Showing Posts For etherfreeze.6834:
Tornado is an emote they accidentally put as an elite skill.
Conjure weapons are more viable in PvE than PvP. In PvE they can either be your main source of damage (lightning hammer), or a gimmick to play around with. In PvP the only real use I see is starting with the weapon in hand, blowing the strong cooldowns, then dropping it to move immediately into your normal combo. Things like conjure time and time to pick up the weapon (if you need the second one) make it difficult to work into a theoretical combo. This is made worse by the fact that they take up a precious utility slot.
That being said I still love conjure weapons. They are quite simply, fun. I wish the elite version had a “weapon” for each element, serving as a stronger variant as greatsword does for lava axe. It could work the way “elemental” skills do, conjuring based on current attunement. A step in the right direction toward making them viable would be for each conjure to have an “on summon” effect: frost bow-> aoe chill / allies gain regeneration. lava axe: aoe burn / allies gain might. etc.
Agreed. I have stopped playing Guild Wars 2 a while ago, but eagerly await an update that will prompt me to return to the game. The world is truly beautiful and well executed, but these issues need to be addressed. Look at how much progress Diablo 3 has made. Sweeping changes have been implemented … and they work! I’m not sure what Anet is afraid of but they need to shake things up. Waiting for the “meta” to stabilize is a bit trivial at this point. How much of a “meta” is there really? Implementing a dueling system would be a huge step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the decision of having a weapon locked skill bar instead of skills you learn throughout the world like in GW1 diminishes, no, eliminates replay value of PvE content. To maintain longevity, spvp (as well as end game pve) should really be reworked. Put things in to keep it exciting. Cosmetic rewards for achieving high rank/fame/glory in pvp that can be seen in pve. etc
It’s definitely better than any elementalist elites but it’s never given me too much trouble either.
I guess the very straight forward “inflict massive damage in a single attack” part escaped your line of sight, right?
That’s not worth mentioning as it is a straight up lie.
I think people aren’t as upset about the nerfs as they are with the ideology behind nerfing the class. I could understand if any of these mechanics were truly game breaking, or even “really powerful”, but they weren’t. The problem is that we have some real issues that have been completely ignored. The current state of “ride the lightning” is unacceptable. You are PUNISHED for using the skill more often than not. Tornado is useless. Our damage is low considering what other classes can put out if they spec into it. I understand that the skill ceiling is high on elementalists, but even in being competent with the class, we are still pigeonholed into building tanky because our damage is not worth an “all chips in” style investment.
The Officially Unofficial Manifesto to the Elementalist's Past, Present, and Future
in Elementalist
Posted by: etherfreeze.6834
Previous Bug Fixes and Design Philosophies:
Phoenix: Looks too much like an actual phoenix in Beta. We feel this will be distracting to opponents. Replace with skill “Sparrow”, fire a tiny sparrow that attacks foes in a line.
Fireball: Auto attack damage is too high in Beta, almost capable of half-thief dps. Nerf to slightly below ranger pet auto attack.
Dragon’s Tooth: A skill capable of doing moderate damage. This is unacceptable in PvP. Render useless by hovering in air for 4 seconds.
Meteor Shower: Instead of doing consistent damage to both opponents and objects, do extremely high damage to inanimate objects, and potentially 0 damage to opponents.
Ride the Lightning: A gap closer is too powerful on an elementalist. Make it only work on stationary targets, who are probably afk anyway. If used on a moving target, elementalist will be immobilized and dazed for the duration of the skill.
Churning Earth: A skill capable of doing moderate AoE damage on a long cooldown. Add extremely long and obvious casting animation to give opponents a chance to counter. We will be observing this skill closely, and perhaps fix a bug where players can teleport while casting.
Whirlpool: An elite skill feels elite. Albeit underwater, the on land skill is functioning as intended by making elementalist take more damage and making the torture end sooner. Change underwater version to reflect tornado.
Glyph of Renewal: Reviving is too much like a “healer”. Nerf to oblivion for now, possibly revisit in the future.
“Also very very very very fragile unless built highly specifically. I’ve yet to find a d/d build I’ve been satisfied with. Especially against thieves.”
Try this build
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/cantrip-aura-cantrip-aura-7577.html
use 2 monk 2 water 2 earth for the extra boon durationYou have 0 toughness but you get 9 seconds of protection every time you go earth attune.
This build is good but you sacrifice all damage.
Anyone saying “elementalist blows them up” is clearly not using a stun breaker, which is arguably a much larger mistake when faced with thieves and warriors. Our burst is not as high and not as spammable. That’s not conjecture, it’s fact. We can achieve high burst, but the required skills are very predictable, very easy to avoid and go on very long cooldowns.
Yes, mesmers are strong in spvp. Yes, they excel in 1v1 situations. They might even have an advantage over some classes given a comparable skill level, but despite losing to mesmers from time to time, or getting wrecked by good mesmers, I never felt helpless against them. On my ele I can clear their illusions while doing moderate damage to them. The elite elemental summon helps with this of course. Thieves on the other hand, have too much spike. Unfortunately pistol whip isn’t really the root of the problem. Things like quickness (an inherently stupid mechanic since only a few classes have access to it, not all of which suffer the same consequences for using it), assassin’s signet in conjunction with an already huge single hit burst from backstab landing numbers upward of 15k, and the insane spammability of the highest damage skills due to the initiative mechanic.
It really depends on your class. My main is a Necro and Mesmers are the worst class for me to face, and thieves are pretty easy to kill. However, on my Ele I agree with you that Mesmers are not a problem and thieves are.
Obviously my opinion is skewed by the class I play, and admittedly I have only dabbled in other classes to learn their mechanics so I can counter them better on my ele. However, while playing thief, using a cookie cutter build, it just felt too easy. The initiative mechanic makes it so missing an important skill is no big deal. You can backstab frequently, spam heartseeker. Never mind throwing in quickness. I think it’s strange that squishy classes like elementalist and necro don’t have access to the same high risk glass cannon option. The only skills that can even compare on elementalist are fire grab and churning earth. Fire grab is predictable, easy to miss, easy to dodge, and has a very large cooldown. Churning earth has a casting time so long that it is not even worth using in a 1v1 unless you lead with in on an unsuspecting target with teleport. Both of these skills can net at most 8k dmg with full glass cannon and crit. That’s half the damage I’ve seen on some backstabs. Thieves not only get more damage, but damage that is way more spammable. On top of that, permanent gap closing. I can beat thieves in 1v1 situations, but I imagine they aren’t very good thieves. Maybe I’m not a very good elementalist, but even with a full tank build sacrificing all damage, a “good” thief can still take me out in seconds. If I blow all my utilities to CC them or create some distance, they close the gap with anything from steal, shadowstep, scorpion wire, heartseeker. You name it.
Yes, mesmers are strong in spvp. Yes, they excel in 1v1 situations. They might even have an advantage over some classes given a comparable skill level, but despite losing to mesmers from time to time, or getting wrecked by good mesmers, I never felt helpless against them. On my ele I can clear their illusions while doing moderate damage to them. The elite elemental summon helps with this of course. Thieves on the other hand, have too much spike. Unfortunately pistol whip isn’t really the root of the problem. Things like quickness (an inherently stupid mechanic since only a few classes have access to it, not all of which suffer the same consequences for using it), assassin’s signet in conjunction with an already huge single hit burst from backstab landing numbers upward of 15k, and the insane spammability of the highest damage skills due to the initiative mechanic.
The PW “nerf” on thieves is a joke which doesn’t even begin to address issues with the class. Mesmer nerfs will prob have a negative impact on PvE. As I haven’t leveled my Mesmer I can’t say much on that, but I don’t think the class mechanics were much of a problem so much as damage scaling of phantasms. They nerfed elementalist slightly … which is a huge fail. Trying to fix necro glitches is a plus I guess.
Even using tanky builds, a good thief will still drop you. It only makes bad thieves manageable, aka the ones who only press 1 and 2, not so much the ones who press other buttons too.
I agree somewhat. I think there needs to be more catering to middle-ground builds. The fact for example Vitality, scales differently by class it really skews the system. If a thief for example wants to build for a balanced build, they are still only gonna truck around 15k maybe 16k hp. Where an 80% offensive (glass) Warrior build can have 20-21k if not a few thousand more……
seems kind of sillyNot to mention the 20k HP glass cannon warrior can still put out more dps than the 10k HP glass cannon elementalist / necro
Cause in a parallel universe melee and ranged combat are the same…
Yes and melee elementalists have less spike than melee warriors with half the HP.
I agree somewhat. I think there needs to be more catering to middle-ground builds. The fact for example Vitality, scales differently by class it really skews the system. If a thief for example wants to build for a balanced build, they are still only gonna truck around 15k maybe 16k hp. Where an 80% offensive (glass) Warrior build can have 20-21k if not a few thousand more……
seems kind of silly
Not to mention the 20k HP glass cannon warrior can still put out more dps than the 10k HP glass cannon elementalist / necro
The problem is two-fold. Elementalist skills are so unbelievably easy to avoid, yet they do moderate to low damage. It makes no sense. People should be afraid to stand in your AoE like meteor shower or lava font / big hitters like dragon’s tooth, yet these impossible to not avoid, highly noticeable skills with moderate to high cooldowns do substantially less damage than most spammable warrior and thief skills. Sure we have a lot of diversity with attunement swapping, but this should not be mandatory for a successful build. If you want to go glass cannon staff ele, you should be able to dish out huge damage on ranged foes, and accept getting 2 shot when you let them close the gap. Since this doesn’t exist, we are forced to build tanky and try and outlast our opponents with boon stacking and heals.
tl;dr unless they buff our damage OR make our skills more effective (especially DT, churning earth, and eruption) we can’t be expected to “diversify” to sub par options.