I have logged over 600 hours on this class, mostly in Dungeons, WvW, and general PvE. Currently I am unhappy with my chosen profession, so much so that I have all but stopped playing it. My goal here is to point out what I feel to be the professions largest failings, why I feel these are major issues, and present some suggestions for solutions to these issues. My hope is that this sparks some re-evaluation and major changes to the class. I apologize for the length of this in advance, it is quite a read and was even longer before I found out there was a 5000 character limit on these forums. These are complex issues however, and I feel feedback on them requires a lot of elaboration.
Evasive Arcana
Before I move on to the larger scale issues, I want to get this bugbear out of the way. We need some communication about this change. Let’s be honest, this was not a bug fix, it was a nerf. If the blast finishers were intended or not is immaterial, it was a major part of a number of builds, and the foundation of PvE Staff Ele support. The impact on these builds had to have been considered before this change was made. I refuse to believe that this bug was simply fixed without thought towards the repercussions. The fact that it was advertised as a simple “bug fix”, without justification or acknowledgment of the implications is nothing short of a PR gaffe. In sPvP I can understand the change somewhat, bunker builds on this class are quite strong. That said, I feel that bunker builds themselves are a result of questionable mechanics in the format, but that is a discussion for another day. What is not as clear is why this change was extended to PvE and WvW as well. Players were not exactly frothing at the mouth to get us into dungeon groups, and the trait had very little to do with our effectiveness in WvW. At this point we can’t even be sure that the complete removal of blast finishers was intended. The trait was blasting before the cooldown was up, and the note about this change doesn’t make it clear what exactly is being addressed. Without the blast finisher the trait is hardly worth a grandmaster trait investment. Water is the only attunement where it is useful now, with the other attunements having little to no impact on a fight. Putting the blast finishers back but on a 10 second cooldown is a reasonable compromise in my opinion.
Damage
I have seen this discussion go back and forth in all directions since beta. Eles deal too much damage, too little damage, just enough damage. What I rarely see discussed in depth however is exactly how much damage we should do, why, what currently limits our damage, and if those limits are fair, practical, or needed.
The very first thing we need to determine is what archetype the class is supposed to be. According to the official website:
“Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”
What we need to have clarified from the developers here, is if the emphasis is on versatility, or damage. You cannot have both, it simply will not work, combining high damage with high versatility will result in a completely overpowered class. Anet is already be aware of this, there are several cases of this very combination turning up in the original Guild Wars, and they dominated the meta until they were eventually nerfed. It would seem to me that this time around they gave us a few high damage skills on our class, such as Dragon’s Tooth or Churning Earth, but they built a bunch of limitations into the skills and class to ensure that the damage was never too high. What are these limits?
1) Limitations on the skills themselves. The few high damage skills we do have require the opponent to stand still or be in melee range, and are often accompanied by a long cooldowns and cast times.
2) Splitting up of damage. On almost every weapon there are 1-2 attunements that are completely worthless for dealing meaningful damage.
3) Low health and armor. This forces us to spend at least some stats and traits on defense if we are going to be of any use in a difficult fight.
4) Weak damage traits. If you compare our damage traits to those of almost any other class, our damage traits are either not as effective, or are situational.
(Continued on next post)