What do you think about the elementalist’s elementals? Although I like the concept of having an elemental companion on the battlefield, I’m not sure how viable they really are. I don’t notice a big difference during a fight whether I have an active elemental or not. I wouldn’t say they’re weak in general. Their abilities are okay, maybe the numbers need some adjustment here and there. On the downside we can’t time their skills.
So to compensate this, what about a skill – varying with the type of elemental – which replaces the glyph as long as the elemental is active? It would be in line with the ranger’s spirits, the necromancer’s minions or the guardian’s spirit weapons. The functionality of these skills is open for discussion. Balancing would be crucial though. Especially because they’re actually 4 skills in 1.
With this in mind, new traits could directly affect elementals and their skills. For example the trait “Comfort of the Elements” gives you a boon when using an elemental’s skill. Something like that.
Maybe it would make the elementals too strong but in this form they seem more usable to me. What do you think?
I think it would be great to add a second functionality to the button with the summon spell on it, somewhat like necro or engi have on summons/turrets, which would activate some ability typical for the type of elemental summoned (fire-might stacks, water-cleansing wave, earth-protection/stability….). That would be really nice and maybe the lesser summon would make it into an utility slot again for some players
It depends on what you expect them to do, because they all have different functions and purposes. For one thing, I do notice a strong increase in damage if I summon both Fire Elementals (they allow me to quickly burst down the gate controller in CoF for example) as they have good dps on stationary targets and both share might as well. On the other hand, if my party needs a tank, the greater Earth Elemental is excellent in both attracting aggro and surviving attacks. The ice elementals allow for great chill uptime. Finally, the air elementals are a bit odd in the sense that they have ranged attacks, but the greater air elemental does have a fairly spammable ranged stun and they’re pretty good at hitting moving targets.
But you gotta pick the right elemental for the job. Insofar dps go, they’re decent but their main purpose is utility.
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I often like to play around with possible new ele traits, changes etc… and an idea of mine was to have a trait in the arcane line where elementals would have extra health and spawn a field on death, for example:
- Empowered Elementals: (New) Increases the health and armor of all your elementals and creates a field on death or expirement. Lava Font/Ring of Rire, (Static field? would be OP though, but i don’t know anything else), Ice Field, Muddy Field(?)
Also on a side note, I would personally combine all those weapon traits (dagger, scepter and staff) in arcane into 1 trait, opening slots for new traits. Because imo, they are just filler traits when they are apart like it is atm.
Zyter: ooh, nice idea, would mean punishment if folks burst down your summon so there was actually some kind of a decision there.
For what they’d do: Fire is damage/burning, Air is damage/weakness, Water is heal/chill, Earth is bleed/cripple? To be balanced appropriately, maybe vuln on air or water - gw1 Cracked Armour came from the Air and Water skills for ele.
EDIT: ohh or a smoke field on earth elementals (burst into dust or something iunno) - not even slightly frequent or reliable access to stealth, but a definite reason to watch out when killing the things.
The weapon traits could do with being combined, since the only issue I can think of (besides needing to give us new traits to fill the gaps) is that S/D builds would get both endurance regen and 10% movement speed - but as Rangers can already buff a combination of Torch, Axe, Dagger and Warhorn with one trait (Off-Hand Training, Wilderness Survival VII) and we don’t get to reduce weapon skill recharges without a bunch of MM traits, a case can probably be made.
The elemental doesn’t scale at all. It is super overpowered while leveling up and super useless in the endgame with max gear. Its entire lifespan in the endgame is worth only one or two berserker hits from your character even if it gets to stand and attack the whole time. In PvE it can tank, and it does sometimes get to use a utility power or two, but in WvW it’s barely worth the cast time; very likely it will spend all its time walking around slowly, get a 500 damage attack or two off, and die.
It’s true the elemental can do significant damage compared to you if you’re tanky built. Its entire lifespan is still worth only one or two of your attacks if you’re largely berserker, and it’s only to one target. I’m almost full celestial, and a single arcane wave against 5 men will eeeeasily outdamage that elemental’s efforts for its entire duration.
I will have to chime in the Earth Elemental makes a great tank.
I regularly solo WvW camps letting them wail on the Earth Elemental while I use a staff or scepter to hit them all.
In PvE it can normally stand against a champion long enough to take the pressure off you or someone else.
The Ice golem has a useful heal, and is still hard to kill.
I have yet to find a good use for them in PvP yet. Does anyone have any good ideas?
If you already have a tank there is probably little need for them as there are better skills for DPS, but if you are looking for something to hide behind, I recommend elementals.
It’s true the elemental can do significant damage compared to you if you’re tanky built. Its entire lifespan is still worth only one or two of your attacks if you’re largely berserker, and it’s only to one target. I’m almost full celestial, and a single arcane wave against 5 men will eeeeasily outdamage that elemental’s efforts for its entire duration.
As it should be, or they would become staples for dps builds. It’s their utility skills that makes them useful.
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
the fire elemental, the one that does the most damage, can almost but can’t quite kill a heavy golem on its own during its full duration. unless it gets your AoE might/fury. either way, it’s kinda sad
ice elemental can lay down a 5 sec chill field (2-3 times) and heal (twice) for 6570. can also knock back if your opponent doesn’t move for whatever reason. also the chill is affected by your condition duration, so it’s pretty decent
golems are fought with pvp gear. Waaaaaaaay weaker than ascended gear plus foods plus wvw stacks and weapons bloodlust stacks and maybe even borderland bloodlust buff. Going to WvW, you get twice as powerful; the elemental does not.
