Guild Wars 2

What will happen is that the profession will be nerfed to the ground once again and for another year or so. The profession needs a rework, rather than be thrown in periodical nerf/buff cycle.

For a time it was possible to read the forum, without the need to sift through dozen of ele nerf/troll threads and now we’re back to Jan 2013 period…

It’s pointless to either incite civil discussions or have suggestions on how to fix ele, both are openly ignored by the devs in the name of their master design plan..so what’s left to do?

Well in my opinion you either:

A) Delete the game
B) Change main and start anew

About option B , let’s be honest..they will never rework/fix ele, they will merely nerf/unnerf the same couple of sustain traits and healing skill over and over again; they will never give a proper elite spec because of obvious core problems and for fear of creating something even more problematic so…why keep playing ele?

I don’t want to admit that, but sitting and re-thinking eles (just like mesmers) should be an ultimate need. I’m afraid, though, that they will never ever going to do that, in 5 years or so they might change our elites, or maybe when GW3 is released. Unfortunately, they don’t want the extra headache, or maybe they simply aren’t able to review the class as a whole.

Tempest was their chance to fix at least some of the issues. Was…

rotten.9753:

Tempest was their chance to fix at least some of the issues. Was…

So… power creep?

Any way what is with this ele getting nerf soon coming from? If its spvp then its d/d only that going to get hit and for the most part d/d is only “good” in spvp in the other parts of the game staff is king.

When they nerf D/D and by doing that, smashing every other build that might have worked, maybe the elementalist community can organize a “rest in peace ele” event. Teams of 5 tempest eles each will rush ranked arena games, and all whirl around in fire overload at middle screaming “I AM THE MASTER OF ELEMENTS”, immediately dying in the process.

If water and arcane traits are touched, then GG for eles. We all dead….

TheFamster.7806:

If water and arcane traits are touched, then GG for eles. We all dead….

Staff ele dose not need to run water or arcane at least how i play it in wvw fire air earth is a very powerfully build. Only d/d NEEDS these 2 and you can some what get away from arcane if your willing to take risk.

Jski.6180:

So… power creep?

Any way what is with this ele getting nerf soon coming from? If its spvp then its d/d only that going to get hit and for the most part d/d is only “good” in spvp in the other parts of the game staff is king.

If you have so narrow vision, then yes.

If it hits water it will support build diversity an for me the key is in water/cantrips. But the impact might be that ele is dumped in sPvP and without d/d the ele numbers will greatly decrease because all oportunists that go for the best will leave ele. Also this will be a slap in the face of eles that play d/d (cantrips) for a very long time not just after the burn buff. Don´t know it it will be done in a good or blunt way…. we only can hope.

Jski.6180:

TheFamster.7806:

If water and arcane traits are touched, then GG for eles. We all dead….

Staff ele dose not need to run water or arcane at least how i play it in wvw fire air earth is a very powerfully build. Only d/d NEEDS these 2 and you can some what get away from arcane if your willing to take risk.

That’s because you don’t play pvp. In pvp Water and Arcane literally carries eles.

They can’t touch water/cantrips…. this class 2 button kill for thieves/mesmers (or any class) if they hit our healing/defenses…Spike us down and no way to recover, GG.

What they will most likely do is hit fire line / burning…. Cele Ele DD is nothing new, they were in the game for a while. They were just never this level of OP
This only happened when burning buff + full extra spec line came out. Went over the top. That might ele could stack become ridiculous with the constant amount of burn application we have and how bugged as kitten Ring of Fire is…. only such short cooldowns too

Lol…ele crying about their death while we get ele everywhere..so funny how people are narrow minded.

Kicast.1459:

Lol…ele crying about their death while we get ele everywhere..so funny how people are narrow minded.

That’s funny because what I see everywhere are pewpew rangers and mesmers.
I guess we see what we wanna see.

They just need to buff other weapon sets/builds. The fact that they haven’t makes me really sad. The need to stop looking into traits and look at the weapons themselves.

FrownyClown.8402:

They just need to buff other weapon sets/builds. The fact that they haven’t makes me really sad. The need to stop looking into traits and look at the weapons themselves.

Buffing other specs will be pointless if Cele ele DD remains like this… (better than all specs, by a wide margin)
And if you buff other specs to the level of OPness that is cele ele dd, than you solved nothing. Just created another cycle

There needs to be a nerf to DD cele ele and at the same time, a buff to other specs to counter. Otherwise, ele will be in a state of crap.

SkiTz.4590:

FrownyClown.8402:

They just need to buff other weapon sets/builds. The fact that they haven’t makes me really sad. The need to stop looking into traits and look at the weapons themselves.

Buffing other specs will be pointless if Cele ele DD remains like this… (better than all specs, by a wide margin)
And if you buff other specs to the level of OPness that is cele ele dd, than you solved nothing. Just created another cycle

There needs to be a nerf to DD cele ele and at the same time, a buff to other specs to counter. Otherwise, ele will be in a state of crap.

Later on in the betas you will find that alot of specilizations will counter d/d a bit better. With the revenant buffs, i expect them to be able to contend vs ele pretty well. I also imagine dare devil to far well vs d/d too.

I think a big reason d/d isn’t nerfed is because of heart of thorns and its implications for the meta.

Xillllix.3485:

Kicast.1459:

Lol…ele crying about their death while we get ele everywhere..so funny how people are narrow minded.

That’s funny because what I see everywhere are pewpew rangers and mesmers.
I guess we see what we wanna see.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/4-ele-and-1-thief-win-ESL
You are obviously not looking at the right direction. Hope this helps to open your eyes.
Maybe you will argue that it is a l2p issue however ;-)

Kicast.1459:

Xillllix.3485:

Kicast.1459:

Lol…ele crying about their death while we get ele everywhere..so funny how people are narrow minded.

That’s funny because what I see everywhere are pewpew rangers and mesmers.
I guess we see what we wanna see.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/4-ele-and-1-thief-win-ESL
You are obviously not looking at the right direction. Hope this helps to open your eyes.
Maybe you will argue that it is a l2p issue however ;-)

Well they are adding in a less stealth base thf elite spec class maybe stealth is going to get hit hard soon. D/d ele is hard to kill and dose ok dmg but most classes can kill them its just ele is the super round class. I still do not get why ppl think they are going to nerf it has Anet said any thing or is this just “player made up info” or “a lot of hot air from the spaces between ppl ears” like it always seems to be.

FrownyClown.8402:

SkiTz.4590:

FrownyClown.8402:

They just need to buff other weapon sets/builds. The fact that they haven’t makes me really sad. The need to stop looking into traits and look at the weapons themselves.

Buffing other specs will be pointless if Cele ele DD remains like this… (better than all specs, by a wide margin)
And if you buff other specs to the level of OPness that is cele ele dd, than you solved nothing. Just created another cycle

There needs to be a nerf to DD cele ele and at the same time, a buff to other specs to counter. Otherwise, ele will be in a state of crap.

Later on in the betas you will find that alot of specilizations will counter d/d a bit better. With the revenant buffs, i expect them to be able to contend vs ele pretty well. I also imagine dare devil to far well vs d/d too.

I think a big reason d/d isn’t nerfed is because of heart of thorns and its implications for the meta.

That’s all speculation and in the future…You could be right thou about why they haven’t nerfed d/d yet… anet just waiting on HoT release to see how the meta shakes up…dare devil won’t fare well, it has no way to handle our burns and we can simple sustain their rotations. Rev I agree, could be a beast of a class that can take on anything.

The fact right now is in the current state , DD cele is without a doubt, OP.
And the balancing is just kitten poor coming from anet’s side.
You wonder why this game will never hit e-sports , this is why. Balancing is ABYSMAL and the PvP devs just don’t have the resources/support from anet… you could probably count the number of ppl working on balance on one hand.

SkiTz.4590:

FrownyClown.8402:

SkiTz.4590:

FrownyClown.8402:

They just need to buff other weapon sets/builds. The fact that they haven’t makes me really sad. The need to stop looking into traits and look at the weapons themselves.

Buffing other specs will be pointless if Cele ele DD remains like this… (better than all specs, by a wide margin)
And if you buff other specs to the level of OPness that is cele ele dd, than you solved nothing. Just created another cycle

There needs to be a nerf to DD cele ele and at the same time, a buff to other specs to counter. Otherwise, ele will be in a state of crap.

Later on in the betas you will find that alot of specilizations will counter d/d a bit better. With the revenant buffs, i expect them to be able to contend vs ele pretty well. I also imagine dare devil to far well vs d/d too.

I think a big reason d/d isn’t nerfed is because of heart of thorns and its implications for the meta.

That’s all speculation and in the future…You could be right thou about why they haven’t nerfed d/d yet… anet just waiting on HoT release to see how the meta shakes up…dare devil won’t fare well, it has no way to handle our burns and we can simple sustain their rotations. Rev I agree, could be a beast of a class that can take on anything.

The fact right now is in the current state , DD cele is without a doubt, OP.
And the balancing is just kitten poor coming from anet’s side.
You wonder why this game will never hit e-sports , this is why. Balancing is ABYSMAL and the PvP devs just don’t have the resources/support from anet… you could probably count the number of ppl working on balance on one hand.

Well on the part of daredevil, I imagine sword/dagger becoming a viable option for them. It has a ton of boon hate and dodges. That is the biggest thing I am considering vs d/d eles.

Introducing more boon hate and resistance into the meta will bring good changes overall I think.

If they try to balance burn by much more condi defence they will destroy build diversity by the destruction of condi builds. First buff burn then burry all condies would be abyssal bad work.

I’m terribly disappointed in ele devs. Mesmers and necros got some much needed reworks with the feature patch, and all eles got was burning changes…

What the kitten? Eles need a COMPLETE REWORK OF THEIR DEFENSIVE MECHANICS. Water and Arcane needs some heavy nerfs, but some of that defense needs to be shifted into weapon skills and utilities besides cantrips.

Otherwise ele will always be CELE DD WATER+ARCANE+CANTRIPS, like it has always been. And with just a single viable build it will either be OP or completely useless (like eles were as a class for a WHOLE YEAR).

The amount of poor ele this and poor ele that stuff that goes on in here is absurd. The,weeks leading up to the big balance patch I read ALOT of ele gonna be trash tier….now we are seeing 4 man ele teams win tournaments.

I’m guessing tempest will be absolutely broken OP as all things ele are.

T raw.4658:

The amount of poor ele this and poor ele that stuff that goes on in here is absurd. The,weeks leading up to the big balance patch I read ALOT of ele gonna be trash tier….now we are seeing 4 man ele teams win tournaments.

I’m guessing tempest will be absolutely broken OP as all things ele are.

Maybe because they were gonna move Elemental Attunement to GM?

Also, the only “OP” things Ele has is D/D(you could just blame Burning really) and arguably Frost Bow/Staff in PvE, but that one isn’t quite as important.

You see? People rage calling OP, and just leave. If you think it’s OP, then offer proper feedback on balance, instead of uselessly ranting.

T raw.4658:

The amount of poor ele this and poor ele that stuff that goes on in here is absurd. The,weeks leading up to the big balance patch I read ALOT of ele gonna be trash tier….now we are seeing 4 man ele teams win tournaments.

I’m guessing tempest will be absolutely broken OP as all things ele are.

Maybe it’s because you don’t recall the initial draft of changes?

Tempest brokenly OP kappa.

Funny, every other class seems to be saying they’re useless/nearing uselessness, too. I wonder, which class ISN’T dead and pointless to use?

Toolbox.9375:

Funny, every other class seems to be saying they’re useless/nearing uselessness, too. I wonder, which class ISN’T dead and pointless to use?

Funny, I’m playing Chronomancer, Herald, (possibly) Dragonhunter, and now Daredevil when HoT launches.

Toolbox.9375:

Funny, every other class seems to be saying they’re useless/nearing uselessness, too. I wonder, which class ISN’T dead and pointless to use?

I hope you read the title correctly.

Valento.9852:

Funny, I’m playing Chronomancer, Herald, (possibly) Dragonhunter, and now Daredevil when HoT launches.

Why not this OP monster that is ele?

rotten.9753:

Valento.9852:

Funny, I’m playing Chronomancer, Herald, (possibly) Dragonhunter, and now Daredevil when HoT launches.

Why not this OP monster that is ele?

/yawn
I’m tired of being, OP. Plus, I’ve only been playing ele since March, 2012.

Its a good time to save the upgrade cost anyways…

Kicast.1459:

Lol…ele crying about their death while we get ele everywhere..so funny how people are narrow minded.

Are people crying? Because I don’t see that. I see that OP says that ele needs a rework because its too strong at this moment. He points out that the forums get more and more toxic, which is true. And he also says that it’s impossible to lead a normal discussion here and you’re one of the people who plays a part in that.

I do not think they will nerf ele to the ground. I’ve said this before, but I think they are scared of doing so and that’s the reason we haven’t seen any ele nerfs. It’s not like they nerfed the class so much before, yet it turned into complete trash. It definitely needs to be toned down, but there are tons of things that needs to be fixed and buffed. Scepter has the same issues it’s had since the release of the game, other utilites are completely worthless and ele has very few options what to run. If they nerf it (and they should), they also need to make other specs viable. The problem is, though, they’re completely clueless about how to do that in my opinion.

Supreme.3164:

About option B , let’s be honest..they will never rework/fix ele, they will merely nerf/unnerf the same couple of sustain traits and healing skill over and over again; they will never give a proper elite spec because of obvious core problems and for fear of creating something even more problematic so…why keep playing ele?

They need to rotate designers, if we got someone like Robert Gee on ele I’m confident we would get that rework.

Ele in its current state is almost impossible to balance. The issue is that most ele mechanics are actually really bad and near useless, but there are a few that are just insanely powerful that carry the entire class.

Maybe replace burning fire.

FrownyClown.8402:

They just need to buff other weapon sets/builds. The fact that they haven’t makes me really sad. The need to stop looking into traits and look at the weapons themselves.

If they will just give us 300 more HP for Fresh Air Scepter and some cripple to Scepter/Focus so I can kite, I don’t want anything else.

Tempest was their chance to fix at least some of the issues. Was…

Elite specs should never “fix” primary specs. Classes should be perfectly viable in their primary specs, then Elite specs should offer something slightly different, while remaining true to that core.

the problem i have seen with ele since release
(havent played in a long time now, just got back not sure i wanna though),
is that it is a mage type which are best when played as an assasin or bruiser type..
meaning it is not a long range CC/nuker, it is an nutriusion fighting, close combat class. (which is OBVIOUSLY not what people that usually enjoy playing mage type classes enjoy the playstyle off (since they would play assasins or warrior types if they enjoyed that playstyle))

this is made so much worse due to the core design of pvp being horrific:
the downing mechanic hard punishes long range nuker builds, while rewarding bruiser close combat build insanely.
the “stay on the point spvp” does the same thing, it punishes builds designed for long range nuking or cc+nuking, and rewards melee bruiser builds.
(here we also need to note that hard cc and actual hard nuking long range is extremely limited for the ele, making the builds with this subpar just because of available skillsets)

the entire games competitive pvp scene rewards those bruiser close combat builds while punishing ranged and nuker builds down to its very core game design… (at least if you don’t enjoy Zerg WvW pvp.. which let us admit is just a big ZERG feast of “meeh”)

and lastly the “field/finisher” mechanics
(which is just horrificly bad design decisions all the way through, arbitrary complexity, forcing specific playstyles, badly designed due to the already too complex setup needing to streamline all the effects of it, etc etc etc.. just a bad idea which got forced through by worse devs -.-)
which force close combat to effectively use all the bonusses (which is a must at higher lvl combat)

which is why a “traditional elementalist playstyle” is just really kitten bad in gw2….
in essense it is due to absurdly bad devs having no clue how to design a pvp scenario that doesnt reward one type extremely compared to another…. (or more likely because the devs are ridiculess biass in their design decisions, with none of them playing “traditional mage classes” )

doubt any change would fix that.
(due to the core game design of spvp and especially downing mechanics, being a direct reason to the main meat of the issue with the “elementalist class”)

I would remove all down state skills and rally. Down is helpless. Dead is autorelease.
Would be a hard move but very straight forward and easy.

Ohoni.6057:

Elite specs should never “fix” primary specs. Classes should be perfectly viable in their primary specs, then Elite specs should offer something slightly different, while remaining true to that core.

Tell that to devs. They can’t balance ele properly, it’s either disgustingly OP or trash-tier UP.

Or tell that to devs of ranger and necro.

Of course elite specs should fix core specs. If a core spec lacks certain aspects, elite spec should bring it. Necro lacks cleaving – reaper solves that, guardian lacks ranged option – dragonhunter tries to solve that, etc.

What ele lacks? Innate survivability that tied to water/arcana/cantrips, proper burst spec, proper condie spec. Only spec that’s viable is a brawler hybrid.

Nothing would be more healthy to the game than nerfing ele to the ground

RevanCorana.8942:

Nothing would be more healthy to the game than nerfing ele to the ground

If what you’re suggesting is nuking Ele to the point of uselessness again, man, I’m glad you’re not on the balance team.

Ele needs to be brought down to a reasonable level, not outright nuked to uselessness. I get that you might be understandably frustrated with how ONE Ele spec is outperforming in PvP, but that is no excuse to call for the profession as a whole, especially one so sensitive to small balance changes, to be nerfed to the ground.

I think Anet should start simply by fixing Ring of Fire (3—>2 stacks) and fixing its bugs, and then bringing down Burning damage slightly. I think that should in itself fix a lot of the problems with the cele DD Ele. If there are still issues, they can move on to make incremental nerfs to Burning Fire, etc.

People don’t seem to understand that the current balance is made for HoT.

With thieves insta-downing people, berserkers, Reaper-shroud-5 and double shatter, d/d ele will be the least of your worries.

Sounds like power creep which is naturaly breaking diversity … The easy way if you can´t handle balance… Unfortunately such a way has no long future.

Wolfric.9380:

I would remove all down state skills and rally. Down is helpless. Dead is autorelease.
Would be a hard move but very straight forward and easy.

will never happen, devs are not smart enough to ever do something that would have such a major positive impact on the state of the game

the downing mechanic is in it’s core design gamebreaking (especially for competitive pvp).
but clearly some one on the team had the oppinion of " I DO NOT CARE HOW BAD IT IS, IT IS A GOOD IDEA AND I WANT IT IN THE GAME!!!" which is why it even exist in the first place.

removing down mechanic all together and introducing trinity to pve would be the best move they could ever make.
alternatively if they don’t wanna do actual work on rebalancing some pve for that, introduce/re-tweak more/better “ressurrect mechanics/skills”.

but again this would be a major positive move all around so will never happend..
it is as likely as them removing the silly “movement slow when in combat” which is also just a silly and badly made design all together….

..
(ow yer and could we stop focusing the ele’s abilities on close combat -.-
yes i am looking at the tempest attunement design (and new skills for that matter, horn not included),
overdrive is an awesome cool idea and i actually wrote an idea extremely similar as a suggestion way back: (i can only assume the smartest dev saw it and thought “thats sounds cool, lets see if we can’t get it in”; and he was sooo close, they just f’ed the actual effect of each attunement overdrive)
so yes, seriously stop making it a close combat thing.
allow the player to select where the overload spell is placed, in the same manner as you would with any ground target aoe… (or make the overdrive differ depending on weapons; so staff got long range abilities, scepter got the current and D gets even closer ranged)

i don’t get either why ALL the attunement overloads are basically the same thing, all aoe damage abilities around yourself (water is support though still around yourself), just silly…
fire should be AOE ground targeted,
lightning should be Single target (big laser from you to target, major damage),
water support (kinda is, but should be ground target and do something really awesome/cool),
earth should be CC+condisions or Major protection.
and all long distance, 900 or 1200 max distance)

edit:
link to my suggestion which is years old, that suggest this overload thing :P
although in a much better way i think ^^
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post2825766

Glenstorm.4059:

RevanCorana.8942:

Nothing would be more healthy to the game than nerfing ele to the ground

If what you’re suggesting is nuking Ele to the point of uselessness again, man, I’m glad you’re not on the balance team.

Ele needs to be brought down to a reasonable level, not outright nuked to uselessness. I get that you might be understandably frustrated with how ONE Ele spec is outperforming in PvP, but that is no excuse to call for the profession as a whole, especially one so sensitive to small balance changes, to be nerfed to the ground.

I think Anet should start simply by fixing Ring of Fire (3—>2 stacks) and fixing its bugs, and then bringing down Burning damage slightly. I think that should in itself fix a lot of the problems with the cele DD Ele. If there are still issues, they can move on to make incremental nerfs to Burning Fire, etc.

No I mean that nerfing the d/d build even immensely would bring it back to balance.
Anet are really slow for some stuff I guess even when it’s obvious.

the problem i have seen with ele since release
(havent played in a long time now, just got back not sure i wanna though),
is that it is a mage type which are best when played as an assasin or bruiser type..
meaning it is not a long range CC/nuker, it is an nutriusion fighting, close combat class. (which is OBVIOUSLY not what people that usually enjoy playing mage type classes enjoy the playstyle off (since they would play assasins or warrior types if they enjoyed that playstyle))

This seems like a personal problem though. “I want this class to be something it totally isn’t and never was! Why can’t it be the class I want instead?!”

Ele is not a “caster” class, it is a light skirmishing class. It has an artillery stand-off spec available, but that is not the only spec available. Dagger builds are not “wrong” just because you prefer staff.

i don’t get either why ALL the attunement overloads are basically the same thing, all aoe damage abilities around yourself (water is support though still around yourself), just silly…
fire should be AOE ground targeted,

Because you are the tempest, you are the eye of the storm, it flows around you. I imagine when Eles get their ranged elite spec it will have some variation on the ranged Overload, but this is their skirmish spec, which better compliments their core play styles.

Tell that to devs. They can’t balance ele properly, it’s either disgustingly OP or trash-tier UP.

Or tell that to devs of ranger and necro.

Reaper doesn’t “fix” Necro, and I don’t expect Druid to “fix” Ranger. They are alternate styles you can use, but I expect any flaws in the core builds to be fixed with changes to the core builds. A solid example here is Daredevil, which does offset some of the hideous nerfs they made in the recent updates to the Acrobatics tree, but I still expect them to go back in and fix Acrobatics.

Of course elite specs should fix core specs. If a core spec lacks certain aspects, elite spec should bring it. Necro lacks cleaving – reaper solves that, guardian lacks ranged option – dragonhunter tries to solve that, etc.

Neither of those is actually true. Necro Dagger cleaves as well as Reaper does, by some accounts better than it did in BWE1. Guardian has some solid ranged options, I plan to stick with Scepter/Focus even after HoT on mine. Yes, elite specs can bring new options to the table and offset holes in the class’s playstyle, but if there are glaring flaws in the core mechanics, those flaws should be corrected within the core mechanics.

removing down mechanic all together and introducing trinity to pve would be the best move they could ever make.

None of that is remotely true.

the “stay on the point spvp” does the same thing, it punishes builds designed for long range nuking or cc+nuking, and rewards melee bruiser builds.

How would you design a small group PvP system that would reward long range nukers? Particularly ones that would not make them horridly OP in the process? Besides, from my understanding, LB Rangers seem to do ok in PvP.

Ohoni.6057:

the problem i have seen with ele since release
(havent played in a long time now, just got back not sure i wanna though),
is that it is a mage type which are best when played as an assasin or bruiser type..
meaning it is not a long range CC/nuker, it is an nutriusion fighting, close combat class. (which is OBVIOUSLY not what people that usually enjoy playing mage type classes enjoy the playstyle off (since they would play assasins or warrior types if they enjoyed that playstyle))

This seems like a personal problem though. “I want this class to be something it totally isn’t and never was! Why can’t it be the class I want instead?!”

Ele is not a “caster” class, it is a light skirmishing class. It has an artillery stand-off spec available, but that is not the only spec available. Dagger builds are not “wrong” just because you prefer staff.

i don’t get either why ALL the attunement overloads are basically the same thing, all aoe damage abilities around yourself (water is support though still around yourself), just silly…
fire should be AOE ground targeted,

Because you are the tempest, you are the eye of the storm, it flows around you. I imagine when Eles get their ranged elite spec it will have some variation on the ranged Overload, but this is their skirmish spec, which better compliments their core play styles.

removing down mechanic all together and introducing trinity to pve would be the best move they could ever make.

None of that is remotely true.

the “stay on the point spvp” does the same thing, it punishes builds designed for long range nuking or cc+nuking, and rewards melee bruiser builds.

How would you design a small group PvP system that would reward long range nukers? Particularly ones that would not make them horridly OP in the process? Besides, from my understanding, LB Rangers seem to do ok in PvP.

Will answer from top to bottom:

It is a caster class; by the very name itself ELEMENTALIST.
It is the mage class of the game (or as close as it gets), weather or not you agree with it is a different matter.
If you call it an assassin and gives it nothing but long range support skills, that doesn’t mean the name suddenly alter its meaning, just means you either gave it the wrong name or f’ed up the design

The fact that ele close combat builds are amongst (if not the strongest) the strongest builds in the game (far supirior for competitive play then staff aka long ranged weapon) and that it wins over warriors melee builds with ease, shows something is completely wrong when we are talking balance of classes (and expectancy due to naming and conventions).

All the major problems of pvp can be tracked back to the downing mechanics as a big contributor to the problem.
On top of that there is a reason you don’t see ANY other game competitively do this kind of mechanic (it is not because it haven’t been thought of, it have and been dismissed because it is a HORRIFIC system that breaks the “very fine and hard to reach” balance completely).

Trinity AGAIN a good reason no other game have tried to eliminate a trinity system, some have tried to make it more focused on different roles then “support == heals” and focusing it on shielding or CC’ing.
But no other game (with any success) have tried to eliminate it.
The reason for that is very simple “if you eliminate the need for roles, you eliminate the need for diverse builds and classes, and you end up with badly balanced/made dungeons, pve and pvp”
(which should be more then clear from the dungeons and the major issues which was there forever with only specific classes where invited for speedruns etc. because nothing else was needed, and to my understanding that hasn’t changed from the year-+ I have been gone: apparently only one type of builds are truly effective for dungeon runs )

Should prove pretty well that it is the case even though you deny it (I am guessing you play melee, D ele, or theif? Would be my first guess -.- since those are extremely rewarded for the downing mechanic -.- )
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I would do like they done in TONS!!! Of other mmo’s.
You got a ton of options.

Spvp:
Capture point (point is only capturable when you are not taking damage and can’t be neutralized if you are taking damage).
Stops the forced to melee on them.

Capture flags (is generally a “kill before you can take” thing.).

The removal of downing mechanics would do a TON here, making you able to actually build towards winning a fight and have the win without the extra of “ow you need to get to the downed person and finish them off, if you get downed wupti they are up again Bs”.
Would also open up for a lot more diverse builds.

Besides: The balance between “range vs dps vs survivability vs supportability” is extremely well documented in mmo’s at this point, if you can’t make that pretty spot on with the absurd amount of data you got available then you don’t deserve to be a dev responsible for this area.
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edit:
forgot the tempest answer: soo your excuse is that the “tempest HAVE to be the eye of the storm?” then why is there fire?, why do you take damage in the eye ? etc etc etc.
(yes silly argument but so is yours)
facts is if you are the controller of the tempest (which we need to rewrite for abilities to make sense at all, so we accept it is just a naming with no meaning, earth skill? from a tempest no :P ) you should be able to control where it lands (on top of that it is exceedingly lame that all the abilities is the “same” working, kinda proofs how little effort went into making it)

check my suggestion on that a year ago (or more cant remember)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post5440350

It is a caster class; by the very name itself ELEMENTALIST.

Elementalist has nothing to do with “caster.” It means “one who deals in the elements,” and even a D/D Ele does that just fine. You are projecting what you want onto the class, that is not what it ever actually was or claimed to be.

It is the mage class of the game (or as close as it gets), weather or not you agree with it is a different matter.

No, it’s just a light armor magic-wielding class. If anything, the closest this game has to a “pure” old school mage is the Mesmer. GW2 likes to play with tropes though, and tries to avoid the “pure old school” paradigms whenever possible.

If you call it an assassin and gives it nothing but long range support skills, that doesn’t mean the name suddenly alter its meaning, just means you either gave it the wrong name or f’ed up the design

Nothing wrong with a pure ranged Assassin, that’s what half the Thief forum is clamoring for, but again, “Elementalist,” do they play with elements? Yes? Nailed it then. Now, if the class was called “Wizard” or “Mage” then I might agree with you more.

The fact that ele close combat builds are amongst (if not the strongest) the strongest builds in the game (far supirior for competitive play then staff aka long ranged weapon) and that it wins over warriors melee builds with ease, shows something is completely wrong when we are talking balance of classes (and expectancy due to naming and conventions).

That sounds more like a problem with how Warriors are designed though.

All the major problems of pvp can be tracked back to the downing mechanics as a big contributor to the problem.

I can see why the downed state limits the effectiveness of long range nuke builds, but on the other hand, it also limits the effectiveness of long range nuke builds, which prevents them being completely overpowered. You can still nuke out a downed player at long range, in many cases this is even easier than trying to stomp them since they can’t fight back, rally off you, or use “stomp escape” moves to avoid being stomped. This is a fair balance.

Trinity AGAIN a good reason no other game have tried to eliminate a trinity system, some have tried to make it more focused on different roles then “support == heals” and focusing it on shielding or CC’ing.

The trinity is just a cheap gimmick to avoid actual gameplay balance. I much prefer GW2’s balanced system, but to each his own.

Capture point (point is only capturable when you are not taking damage and can’t be neutralized if you are taking damage).
Stops the forced to melee on them.

That would make conquest mode practically unplayable. You’d just have enemies nuking the capture points from outside of most build’s attack range, forcing people to leave the capture circle to engage them, and basically no points would ever be captured because there would always be someone throwing a little damage around. It would go sooooooo slooooowly.

forgot the tempest answer: soo your excuse is that the “tempest HAVE to be the eye of the storm?” then why is there fire?, why do you take damage in the eye ? etc etc etc.

1. because it’s a fire storm. The “storm” is a metaphor. 2. You don’t take damage, because you’re the eye. The characters around you do take damage, because they are not the eye. Remember that the deadliest parts of a hurricane are the bits right around the eye, because that’s where the winds spin fastest.