What makes Elementalist fun to play ?
It’s the class that has by far the most skills in the game. No matter what weapons you use, there are four attunements, each with their unique skills. Fire attunement is usually based around burning and power, water is healing and condition, air is movement and CC, earth is defense and bleeding.
What’s fun about Ele is that you can switch to attunements in no specific order. You can combine multiple skills to work with each other. It’s almost like an alchemist.
It’s versatile like almost no other class.
Where it needs help though is the Arcana-Line and the buffs that various skills grant should be more varied (Looking at Inscription-Trait f.e.).
I’d personally like to see Arcana, as well as every core-class-mechanic line, become a elite-spec in it’s own right.
But that’s another story in itself.
I still love ele (core ele) because of the versatility of effects, which lends itself to combo play and shines when you intelligently juggle your skills. I love that you can be good at direct damage, yet still have decent healing/cleanse/support.
Ele isn’t great at condis, and that is an area a future elite spec should pursue.
Ele’s scepter is very lack-luster, even in its best application, as a pvp burst weapon.
Conjures are pretty bad, mostly because the conjure skills generally aren’t any better than your already abundant weapon skills, but also because you pay a cast-time penalty and double-CD wall just to get to any of those skills.
Many ele traits and utilities are very bad (like all classes) and could really use some buffs to be brought into line.
Tempest is the most boring concept I have seen, and is only taken because numbers. It kills the quick-twitch swap-o-matic playstyle, but is pretty necessary due to power-creep.
I still love ele (core ele) because of the versatility of effects, which lends itself to combo play and shines when you intelligently juggle your skills. I love that you can be good at direct damage, yet still have decent healing/cleanse/support.
Ele isn’t great at condis, and that is an area a future elite spec should pursue.
Ele’s scepter is very lack-luster, even in its best application, as a pvp burst weapon.
Conjures are pretty bad, mostly because the conjure skills generally aren’t any better than your already abundant weapon skills, but also because you pay a cast-time penalty and double-CD wall just to get to any of those skills.
Many ele traits and utilities are very bad (like all classes) and could really use some buffs to be brought into line.
Tempest is the most boring concept I have seen, and is only taken because numbers. It kills the quick-twitch swap-o-matic playstyle, but is pretty necessary due to power-creep.
I wouldn’t mind the Tempest as much if Arcana got a big buff, turned into an elite spec in itself (i still think all core class-lines should get that Treatment) and turned into a line that unifies weapon-cooldown, faster swapping and AoE Buffs through swapping so that you are a real alternative to the more damage focused Tempest.
Give each variety a bit of flavor and so on.
I wouldn’t mind the Tempest as much if Arcana got a big buff, turned into an elite spec in itself (i still think all core class-lines should get that Treatment) and turned into a line that unifies weapon-cooldown, faster swapping and AoE Buffs through swapping so that you are a real alternative to the more damage focused Tempest.
Give each variety a bit of flavor and so on.
The thing is, tempest is supposed to be the support option, but Arcana is already support/boons themed. They didn’t make tempest a new role, they just made it the same role, but in a different way (and higher numbers!).
I do think core specs should have an “elite” option from their mechanic-enhancing line. (like Arcana, Illusions, Virtues, Discipline, etc.) Problem with eles, is that tempest never really was different. They would have to really change tempest into something actually coherent. I do think WP is correct, tempest was probably supposed to be a damage line – overloads are absolutely damage, but when sword wasn’t any different from dagger they slapped “support” ontop of overloads and were left with a total mess.
I honestly wish elites weren’t stronger than baseline lines so I would never have to take tempest again.
I wouldn’t mind the Tempest as much if Arcana got a big buff, turned into an elite spec in itself (i still think all core class-lines should get that Treatment) and turned into a line that unifies weapon-cooldown, faster swapping and AoE Buffs through swapping so that you are a real alternative to the more damage focused Tempest.
Give each variety a bit of flavor and so on.
The thing is, tempest is supposed to be the support option, but Arcana is already support/boons themed. They didn’t make tempest a new role, they just made it the same role, but in a different way (and higher numbers!).
I do think core specs should have an “elite” option from their mechanic-enhancing line. (like Arcana, Illusions, Virtues, Discipline, etc.) Problem with eles, is that tempest never really was different. They would have to really change tempest into something actually coherent. I do think WP is correct, tempest was probably supposed to be a damage line – overloads are absolutely damage, but when sword wasn’t any different from dagger they slapped “support” ontop of overloads and were left with a total mess.
I honestly wish elites weren’t stronger than baseline lines so I would never have to take tempest again.
But if Elite-Lines shouldn’t be stronger than base we’d have to turn one baseline into an Elite.
I already hate the fact that they aren’t because, as it currently is, you can affect your class mechanic in two ways which screws up Balance in quite some ways.
Pretty sure Illusions, for example, is mandatory for one of the Meta Chrono Builds.
That never should be an option though.
I want my core classes to be just as much an option as the newer versions.
We’d probably need a gigantic balance patch for that though.
Reworking core lines, reworking the elite lines, reworking a lot of mechanis, adding the still missing heal and elite-skill Options and so on.
But at the same time: That’s something that should have happened with HoT already when it was released.
I wouldn’t mind the Tempest as much if Arcana got a big buff, turned into an elite spec in itself (i still think all core class-lines should get that Treatment) and turned into a line that unifies weapon-cooldown, faster swapping and AoE Buffs through swapping so that you are a real alternative to the more damage focused Tempest.
Give each variety a bit of flavor and so on.
The thing is, tempest is supposed to be the support option, but Arcana is already support/boons themed. They didn’t make tempest a new role, they just made it the same role, but in a different way (and higher numbers!).
I do think core specs should have an “elite” option from their mechanic-enhancing line. (like Arcana, Illusions, Virtues, Discipline, etc.) Problem with eles, is that tempest never really was different. They would have to really change tempest into something actually coherent. I do think WP is correct, tempest was probably supposed to be a damage line – overloads are absolutely damage, but when sword wasn’t any different from dagger they slapped “support” ontop of overloads and were left with a total mess.
I honestly wish elites weren’t stronger than baseline lines so I would never have to take tempest again.
But if Elite-Lines shouldn’t be stronger than base we’d have to turn one baseline into an Elite.
I already hate the fact that they aren’t because, as it currently is, you can affect your class mechanic in two ways which screws up Balance in quite some ways.Pretty sure Illusions, for example, is mandatory for one of the Meta Chrono Builds.
That never should be an option though.
I want my core classes to be just as much an option as the newer versions.We’d probably need a gigantic balance patch for that though.
Reworking core lines, reworking the elite lines, reworking a lot of mechanis, adding the still missing heal and elite-skill Options and so on.
But at the same time: That’s something that should have happened with HoT already when it was released.
That varies depending on the class in question. In concept the Core trait of a profession is intended to support the other trait lines…. but when they limited it to 3 trait lines, it slightly polarized the Core profession trait line as it doesn’t synergize with weapon and utilities the way the other trait liens do. With the Elite specs occupying 1 of those lines, the other 2 end up being chosen to enhance the weapons and/or utility skills directly. The 5 Trait system allowed you to cherry pick specific traits without committing to grandmaster, so it was possible to grab an important minor trait without sacrificing the more useful major traits from other lines….. but it also meant that trait teirs made certain classes harder to use, and forced you to take stats that might be useful for the build.
A good example of how lopsided some of the traits choices are- the Guardian rarely used Virtue related traits, because Virtues Active in general weren’t worth using. So the only reason people put points into virtue was to get access to Concentration cool downs. Under the new trait system the Virtues line offered better traits, but none of the desirable ones were linked to Active Virtues.
I do agree that Core Profession trait lines should be handled as an Elite specs in terms of power scaling. But if they were to do so, they should decouple the weapon and utility traits from them, and re-orient the traits to support direct damage, condi damage, or Class mechanic utility as their major trait focuses. This brings them inline with how the Elite specs work, except they surrogate the Elite Weapon/Utility supporting traits with ones that favor build functions rather then specific skill categories.