Guild Wars 2

@ Malcastus: Isn’t it better to nerf others’ damage to about the level we’re at though? Consider this: other classes do so much damage that someone can literally die in seconds (it reminds me of WoW, really). While dodging extends the period it takes to kill someone, I still think it’s way too fast, personally.

I think the damage level we’re at would be good, if it was applied to other classes too. Of course it would be more to balance that way, but a slower PvP environment is much better than one in which you can die in seconds.

Just my two cents on the issue — of course if they decide not to go the route of lowering other classes’ damage, our damage will need a buff. But I really think it would be better to lower overall damage. The Elementalist is at a good point where it takes a bit longer to kill someone, but you can definitely still kill people in a decent amount of time.

@MarzAttakz: That’s an interesting idea — even with a, say, 9-second cooldown, sometimes it feels like you need to get something out before you leave because you won’t be able to go back for a while, which isn’t how it should ever play out in reality.

I don’t like that the cooldown is like a penalty that keeps us from using our abilities — however, I think that without a cooldown (or a very minimal one, at 3 seconds) it might be overpowered. While our abilities are all on cooldowns, you can argue the same for other weapon swaps — Warrior abilities are on cooldown regardless of when they swap too.

It could potentially turn very overpowered if we had a minimal cooldown like that, even with internal cooldowns to limit buffs and such. Though it would be really nice to not feel so limited in ability usage, it’s probably best stuck at around 9 seconds like every other weapon swap. I really hope they make it baseline and make the arcane trait line do something different.

@hakurface: I don’t personally feel 12/13 seconds per attunement swap is enough either — it’s not like you should be going in and pressing all the buttons then switching attunements. You need an ability when you need it, and if you’re, say, going into water and using the AoE frost effect just because you know that you can’t go back into water again for a while, there’s a problem. About 9-10 seconds feels right, considering normal weapon swaps are on a 9-second cooldown. I feel attunements should be brought down to about there baseline, with Intelligence changed to something else in Arcane.

In structured PvP, it does feel very forced to go into water/earth, because if you’re going glass cannon, you’re just going to get stomped after they figure it out. It feels like the elementalist is forced into a support build (or just water/earth in general) in order to survive, for staff especially, since staff doesn’t have as much condition removal and focuses on AoE and making combo fields.

Yes, you can get by without going into a water/earth build, but the point is that it feels like you are forced into a build like that because of the lack of survivability. There are abilities we always take to survive, such as Mist Form, but the point is it still lacks survivability even after that. Hence why a lot of people go for water/earth builds, and builds that go into fire or air are sparse in sPvP.

Mind you, I don’t think the class needs that much to be balanced. I just think a base HP increase and a few tweaks to our talents (including attunement swapping) would really help out the class without making it too much. Thanks for the feedback. :]

@DesertRose:

I think every class should be brought down to about the point we’re at, honestly. If PvE is going to be a long-standing and somewhat more difficult adventure, just eating through everything without paying attention to what you’re doing isn’t fun.

And for PvP, the elementalist is at a pretty good point damage-wise, if other classes were brought down to about that level. It would slow down the amount of time it takes to kill and be killed, which is good — no one likes to be killed in 2 seconds flat. It’s not fun and it doesn’t feel like your skill matters at that point. That’s why so many elementalists in particular have been complaining; they have to spec/gear to be as survivable as possible to live for any length of time, in the higher levels of sPvP.

I don’t agree that elementalists have good survivability, as that is our main issue, but you did bring up a good point — conjure spells aren’t good, and hardly anyone uses them. Even our elite conjure is hardly used except for messing around.

• Elementalists need a baseline buff to survivability more than anything, in my opinion. We wear cloth, so we’re going to be squishier— but we are the class with both the least amount of HP and the least amount of armor available. Here’s a list of the HP/armor of each class, baseline:

• Elementalist- HP: 10805 / Armor: 1836
• Warrior- HP: 18372 / Armor: 2127
• Ranger- HP: 15082 / Armor: 1980
• Necromancer- HP: 18372 / Armor: 1836
• Guardian- HP: 10805 / Armor: 2127
• Thief- HP: 10805 / Armor: 1980
• Engineer- HP: 15082 / Armor: 1980
• Mesmer- HP: 15082 / Armor: 1836

As you can see, the cloth classes get 1836 armor, leather gets 1980, and mail gets 2127. But the HP varies quite a bit between classes. The lowest HP is 10805, but in the case of Guardian/Thief, is made up for by their class abilities (thief naturally has a high focus on not being hit in the first place, while guardian focuses on bubbles and heals that make it much tankier).

The Elementalist doesn’t have as many ways to survive as Thief/Guardian do, and even in our utility skills, we are limited compared to them (hence we need higher survivability, while they are fine). We die faster than any other class, regardless of weapon — which would be fine, if skillful play could prevent that. But as it is, there are only a few viable builds out there for structured PvP, and they are forced into water/earth, and gear with high toughness. This indicates there is a problem.

In an effort to make “dps” builds more viable and tanky builds more like a tank compared to other classes, I think a baseline increase of our HP would be beneficial.

• More options being available via jewelry would be great. Allowing us to tweak it would be better. For Elementalists in particular, it would go far in making them more survivable, and it would promote more diversity in builds for every class. [For example, in one of my favorite staff builds, which focuses on criticals and boons, I don’t want TOO high vitality because I want my regeneration and heals to heal for a decent amount of HP — for this, toughness would be ideal. But there is no amulet with Precision/Toughness that doesn’t force me into condition damage, or another stat I’m not keen on. Instead I have to take the Knight’s Amulet, which forces me into vitality.]

• We could use just a few tweaks to our talents to promote attunement swapping more. Rather than “you gain X while you’re in Y attunement but lose it when you leave the attunement,” those buffs and utilities should remain for a time after you leave the attunement, or should promote attunement swapping into and out of it.

Fire in particular has a lot of traits that emphasize staying in fire (Pyromancer’s Puissance, Flame Barrier, etc). This discourages attunement swapping, and as a result, fire isn’t as attractive.

• Arcane is such a good trait line to go into… because the cooldown on attunement swapping seems so long. I can’t play without at least 20 points into Arcane (my builds usually have 30), otherwise I feel like I’m losing out on getting to my abilities RIGHT when I need them. Most builds put points into Arcane.

It might be in our best interest to eventually lower the cooldown of attunement swapping baseline — to ~9-10 seconds — and change Intelligence to something else. Perhaps a damage or survivability buff that we can stack by swapping attunements, to further promote it, or the current effects of Elemental Attunement since that is such an attractive trait.

These are just my thoughts on possible changes to make us better as a class and promote skillful play. Personally, I do not think that we need damage buffs — in terms of damage, I think PvP should be slowed down to the point where Elementalists are about at right now, and other class’ damage should be tuned down to that point. It has been a big issue with MMOs in the past (World of Warcraft) when players get killed way too fast, and as Guild Wars promotes skill, being killed in 2 seconds flat should not happen. A slower-paced PvP environment is better for everyone.

We really need a little more survivability, and I feel that our class should promote attunement swapping rather than having traits that promote staying in one attunement. I think small changes like this would add to the class without making it overpowered whatsoever, and without stripping it of the skillful play that makes it so very attractive.

Post your thoughts, please, and comment if you have any new things to add! Thanks for reading! :]

I’ve seen a lot of discouraged players posting about various issues Elementalists have. Putting in too much effort for too little reward, dying a lot faster than they can kill other classes, etc.

So I’d like to start a thread emphasizing what you think should be done to improve the class, without making it overpowered. Keep in mind that even slight tweaks can turn the Elementalist into a monster killing machine in the hands of a great player, while minimally affecting the average player.

I’ll start.