I’ve played Ele for a while now, mainly in PvE with some experience in sPvP. I’d place myself as average, at best, and I acknowledge that there are many, many better players out there than me. That said, I’ve had plenty of random thought on things that could use improving on the elementalist (specifically staff). Some wouldn’t change much, some would change a lot and if taken alltogether, would be extremely overpowered. That said, I’m in the mood for writing them down, so here goes.
(note: after writing down my thoughts, I realise that there is so much that I’m not experienced with, particularly air/water specs. So, I suppose most of my suggestions revolve around some QoL improvements for a fire/earth spec).
Earth
Eruption needs improving. Hell, it’s the reason I made this thread. The problem with eruption is that it’s almost impossible to hit on anyone with half a brain, or unless you have teammates laying down the CC on enemies standing near the eruption. Some things I’d like to see (again, to be taken as individual improvements, not alltogether):
1) Stealthed eruption, either the whole spell or just the cast time. It would still be problematic to land on a moving target, but at least people wouldn’t be jumping out of the way as soon as it went down.
2) Combine eruption and unsteady ground. This way we can at least get a cripple off, even if they move out of the way shortly after.
3) Give eruption a one second root after the cast time is finished.
Shockwave also needs looking at (which actually ties in with eruption).
1) Dramatically increase shockwave’s travel time. It is ridiculously easy to dodge at this point.
2) Allow shockwave to travel up walls/over gaps.
3) Remove the cast time for shockwave.
Also, since one of my suggestions was to combine two skills, I might as well suggest a new one (’cause why not?)
*Molten Rock: Conjure a rock that homes in on the target player at x% movement speed (slow enough that an enemy can kite it). The rock will burst when it hits an enemy, inflicting burning, bleeding and a short (thinking 0.1-0.2 second) aoe stun.
The purpose of the ability would be to force enemies to move/interrupt revivals, and adding some extra damage in PvE (though I’m unsure if that’s necessary).
Air
The main problem I have with air is that I switch to it, use it’s abilities and I’m done. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. A small CD reduction on lightning surge might help. It’s entirely possible that I’m just doin’ it wrong, but I feel like if I switch to air after my other attunements, I just have deadtime until they come back up.
Water
I’m actually pretty content with water. The only thing I’d change is making the auto attack a bit more obvious.
Fire
Wouldn’t change much here either, fire isn’t terribly lacking.
Traits
*I’d like to see the attunement recharge rate reduction on Arcane moved to the elemental attunements. That is to say, putting points into fire would reduce the recharge rate on fire, etc. This way if we want to spec heavily into two traits, we don’t feel as punished by long attunement cooldowns. Then again, that might be overpowered, I couldn’t really say.
*AoE staff spells could use a radius increase that doesn’t require 20 points invested into arcane, be it an across the board buff, or just a re-arrangment of traits.
Anyway, those are just some of the thoughts I’ve had pertaining to elementalists. I think there were more, but I tend not to keep track of them. Keep in mind that my intent is not to make elementalists overpowered (like I have the authority, heh), simply to improve their playability against other classes.