Guild Wars 2

This thread’s purpose is to examine the multiple utilities of the Elementalist and find ones with problems. Once the problems are clearly laid out, we can begin to propose suggestions which would tackle these problems.

This thread will be referenced on ELEtism Balance discussion thread. The conclusions derived from the following posts will be added to this post and will be summarized in the main main Elementalist thread in the class balance page.

Elementalists have 5 different kinds of Utilities:
1. Cantrips
2. Arcane
3. Glyphs
4. Signet
5. Conjure

Out of those 5 utilities, Cantrips and Arcane are the only ones that see use in PvP.
Conjures are slowly starting to see use, namely Frost Bow.

1. Cantrips
Cantrips are effective in keeping the Elementalist alive. They are almost necessary because they cover the Elementalist’s vulnerabilities. Even though Cantrips are helpful, they are on a HUGE cooldown; other classes have skills which do all of what Cantrips do but better on a SHORTER cooldown.
Glyphs and Signets don’t have very much utility at all. These two need major revamping,;
none of these are worth giving up a Cantrip for because for every Cantrip that an Elementalist does not take, they make themselves a LOT squishier.

The lack of effective utilities force Elementalists to fall back on the Cantrips which are a sure thing and are effective. The Cantrips also synergize well with all builds.
In order to push us out of these traits/utilities, they have been nerfed terribly but since Elementalists have no other useful traits/utilities to fall back on so they need to stick to playing with the nerfed stuff.

2. Arcane
Arcane is great, not much to say here. They are made for bonus damage meant for critical hits. I like how they are instant-cast and not incredibly effective.

3. Glyph
Glyphs seem like a random set of skills thrown together at the last minute. They have no defined purpose and are incredibly ineffective. Since they have no defined purpose, they also lack traits which effectively improve them.

4. Signet
Signets are incredibly underwhelming. The actives for all of the signets are quite uneffective, they provide single target conditions and the cast times feel long in comparison to the result. They have some nice traits, but even fully traited they are not very effective in a fight. It feels like the traits don’t have much of a point.

More on this later

5. Conjure

Conjures are incredibly situational; the only one that I’ve seen been used effectively is Frost Bow. I feel like the other conjures will begin to see themselves fall into play eventually once players understand which conjure fits which situation. They will also probably see more play once other issues with the Elementalist are resolved.
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Reserved.

I think glyphs were meant as a jack of all trades choice, allowing you to use them for different results depending on the situation. I agree though that they make little sense as a category and feel terribly lackluster as a basis for a build. Maybe we can push it more towards the direction of the situational utility:

What I mean by the jack of all trades thing, take glyph of elemental power. When activated in air, you can keep weakness up on your opponent, which is obviously effective at dealing with power builds. Activated in earth, it’s a good tool for kiting melee opponents, whereas in water it’s especially effective against elementalist. Finally in fire, it can help burn down a tanky opponent.

GoEH has the same kind of mechanic. Activate in different attunements for different effects depending on the situation.

Same with the resurrection glyph and the elite glyph. The problem is really that the non-elite elemental summon is borderline useless. It doesn’t provide significantly different elementals because they lack the defining characteristics that come with the elite elemental.

So overall glyphs severely lack solid defense. Inscription is a nice trait, but we lack a spammable glyph to proc it often, or just a reliable glyph that provides us with the kind of defense cantrips do. They definitely have potential though.

Signets deserve some buffs, especially in cast times. I’d like to see them as very defined condi option, since written in stone is in the condi line.

I’m probably not going to add much more that what you’ve already said, but w/e.

I don’t think there’s even been a situation where I have not carried at least one cantrip. I feel they are flat out necessary. Their level of general usefulness outweighs almost everything else.

Arcane is good in burst build. You either have nice range or a blast finisher. Still kittened about Arcane Wave being ground cast, it just makes it take long to get off which is not something you want on a burst ele. I played d/d burst in WvW because I’m a kitten and I’m inside my fire field so I use to hit one key to get some damage and might stacks. The only benefit I see now is last hitting people just out of range.

Conjures? To be honest I’ve only tried Frostbow, Lightning Hammer, and Fiery Greatsword, mostly in PvE for the first two. Frostbow does see some use in pvp due to its #4 and #5 skill. Fiery Greatsword is useful for a certain exploit and doing a good impression of a “Nike Warrior”. Like you said situational and a waste of valuable space(excluding Fiery Greatsword) most of the time.

Signets? Signet of air for some travel speed and signet of earth for some immobilize but you give up too much for these underwhelming wastes of space.

Going into elite skills, they feel so kittening useless compared to every other class. I mean the gap feels massive. I mean with thief you have projectile reflection and a great stun, mesmer has a moa that great for controlling and nuking a high value target, warrior has a signet that provides a multitude of boons. Even rangers have a long duration root and an elite that gives stability + I forget what else.

Ele has a kittenty tornado, runaway flame sword, and if I wanted usless pets I’d still be playing my ranger.

I was thinking of turning Glyphs into more of an AoE Support kind of playstyle. It would still fit in with the “Jack of All Trades” type of playstyle which they are pushing but it needs to be a lot more defined.
Furthermore Glyphs definitely need a LOT more traits which effect it.

I feel that signets could be kinda effective as utilities if only fire’s embrace (fire aura on signet use) would be moved down to adept tier. It would open up a lot of aura builds using signets as utilities.

I agree that our elite skills are attrociously bad. A pet, a transform and another weapon that reduces our skills from 20 to 5? Yuck.

Mash Hog.5672:

I was thinking of turning Glyphs into more of an AoE Support kind of playstyle. It would still fit in with the “Jack of All Trades” type of playstyle which they are pushing but it needs to be a lot more defined.
Furthermore Glyphs definitely need a LOT more traits which effect it.

+ a billion on the needs more defining.

I still think all four utility signets should be combined into one that has different effects based on your attunement, because they all have very similar effects (i.e. single target/small AoE condition on active, small passive element-related boost on passive).
Then the versatility would make up for the fact that they suck, and they could give us other signets. Think “Signet of Attunement: Passive: reduce attunement cooldowns by 10%. Active: Recharge all of your attunements, 30s cooldown”.

Gokil.2543:

Signets deserve some buffs, especially in cast times. I’d like to see them as very defined condi option, since written in stone is in the condi line.

I like this idea.

Ele is the ONLY class without a viable condition build. Conditions really aren’t my style of play but still.

I am still baffled about the fact that we don’t have a glyph that gives an aura depending on attunement. Seeing as auras are supposed to be our active defense.

GoEP just screams “I want a redesign to be a useful stunbreaker!”. Simply make it give an aura depending on attunement.

I think that all of the Glyphs need to be redesigned.
They also need more traits.

Traits:
When under effects of a Glyph, activate “x” aura based on your attunement when hit.

A while ago before the recent patch, when they had that trait that gave regeneration upon the activation of Signet of Water( or was it waves?), Mist Form, and Frost Bow, that trait was the only thing that made Signet of Water even remotely usable because you could pair it with the removal of a condition upon gaining regeneration. After a while, I decided to just replace it with another cantrip, since you can gear them to give regeneration as well. But the removal of one cantrip every 10 seconds was a nice little addition to the freeze and regeneration, although it should be better.

But when they had that trait to give regeneration upon the activation of Mist Form AS WELL as the regeneration upon using a cantrip, I was able to cure 2 conditions for using one skill. I had a lot of fun with that.

And now Frost bow gives no regeneration, which is less of an incentive to bring it.

not all of the signets are bad. signet of air is amazing

glyph of storms is amazing in pve
still weak in pvp, yeah

and I use lava axe in spirit watch. see if you can guess why

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvX-Ele-Utility-skills-are-a-letdown/first#post3478859

Mash Hog.5672:

Glyphs seem like a random set of skills thrown together at the last minute. They have no defined purpose and are incredibly ineffective. Since they have no defined purpose, they also lack traits which effectively improve them.

The thing about glyphs is that they change according to your attunement. This is not a thoughtless thing, but instead a very clever one. It allows the player to pick their strategy at the moment of activating the glyph. They could go for raw damage (fire elementals, burning on hits, fire storm), defense (earth/water elementals, weakness, sandstorm) or snares (water elementals, cripple or chill, ice storm) or whatever combination they can come up with. They heal can be either a speed boost, a power boost, a defense boost or an extra heal based on what the player wants at that time. The ‘boon on glyph’ trait further emphasizes this effect and basically turns GoEP in a ‘get the boon and conditions from a single element’ .

Basically, glyphs are what you want, when you want it. That’s their ‘thing’. You could go full out damage against a warrior and a minute later full snares against the next. Without changing anything about your build whatsoever.

Gokil.2543:

Same with the resurrection glyph and the elite glyph. The problem is really that the non-elite elemental summon is borderline useless. It doesn’t provide significantly different elementals because they lack the defining characteristics that come with the elite elemental.

That’s actually just the tooltip. Granted, the elite versions are slightly stronger than the regular ones. But for the most part, the small ones get the exact same abilities. Lesser fire elementals still grant might and cause cripple. Lesser ice elementals still cause chill. Lesser air elementals still buff swiftness. And lesser earth elementals still cause weakness and protection. The big difference is usually just one of the 2 or 3 abilities they get.

Mash Hog.5672:

I think that all of the Glyphs need to be redesigned.
They also need more traits.

They need some tweaks, but overall they have their uses in the right hands. The aura idea you posted is interesting, but I’d rather see GoEP remain the way it is without the stunbreaker, and have the aura and stun moved to glyph of renewal instead. Cripple/chill/weakness on meteor shower (and any other spell) is just too valuable to give up.

ThiBash.5634:

Gokil.2543:

Same with the resurrection glyph and the elite glyph. The problem is really that the non-elite elemental summon is borderline useless. It doesn’t provide significantly different elementals because they lack the defining characteristics that come with the elite elemental.

That’s actually just the tooltip. Granted, the elite versions are slightly stronger than the regular ones. But for the most part, the small ones get the exact same abilities. Lesser fire elementals still grant might and cause cripple. Lesser ice elementals still cause chill. Lesser air elementals still buff swiftness. And lesser earth elementals still cause weakness and protection. The big difference is usually just one of the 2 or 3 abilities they get.

I disagree. The lesser elementals don’t even come close in usefulness. The skills the elite elementals have are the only reason they are worth summoning. 7k splash heal? Solid duration ranged stun? Water and air elementals especially are very underwhelming as a non-elite summon. Fire elite elemental does reliable dps due to having a good ranged attack, and earth elite elemental grants protection and aoe cripple.

Btw lesser earth elemental doesnt grant protection.

On the topic of what glyphs are meant to be, I agree they are the jack-of-all-trades, use changes depends on situation kind of skill (that’s what I said in my post as well). But besides GoEH and GoEP they lack a clearly defined purpose. If they could somehow get some stronger and more obvious benefits, they would perhaps become worth using on a 1v1 build that can adapt to whatever opponent is sent to fight you.

Gokil.2543:

I disagree. The lesser elementals don’t even come close in usefulness. The skills the elite elementals have are the only reason they are worth summoning. 7k splash heal? Solid duration ranged stun? Water and air elementals especially are very underwhelming as a non-elite summon. Fire elite elemental does reliable dps due to having a good ranged attack, and earth elite elemental grants protection and aoe cripple.

Yet you still get an ice combo field from the lesser water elemental, which can be very valuable for aura blast builds. The lesser air elemental adds decent (not stellar, I’ll grant you that) dps but has an easier time hitting moving targets than the other elementals. And the fire version has good dps, with some minor might boosts. It’s only lacking that ranged attack compared to the elite, but it’s still more than adequate for PvE.

Btw lesser earth elemental doesnt grant protection.

Ok, my mistake. Just weakness then, which I’ll admit isn’t stellar (though when combined with GoEP could ensure perma weakness).

The main theme with glyphs, apart from the attunement changing, is that you can spam a lot of conditions and boons. You can pick which set of boons/conditions you’ll be spamming, but the downside is that you have less control over when they’re actually applied (as opposed to Arcane skills).

With the elemental glyphs, I would appreciate at least if we were able to re-activate them to use theirs spells. With the elite one (and the lesser), as ThiBash said, we’ve got an ice combo field. that’s great, yes, but we can’t choose to use it, and it’s quite disturbing. Being able to use our elemental’s spell like ranger’s spirit would be awesome, and far from being op.
It would make elementals more attractive.

The elementals should have active abilities that we can use while they are out, like necromancer minions.

The lesser water elemental ice field might be nice, but it doesn’t do anything if it comes out at the wrong time in the wrong location.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

The elementals should have active abilities that we can use while they are out, like necromancer minions.

The lesser water elemental ice field might be nice, but it doesn’t do anything if it comes out at the wrong time in the wrong location.

Had a discussion about it a while back. If they worked a bit like ranger spirits, they would become so much more useful.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elemental-trait-idea/first#post3469187

I liked the Elementals in PvE. But I really only used them for leveling as a source of mitigating damage by keeping the AI occupied.

Tom.8029:

I liked the Elementals in PvE. But I really only used them for leveling as a source of mitigating damage by keeping the AI occupied.

They can be so much more than that.

ThiBash.5634:

Tom.8029:

I liked the Elementals in PvE. But I really only used them for leveling as a source of mitigating damage by keeping the AI occupied.

They can be so much more than that.

I like the earth elite ele, makes a great meatshield against projectiles.
There should really be a trait to make the elementals endless.

Sandstorm is awesome too. I even have glyph cd reduction just for this!

The earth elemental (from the elite glyph) is amazing for acting as a tank when you’re rezzing a dead or downed party member.

The fact that I’ve watched the earth elemental tank the lupicus head on while I rezzed two party members (one by myself and the other with the recently rezzed player) has made me a little biased towards it. Also, the earth ele stood up pretty well against mai trinn and horrik in fractals while rezzing dead players.

As for the fire elemental, in my opinion, it could be better if it didn’t have such low health and attacked at range instead of melee. The air elemental I find really bad and could be better if it had swirling winds. As for the water(ice) elemental, I think it could be better if it didn’t die so quickly compared to the earth elemental.

We really need the option to time the elementals abilities. The random stun from Air Elemental is really bad. It it could be timed it would be actually useful.

Thanks for posting this thread, and thanks everyone for the feedback! It reassures me that I’m not the only one in this boat. Haha