Hello Everyone.
I have been playing the Elementalist more since my last pickup of it in beta.
Its been an uphill,downhill,sidehill,loophill(? 0_o) journey to getting the class to a place I was comfortable in.
It was a little more of a challenge getting into combo’s and builds I was uncomfortable in, but all in all its been a wonderful experience that has been challenging and rewarding ( to some degree) than the other class’s I have played.
A bit of an introduction to my gaming history
{ Obligatory gaming history with made up numbers of years and mmo’s and beta’s played..cause its obligatory}.
The Elementalist has some pro’s, that are off-set by other con’s and rightfully so, but I feel our con’s are starting to catch up and overlap the pro’s.
To start off I’ll list some of the good things off the top of my head that ele’s bring to the table.
Pro’s:
-and Abundance of Combo fields
-AoE
-Boons and Aura’s
-Combat Readiness ( meaning we can adapt to basically every situation that calls for something a little easier than most classes)
-DPS
-Cool effects ( cause everyone likes to look cool
)
Those are some of the general pro’s ( its not specific because I am going to focus on the Con’s more seeing as how I need space and thats the whole point of this thread)
Like most classes in this game the elementalist has some con’s, namely in utility, build variation, and trait choice, that confuse and dissuade people from the class.
Starting with
Traits.
-For a class that needs to swap different attunments to stay on par with others, its wierd to have traits that focus on you staying in one for a set period of time. Would it not be better to remove those traits, and instead focus traits on the swapping in and out of the attunment rather than staying in it?
- Some traits are useless, because the utilities they are tied to are not as powerful or useful than another( This is going to tie into mainly conjured weapons)
- No fall damage reduction trait….why -_- ( It makes me sad when I fall off a rock or cliff during a jumping puzzle and die, but my theif guildie falls..lands with 1 hp and laughs at my dead corps and puts his cold clamy theif hands on my face to rez me
)
Utilities..
-Conjured Weapons has been a topic for elementalist since the beta weekends.
In most situations, using a conjured weapon is actually counterproductive to using a glyph+ weapon skill, or an arcane spell+ weapon skill, etc.
Some cases’s ( AC exp comes to mind) using a conjured weapon ( frost bow mainly) is very useful and could make a dungeon run 2x easier.
The problem with the conjured weapons right now is that they are not as useful in the larger picture.
Sure in that one dungeon people will want a frost bow, but what about the other parts of the game?
Their is a reason not many people use conjured weapons.
- They have a long cooldown.
-They are not on demand because of the summoning delay.
- The cooldown’s for the skills are long.
-Sidenote-
Something more about utilites.
A lot of utilites for the Elementalist are on a longer cooldown vs that of the other cloth wearing proffessions or even the heavy armor proffessions.
I would agree with the duration:cooldown timer for those abilities if our risk vs reward was also on par with the other proffessions.
An example of this disparity would be the Utilities of a mesmer vs that of an elementalist.
Suggestions.
-Complete Review of traits.
I know this is something that would take time. But its something that needs to happen.
The class has a lot of useless traits that either dont belong or make something that isnt worth having slightly better at the cost of something worth having that makes what ever power or utility still a better choice .
-Review of Conjured Weapons and Other utilites
This may be something that can feasibly happen.
Their is already a thread for the conjured weapons, so i will not rehash the suggestions but instead link them
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Conjures-Revelations-and-Suggestions
For other utilities I would actually compare their use and cooldown to other utilities from other proffessions. This way you get a larger perspective of their range of usefulness.
( I understand class’s should be different, but to have such a large gap in utility superiorty is unacceptable)
- Out of Combat Weapon Swap
This is something that can happen. The reason I say this is because as of recently I have been running into a bug on both my mesmer and theif that prevents me from switching weapons in combat. This may be coding blessing in disguise.
The elementalist, with some small changes and improvements to weapons, traits, and utilities can become like it was in beta, a rewarding, hard to master class.
(edited by Solori.6025)