The problem is very simple: Elementalist is an all or nothing class.
We start out with some of the lowest armor and health in the game. We also lack mobility and escape mechanics like a Thief or Mesmer. This is because we’re reliant on Boons and very small heals (stacked on top of each other are a lot of sustain) to sustain through damage. The same thing that gives us access to Boons also becomes a capable platform for boosting our damage through Might and Fury as well.
If they dismantle the Boons (like they tried with Elemental Attunement) then basically you’re left with a low/medium damage class with not enough survivability to be viable. At most they can really do here is keep shorter duration, longer cool down style effects where for X seconds you’re really strong then Y seconds you’re really weak.
They’ve attempted to dismantle the healing over the years (since the start of the game), but in the end how far can you really nerf a few heals that only heal for 1000 when HP pools are 10-20k. The net result is the same, the boons aren’t enough to survive and elementalist goes down again.
The most logical route of action is to work on ways that allow classes to counter the Elementalist. Necromancers are a great example often brought up for boon strip, but unfortunately that’s about all they’re good for and against most other match ups they entirely suffer. My prediction is it’s going to be on the new Revenant Class to help out with the Elementalist situation. Malyx, in addition to being Condition focused, also is very boon strip heavy with passive traits that strip boons as well as fairly spammable active (35 energy, or every 7s) boon strip as well. The class still (so far) has the werewithal to do fairly good against other classes as well so should be interesting to see.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
