Thoughts on changes to ele

Thoughts on changes to ele

in Elementalist

Posted by: sanestar.8731

sanestar.8731

Let me start out by saying I’ve been playing ele since BWE 1, and I fell in love at first play. Though recently, there have been some very hard changes to the class that has me just not feeling it anymore, and I’ll explain the good and the bad changes.

The two hardest nerfs the ele has faced recently are the following:
1) RTL has 40s if you didn’t hit something and went from 1500 range to 1200
2) Can no longer use heal/utilities while in Mist Form (MF)

These two changes have, in my opinion, hindered the ele greatly in terms of their survivability. The class is already low tier in that respect in terms of math (i.e. lowest hp and armour). And it’s not really that fact that I dislike, it makes the ele more challenging to play, which I love. But there needs to be some kind of logical defense. I do not see how healing in MF was overpowered at all. In fact, you could only do it every 75s (60s if traited). By then a fight could be over. Comparing to other classes:

-Guardian has a heal the blocks all incoming attacks for a short while (really annoying >_<)
-Necro can’t really do much in that respect, but can clear ALL conditions when healing and has a 2nd hp bar
-Mesmer can gain distortion every 60s, and even less if traited and can heal during that time (plus they don’t give up a utility slot for it)
-Rangers, well, I kinda feel sorry for rangers sometimes
-Thieves can heal while in stealth, and have a trait to regen in stealth. My biggest problem with stealth is that you lose your target, meaning they can dmg you, but if you need a target for your skills your SOL.
-Sadly engis can’t heal while using Elixir S, which I think they should be able to like ele with MF
-Warrior can use Endure Pain, though will still be affected by conditions

So all in all healing in MF would be rather normal compared to other classes, since many classes have similar utilities and skills to do so. In fact, Anet fixed it so we could change attunements while in MF so we could then use glyphs properly, yet they took that away from us now too. I’d very much like to see eles and engis get the option to heal during these skills again as I don’t believe it would be overpowered with how the meta game is.

Moving onto the RTL change….oh boy where to start. Was it really 1500 range? Yes, yes it was, and it was amazing. I can understand making it down to 1200 range, but then again even then it’s effective range is actually about 1000 range (yes I tested it). You fall just short of that 1200 range. Then add on the ridiculous CD it has on it now and that just took the mobility away from eles. I understand if they don’t want ele to be in and out all the time, ’cause yeah, when it was 15s CD and 1500 it was a tad lawls-y. My suggestion to this is to do one of the following:

1) Make it 1500 range again on a 25 CD OR
2) Make it 1200 range on a 20s CD

I don’t think that would be too much to ask. Thieves would still excel in mobility, along with warriors, but would at least give eles some of theirs back.

Another change that I don’t think is good or bad, but is just awkward is the stun break remove on Lightning Flash (LF). I think this was a bad idea personally since many other teleport skills break stun. But, the increase in damage is ‘okay’ I guess. There are two options I thought of for this skill to be more on par with other classes:

1) Make LF 1200 range with its now current 40s CD OR
2) Put it back to it’s original state: 900 range with stun break

  1. would help bring some mobility back to the ele, whereas #2 would bring back that great ‘utility’ feel to it.

Thoughts on changes to ele

in Elementalist

Posted by: sanestar.8731

sanestar.8731

Some pretty nice changes that I like are the new “Fresh Air” trait and the fact you can get 2s of stability when switching to earth for only 20 points rather than 30. Fresh Air makes burst build actually viable and very deadly, and you give up the defense by going 30 into air which I believe makes it balanced. The stability change is really great, and it opens up a few more possibilities for builds.

As of now, however, I feel that the ele is just lack luster. I play some pve, a lot of wvw, and a fair amount of spvp (though more so recently). In terms of all three the ele I’d say is decent in pve and spvp, but just horrid in wvw as it currently stands. In wvw I like to roam with a buddy of mine, but I just can’t seem to come up with a good roaming build, since you need mobility to do so.

I’ve even started looking at crazy build ideas (i.e. conjure weapons or glyphs and signets), though sadly cantrips still tend to win me over. Conjure weapons are a load of crap x2 in the pvp/wvw world. I’ll mess with them in pve since that’s the only place they can be used decently.

I’ve also have been trying focus, which I actually really like when in water and earth. However, fire and air (mostly air #5) are practically worthless to use. The small fire field ( from fire #4) that can be easily avoided and hard to land blast finishers on is just to laugh at. Fire #5 is just a a crappy aura that doesn’t really help all that much. At best you can gain 5 stacks of might in a 1v1 situation, but for that to happen you NEED to take damage. No thanks. My problem with air #5 is the ridiculous CD of 50s for only 2s of knockdown. And overall the ele has the worst cool downs of any class, which I can understand why, but 40 or 50s on a weapon skill is just…too long in my opinion. The only one it makes sense for is focus earth #5 where you gain 4s of invulnerability (love that skill).

I hope to see some good changes come our way in terms of the above things. It’s not that everything is crap on ele, but many traits need work and we need a bit more than protection and healing, which we have plenty of, to stay alive. We could also use a better elite skill. Read a post and someone’s idea was make an elite be a weapon swap for us, which I thought would fit the ele really well. 180s CD on it? I’m cool with that, makes the ele that much harder to play.

These are my thoughts on the current ele, but I’d like to hear your opinions as well since it might help me see a different way on things. I’m not raging here, just having a hard time believing that all these nerfs are making us balanced. Cheers~