swap cooldown begin when swapping to an attunement rather than when swapping away from an attunement.

For the most part this change would have some obvious benefits for non-dance builds while having limited effects on dance builds. (Any thoughts and/or criticism on this would be appreciated.)

Zelyhn.8069:

I

Also, we have a mix of AoE and single target on every single weapon.

On staff single target damage is negligible

MyPuppy.8970:

Another reason the focus is so unloved (besides being hard to play with): their skins are absolutely uninspired (except soul link and anomaly). Most focus look just like… nothing.

Heh, I really like a lot of the focus designs. Scrolls that unfurl, a skull, a ship in a bottle, booze, keys, voodoo dolls, a canary in a cage (they used to use them in mines because if the canary died, you knew the air was toxic) … those feel pretty inspired to me personally. Did you look at them all? gallery linkie

I was going to post a really long wall of text that could probably be skipped due to how beautifully explained everything has been.

We are in a very sad balancing state, it will take a little bit more than tool fixes and buffing the gimmick conjures, Im looking specifically at you, staff.

Sadly, the most fun profession (concept wise) turned from “attune to the right element at the right moment” to “better switch through all attuenemnts, use all utilities and hope that got them, you might come half way across as effective as that dude over there who used 3 skills in one weapon, switched, used one utility and 2 other skills in the other weapon and won”

Sadly, another post that will get ignored while “We love you Anet, more minis and JP please xoxoxox” get responses 1 hour later.

disclaimer : I LOVE minis and JPs.

BlackBeard.2873:

Compare this to engie nades/bombs or necro marks: they pop once and the entire effect (damage + conditions) are applied. Nerf those to be more like staff.

Whilst agree with everything else you’ve said, I find this statement hypocritical. What is Flame Burst if not an effect that is applied at once at the target’s location?

Anyway, my suggestion for anet would be to make Gust hit up to 3 targets in a cone in front of you. It doesn’t feel right that it only hits 1.

Dirame.8521:

BlackBeard.2873:

Compare this to engie nades/bombs or necro marks: they pop once and the entire effect (damage + conditions) are applied. Nerf those to be more like staff.

Whilst agree with everything else you’ve said, I find this statement hypocritical. What is Flame Burst if not an effect that is applied at once at the target’s location?

Anyway, my suggestion for anet would be to make Gust hit up to 3 targets in a cone in front of you. It doesn’t feel right that it only hits 1.

Well, technically speaking it has unlimited targets atm, they made it so it goes through all enemies. Did we ask for that? No, we asked that it landed on at least ONE enemy……

That skill is so slow, you just have to make one step aside to dodge it…

Rainshine: yeah i do love the concept of many focus too, but sadly their design often lack something, i don’t know, or maybe the generic shape often look like a big empty oyster. But i DO like specific shapes like chains/whip/skull/voodoo puppet/bottle/etc.

Well nevermind the aestethics, that doesnt prevent me from playing it.

auramancer group + powerful aura is ridiculous… people need to start using auras a lot more often and aura stack. cmon

Fortus.6175:

Dirame.8521:

BlackBeard.2873:

Compare this to engie nades/bombs or necro marks: they pop once and the entire effect (damage + conditions) are applied. Nerf those to be more like staff.

Whilst agree with everything else you’ve said, I find this statement hypocritical. What is Flame Burst if not an effect that is applied at once at the target’s location?

Anyway, my suggestion for anet would be to make Gust hit up to 3 targets in a cone in front of you. It doesn’t feel right that it only hits 1.

Well, technically speaking i has unlimited targets atm, they made it so it goes through all enemies. Did we ask for that? No, we asked that it landed on at least ONE enemy……

Yea and all the other classes asked for their AoEs to apply instantly.

Well basically agree with all of your points Black Beard.

The things i would like to see being buffed a little again are RTL and Mist Form.

Today I saw a Vid of a Warrior soloing Lupicus and that really made me cry, because despite the fact that this guy really did a formidable job in blocking dodging and so on.
(doing it in 5 min) that was really overpowered.
I dont want to solo Lupicus, but that Warrior dealt way over30k dmg in 5-10 seconds, which might be even possible but i would guess I do around 20-25k in really full zerker gear(armor trinkets, power runes, ruby..) with double dagger, maybe 20-25 is even exaggerated, cause that is the dmg i would do on a not boss mob.

But here is my point:
The Same Time this Warrior does these insane amounts of dmg, he has heavy armor and with the same gear at least around 7500 life more.

I usually play double dagger, so when im on full dmg, I expect the elementalist to be a glass cannon.
Well okay I admit I didnt play full glass cannon cause i did 30/0/0/10/30.
Could do 30/30/0/0/10 as well, but well evasive arcana is the most usefull (or at least one of the most useful) traits there is.
By then i would maybe match that warrior dmg, while having no defensive.

But basically as soon as u spec a little on surviveability, you loose imense amounts of dmg, being light armor and the class with the lowest life by then u are probably still glass, but rather a GLASS WATERPISTOL than a GLASS CANNON.

In a group:
Well so your DMG-Output doesnt match other classes as well as your survivability doesnt….
So how about you go Support or even Heal (I know Anet wanted to get rid of the holy trinity)

Support … well boons and auras got nerfed, but there you might be still helpful

Heal … hrmm…. so yeah your Water Skills dont heal that much anymore, so I thought maybe give it a try and I calculated it with Maximum Healing power.
Compared to my really zerker gear, with full Healing Power Gear:
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: 5000 → 6000
Fountain: 3000 → 5000
Rain: 3100→6000
Well i think that is a stat problem of HP than that of the Elementalist,
if MF was still on gear id consider HP even more useless than MF in a dungeon.

Sorry if I sound a little offensive , but i loved GW1 and can only cry when i see things that were done right in GW1 and have proven over the years are thrown away and replaced by worse systems.

That being said another thing I would pledge for would be different Skill Versions in PVE and PVP/WVW (as done in GW1)
Cause like that you can nerf skills that are overpowered in PvP without taking them away from PVEers, where they are needed.

And all of the above combined doesn’t work? Why support OR heal OR deal damage? We can do all at the same time, and we should do so to become at least somewhat useful.

I get what you’re all saying but…why do you always focus on one or the other? Healing or damage? Support heals or support boons? Because we CAN combine them all at the same time.

Yes, we can do all of that, and the decent ones do so, however it’s a simple fact that we’re simply spread too thin for it to work very well. By default, we’ve got mediocre direct damage, conditions, healing, and control. If we spec for glass cannon or bunkery, we get those stats, but we remain mediocre at everything else, to the point where it’s more beneficial to just wait for the cooldowns in our chosen specialty to refresh. The point is that without speccing in a certain focus, we remain well below average in those categories, and since we can really only focus on one or two stats at a time, it means that we’ll get decent in that category, and still mediocre at the others, while the other classes will be great in their focused path, but still be decent at other stuff if they want to try it.

How about the ability to increase/decrease the staff AoE (let’s say with mouse wheel) so you can dilute the efficiency (but better for field control) or concentrate it in a smaller area (harder to place, but more deadly). Just imagine meteor shower raining in a smaller area (let’s say upon you), that would actually make each and every metor not a waste and give offense and defense against melee at the same time, or frozen ground would increase chill/aura duration or intensity.

Please, people, for everyone still calling for attunement dance stuff, be advised that ANet nerfed that out of existence soon after game launch. They decided they do not want buffs lingering. We are still waiting for the replacement option, though, which was promised.

As far as comparable skill that are better on other (more survivable) classes, ANet stated that it was difficult decision. They chose not to give abilities deemed crucial in the meta-game analysis to classes that could not live long enough to use them. Funny, and true.