Guild Wars 2

I’ve been mulling this over for some time, trying to figure out why ANet has such a tough time balancing the Elementalist, and I think I have the answer, along with the solution.

The problem lies in the attunement design, and how it affects the power of the Ele’s skills. With 20 skills per weapon set, by design all the skills will be less powerful than other professions, either in output, length of cooldown, or both. This means that the player has to work twice as hard to get the same effect (i.e. two skill activations for every other professions’ single skill), and requires the player to play the profession to the hilt to receive just the baseline, casual result of other professions.

In addition, the Ele’s survival mechanics have always centered around a plethora of boons, and healing sustainability, which all keep getting nerfed, in addition to mobility nerfs due to ANet arbitrarily wanting Thieves to be the most mobile class.

So how to fix this? The solution is rather simple, and elegant IMHO. And it deals directly with attunements and weapon skills.

First, you remove the attunement cooldown completely, allowing Eles to switch attunements at will.

Second, and this is the more difficult part, completely alter the way skills work by attunement. In my “vision”, this is how attunements should function:

Fire – all skills AoE, Burning here and a mobility skill

Air – all skills single target, Blind and Vulnerability here, and a mobility skill (or two)

Water – the kiting/CC/healing attunement, NO skills deal any direct damage, skills apply Chilled in significant amounts along with some Knockdown (people slipping on the ice). Auto-attack only applies Chill, along with some healing effect to allies

Earth – NO skills deal any direct damage, instead focus on massive amounts of condition damage, Bleeding, Crippled, Immobilized, and Weakness would all be applied in varying amounts, along with control effects like Launch, Knockback and Daze

As an example, a Power Ele player would stay in Fire while nuking groups, switch to Water to kite when they advance, then to Air when only one or two targets remain. A Condi Ele would stay primarily in Earth, while dipping into Fire for Burning and Air for Vulnerability, similarly switching to Water for kiting and healing if their CCs in Earth are on cooldown.

Third, the weapon sets then determine what ranges the attunements operate at, and in the case of Focus, solely defensive skills. Dagger would be melee/brawling range, Scepter mid-range dueling, and Staff long range nuking.

What this would result in is Water and Earth skills becoming the core of the Ele’s defense (in lieu of a mechanic like Stealth, Clones or Death Shroud) rather than boons/healing which continually get nerfed anyway due to their interaction with things like the Celestial Amulet.

It would make the Ele less predictable and prone to “rotations”, damage output could more easily be manipulated by ANet to keep balance, and it would remove the problem of the Ele needing to be nerfed all the time because the D/D attunement dancer (necessary for damage) would no longer determine the damage output and survivability of the profession as a whole. So healing or boon nerfs and skill coefficient adjustments on account of D/D PvP builds would no longer eviscerate Staff and Scepter builds.

It just never made sense to me that the Ele would have 20 skills, but all of them basically being designed to accomplish what other professions with 10 skills could do. By separating skill purpose by attunement, the Ele then really does become the nuker as described, while relying on player skill to stay alive via the defensive attunements.

That would take away a lot of functional and beloved skills and builds.

It’s one of those things that could only have been an option when creating the class at the start. Now we’re at the point where it would only take things away and destroy the ele as we know it, and that’s not a way to make players happy.

D/D cycles through skills as fast as possible.

Scepter conjures a Hammer.

Staff camps Fire.

D/D is the reason Eles keep getting hit with the nerf bat, despite taking high APM and tactical awareness, the minority of players able to play Ele at competitive levels are the example whiners use to justify nerfs.

The changes as I described above would at worst, restructure the D/D playstyle into a less frenetic spam fest, and instead involve a more tactical method of play. Scepter and Staff would largely remain unchanged in terms of DPS output, and gain consistent and effective defense not reliant on traits, boons or healing. D/Ds could still rapidly cycle attunements if desired for a small bump in condition damage (assuming Zerk spec) and/or CC, but it would be less efficient than using skills intelligently, and would bring Scepter and Staff (and eventually Sword) all into line with each other.

Not NEEDING to blast through attunements would also make Eles easier to balance, since ANet wouldn’t have to nerf the class based on the highest levels of play, instead actually balancing it against the other professions capability.

Logically, the changes I describe would increase available build diversity rather than wreck them, and open the door for future builds and specializations that aren’t all a distant second place to D/D.

Kaleban.9834:

D/D cycles through skills as fast as possible.

Scepter conjures a Hammer.

Staff camps Fire.

Wut. I guess I’ve been playing this game wrong all this time.

In any case, I think the proposed changes are too drastic and vague to have the desired impact. These sorts of changes would need massive playtesting to ensure they even came close to their intended design. The way the elementalist is designed is that one generally needs to work all the attunements to achieve maximum efficiency, especially in a PvP environment (it can probably work in PvE just fine). If you don’t use all the tools available to you, you might not be accomplishing some things that you can (i.e. attunement camping isn’t that viable, generally speaking). I don’t think they ever want certain attunements to be purely defensive or offensive, possibly since it would reduce the amount of things they could do with each attunement.

I don’t agree with your derived conclusions. You say it would, at worst, restructure the D/D playstyle into less of a frenetic spam fest, but at the same time you propose removing the attunement cooldowns. To me, these appear to be at odds, as it would not prevent an elementalist from quickly swapping through their attunements extremely quickly and using whatever skills they want without having to worry about whether or not they would have access to those skills right away again.

You state that one could still rapidly cycle attunements if desired, although it would be less efficient than using skills intelligently. However, I don’t see how that is already the case. The difference between good elementalists and not good elementalists (or just players in general) are how intelligently they use their skills. In fact, it’s partially due to attunement cooldowns that that sort of intelligent playstyle is important with elementalists. So is the suggestion that the level of intelligence or skill required to play elementalist effectively should be lower? I’m a bit confused about what is being suggested. It seems like you want to more or less change the elementalist so they can just camp in one attunement for the majority of combat, depending on what they’re trying to accomplish.

The point of having attunement cooldowns is so that there are consequences for changing attunments. It’s similar to how classes have weapon swap cooldowns, or even just ability cooldowns in general. It also forms a method of counter play for other professions, since they can adapt to what attunement the elementalist is in (similar to how one can adapt to a weapon swap). You’d also have to deal with people rapidly swapping attunements to gain the on-swap effects of those attunements, although that’s more of a minor issue (i.e. lightning strike on air attunement, health regen lingering from water attunement, &c.).

Furthermore, I don’t see how claims that DPS output of weapon sets would remain largely unchanged either when there is no quantitative analysis to support that. These are quite drastic changes, so I feel claims of that nature would only be properly supported by the appropriate calculations.

I’m also not convinced by the claims that elementalist skills are inherently less powerful than other professions because they have so many more of them. I think what you might be trying to get at is that it’s more necessary to use the skills in conjunction with each other correctly to obtain the most optimal result. For instance, if you just throw out a dragon’s tooth, the enemy can just move out of the way. But if you combo it with something like updraft or gale, it can be much more effective, even more effective than what single profession skills can do (i.e. elementalist has some of the higher burst damage in the game). Also don’t think that other professions don’t need to combo their skills. For instance, a warrior can just use hundred blades and expect to win, they often need to set it up. While it may seem like this means it’s more work for the elementalist, it does also mean they’re more versatile in how they choose to use their skills.

Lastly, I don’t agree with your implication that it’s a good thing if ANet does not balance the profession based on the highest levels of gameplay. What you need to understand is that matters concerning profession balance have a much greater bearing on the highest levels of play than they do on the lower levels. These are players with high levels of execution who put in a lot of research and practice into making a build and playing their characters. They will generally stick to the most optimal or effective build configurations and tend to be the ones to push the boundaries of what a given profession is capable of doing. In comparison, more casually-oriented players will not feel the impact of balance changes as profoundly since they do not generally play in the same way as a higher level competitive player will. I’m not sure what you mean by balancing it against the other profession’s capabilities, but I imagine they’re quite aware of what the other profession’s capabilities are.

You might try citing some more specific examples or clarify the purposes of your suggestions. You cite that they have a tough time balancing elementalist and that your changes would stop necessitating nerfs, but were there any particular nerfs you were referring to? Do you feel they were nerfed in a regard that they did not need to be nerfed in? For instance, you could cite the old RTL nerf (since you mentioned something about mobility) and give examples as to why you think the nerf is/was not necessary.

Also clarify why you think the entire profession design needs to be redone. As I mentioned, it seemed to me like you were trying to suggest that the execution requirements to play the profession effectively need to come down. Is that correct?

Less vagaries might make it easier to understand the ultimate purpose behind the suggestions.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Also clarify why you think the entire profession design needs to be redone. As I mentioned, it seemed to me like you were trying to suggest that the execution requirements to play the profession effectively need to come down. Is that correct?

Less vagaries might make it easier to understand the ultimate purpose behind the suggestions.

As I said, I don’t think the entire profession needs re-tooling. For example, Burning Speed is a great skill and would fit in as is to the new system. However, does anyone ever use Vapor Blade on purpose, or think that the Fire and Water skills on Focus are well balanced (or even effective, especially given their CDs).

I don’t think the execution requirements need to come down. I’m saying that it makes no sense to nerf damage, cooldowns, cast times, ranges, coefficients, and more when the complaints that lead to those nerfs are due to top tier play by 1% of the Ele players out there. Think daphoenix’s old videos, and the outcry over the Ele at the time, despite all of the accusations about the Ele’s OPness being completely baseless.

On top of that, the Ele suffers from a tunnel vision effect, where the D/D playstyle leads the way in PvP, and due to the way the Ele is designed, when nerfs or changes come down the pipe, EVERY other build that the Ele has gets hit as bad or worse.

The Ele’s entire defense is based on boons and healing, both of which have been nerfed. In the D/D playstyle for example, nearly every skill is offensive in nature (except Water offhand) with minor CC and no real defense. Contrast that to a Thief who has multiple evades, teleports and leaps on every weapon set, along with multiple ways to access Stealth, a CORE defensive and offensive mechanic.

Point is, the Ele needs some form of inherent defensive ability, as boons and healing are not really reliable, and subject to too many counters from other players, leaving the squishiest profession the most defenseless. Hence the suggestion to make 10 out of 20 skills on our weaponsets much more defensive in nature, which would make it much easier for ANet to balance in the long term.

Vapor blade is used to burn a blind/aegis and proc our healing signet at range while still inflicting a little damage. So yes, I have used it on purpose, not that it was a major game changer.

Fire 3 can be used offensively or defensively.

Earth is already used primarily for its kd, root, projectile block, blast finishers, with the only true offense in it coming from churning earth (which requires lightning flash to land it reliably).

Water is already used the way you suggest, cone of cold is used as much for healing as damage, 4 is for buffs, 3 is used as much for the blast as it is for the chill. 5 is the outlier as it is purely a support skill, but fits the theme of going water to heal and buff up before going back to lightning.

Speaking of which, lightning 2 is defensive, 3 is for buffs and the stun, 4 can be used offensively or defensively (if you absolutely must disengage), and 5 is a kb that we all know is a setup for our burst combo, though it could theoretically be used to create some distance.

All in all, only our auto attacks, Fire 2/4/5 (fitting your theme), and earth 5 are pure offense. So as I see it, we already are pretty much set up the way you describe.

Other classes do have a mix on single sets, but even those often times can be used both offensively or defensively.

Ranger GS 4 is a block with kb, or a ranged cripple, GS 3 is a gap closer/creator/evade/leap finisher. Sword 2/3 are both evades with an attack attached, Dagger 4 is another evade+damage/condi.

Mesmer sword 4 is a block+counter hit+clone or can be activated again for a ranged daze.

I can go on, but the idea that weapon skills are either offensive or defensive is just not supported in many of the sets. I do agree that D/D lacks a lot of active defense beyond dodging (which can be offensive withe EA), but that is the sacrifice you make when picking Dagger OH over focus. I personally love the “balls to the wall” play style that it affords. It has been nerfed many times (and is getting nerfed again), but it still pops up as an effective build in spite of it all. Unless the tempest sword brings something really interesting to melee ele, I’ll likely keep playing D/D and adjust to whatever makes it effective.

Aerathnor.8305:

I do agree that D/D lacks a lot of active defense beyond dodging (which can be offensive withe EA), but that is the sacrifice you make when picking Dagger OH over focus. I personally love the “balls to the wall” play style that it affords. It has been nerfed many times (and is getting nerfed again), but it still pops up as an effective build in spite of it all. Unless the tempest sword brings something really interesting to melee ele, I’ll likely keep playing D/D and adjust to whatever makes it effective.

The bolded part is most significant. See, the point isn’t that D/D is effective or not, the point is that D/D Cantrips has, since release been the ONLY competitive build. Sure Staff and Scepter are great for niche play or PvE, but in terms of PvP or WvW roaming where the strength of the build is truly exemplified, D/D Cantrips is the standard, with everything else falling noticeably short.

And that’s the problem. Every time a nerf to D/D Cantrips comes out, it nerfs the only competitive level build. No one can argue that Glyphs or Signets are stronger than Cantrips, or that Staff or Scepter can outdo Dagger output in almost any situation (i.e. the melee focus of GW2). And those nerfs typically hit healing power, boons or mobility, which hurts the less adaptable Staff and Scepter builds even WORSE.

The reason Eles keep getting nerfed is because of the strength of the D/D build combined with defensive trait selection and recently the Celestial Amulet. Eles HAVE to build this way precisely because there are no active defense skills. You can’t go all out Fire and Air in a zerk setup and expect to live more than half a second even if you play masterfully because there are no defensive skills.

Other professions have multi-option skills because they only get ten in most cases. The Ele is in the same boat, only the skills are much more watered down due to having twenty. I could go into the idea of marginal cost and skill use, but the short of it is is that Eles have to press two skills, with attendant cast times and cooldowns, for every one press of other professions.

All of this is why the Ele needs to be re-designed with my idea in mind. Having Earth and Water be the defensive lines (condition damage and healing respectively, with CC in both) means no matter what weapon set is being used, the Ele then has defensive options available, independent of boons or healing, just like every other profession. This makes it easier to tweak damage output on Fire and Air, and gives the Ele an effective Condition build through Earth, which makes sense when you take into account Rabid and/or Dire gear.

It doesn’t make sense that the Ele is the only profession that has no real active defenses beyond a couple of mobility skills and boon generation (which is about to get nerfed yet again). The profession mechanic doesn’t actually serve as anything but a glorified weapon swap, and its especially glaring when you look at how the other professions are designed with active defenses like Death Shroud, Illusions, Stealth, Pets, multiple evades, multiple blocks, etc. all on much shorter cooldowns than even the defensively minded Focus, which is terribly and inconsistently designed anyway.