Elementalist and the Philosophy of Niche.

Elementalist and the Philosophy of Niche.

in Elementalist

Posted by: Treetoptrickster.4205

Treetoptrickster.4205

Please point out the shortcomings of my point here, but I’ve held a little observation about the design of the Elementalist as a class for a while now that causes some major problems when it comes to areas like building, weapons, and elite specs.

Below I’m listing the core philosophies of what Attunements are supposed to provide.

Fire = Heavy damage options, damage over time from burning.
Water = Supportive, and healing a abilities.
Earth = Damage over time, defensive abilities, and some CC.
Air = Single target damage, mobility, and CC

The Elementalist is designed around its class mechanic quite heavily. I’d be willing to make a point of saying that out of every class, they’re the most focused on their class mechanic. Unfortunately within my theory of the Elementalist they’re mechanic also hurts them in the ways I mentioned above.

TLDR: Attunements each embodying and providing the ele with one of the core combat philosophies of Damage, Support, CC, and Defense causes numerous issues.

SKILL DESIGN
- An attunement’s skills don’t explore the potential capabilities of that element (eg why can’t water drown you for major damage or fire heal you through some sort of Phoenix renewal?) without moving into the design philosophy of another element. The Elementalist has to attack with Fire/Water/Air/Earth/Arcane, and the properties what those can do seem decided, thus restricting what the Elementalist can do. The contrast would be a class like the Mesmer, where what exactly they do is fairly abstract, which allows for any number of effects to be able to fit comfortably in its thematic boundaries. As long as it’s tricky, it’s basically a go. Their domain is the mind. How much more abstract can you get?

WEAPON NICHES
- Since all ele weapons deliver on all of these philosophies in some way, weapon selection becomes less meaningful when building towards a certain niche. I.E. Unlike other classes, weapons don’t deliver on these niches, your attunements do. This means your weapons all have redundant capabilities, and are kind of forced to try to deliver uniqueness in other ways or by the methods in which they deliver damage/support/CC/defense. No weapon can be designed specifically around one of these ideals, and every weapon has to deliver on all of them. This constricts design space.

Elementalist and the Philosophy of Niche.

in Elementalist

Posted by: Treetoptrickster.4205

Treetoptrickster.4205

THEMATIC OVERLAP
- You end up with almost necessary thematic overlap, like how skills like Heat Sync and Swirling Winds trespass on Water’s domain of support. So when design betrays my first concern and, say, strays from Water’s dedication to healing, Regen, Vuln, and chill, they devalue another element. Then again of they stay within those criteria you get a dull selection of water skills and a restricted design space. There’s no winning.

ISOLATED TRAITLINES
- Since trait lines are largely tied to specific attunements and their strengths, you can run into situations like trying to build for support, and realizing that other trait lines are very limited in what they can offer to help you. Other professions’ specializations also lend themselves to a certain play style, and I’m not saying that there should be healing options in a line like Domination, but I find that Ele’s specs hold so tightly to their respective focuses that synergy is difficult. The synergies that are there, like the auto cleanse in fire, unfortunately run into thematic overlap. In this case with water’s cleansing and earth’s defensive nature.

UNFRIENDLY TO ADDITION
- Elite specs usually embody one of these core roles (DPS/SUPP/CONTROL/TANK) in some way, and try to give a class access to a niche they can’t currently fill. The Elementalist is so multifaceted it seems that any new spec will find their core role already filled in some manor. Not only that, but they will encounter the difficulties of designing a unique feeling weapon, utility, and trait line amongst the already decided parameters of what a certain element’s skills are expected to do. Whatever trait line that comes out will have to betray its core thematic (like tempest as a support) to cater to the fact that you can’t actually go full support, offense, etc. If you did it would render the elite spec useless in its ability to relate to your core mechanic. Plus you either run into more thematic overlap with every trait leaning in some way to the already existing strengths of an element and it’s spec, if not literally being related to it like Gale Song could have been an air trait. If you don’t include that though then it seems like a random mesh of passives, however synergetic, yet thematically independent they may be with existing traits/elements.

So you see the kind of identity crisis that the Elementalist’s restrictive thematics and mechanics create. You either stick within the core design philosophies of an Attunement and end up with similar weapons and ill-matching specs, also allowing very little new material to be added that can fit thematically, be unique, and work with the base class… Or you betray the core design of the class and end up with something that feels sloppy and out of place. So what can we do about it?

Elementalist and the Philosophy of Niche.

in Elementalist

Posted by: FrownyClown.8402

FrownyClown.8402

Those concepts are dated since gw2 beta when you could cast meteor while moving lol. 2 years after the game came out Anet went and decided ele was going to be a “jack-of-all trades” class meaning they can do a bit of everything, but not be the best at any of them. Its held true for some concepts but even that is a bit outdated since heart of thorns came out.


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