40 replies to this topic

[DemonKillerX]

Ok so where Elementalists stand right now in my opinion is that they are a okay class for general pve play because they have a lot of CC and support skills but I think something that almost everyone agrees on at this point is that the elementalist sucks at SPVP due to their lack of single target burst damage and survivability. To change the fact that the Elementalist is lacking at SPVP I'd reccomend a pretty big revamp for the class for just about everything besides the staff as this is already a great AoE weapon and does not really need more burst damage or much of anything else in my opinion. By the way I do not play an elementalist so I'm not saying this so my personal character will be better, but I have tryed them and realize they need to be buffed. So anyways here are some of the reccomendations I hope arenanet considers to fix the Ele.

Dagger: I feel this needs the most changing to it because this should be an elementalists "burst" damage weapon to compete with burst damage from the higher dps classes like Thief/Warrior/Ranger
-slightly increase the damage, casting time or range on many of the skills in the set (possibly just 100 extra range to all or most of the skills)
-Make burning speed cast to the target
-make frost aura do regeneration
-make updraft do some aoe damage and/or a condition/knockdown/grant allies swiftness
-remove cast time/delay on magnetic grasp
-reduce churning earth cast time by .5 - 1.5 seconds

scepter: should be a viable option for some long range "burst" damage along with maybe a few AoEs and currently isn't.

-increase effectiveness of rock barrier and the amount of stones it shoots
-remove the falling delay on dragons tooth (hits immediately after cast delay instead of floating in the air)
-blinding flash does aoe blind or two stacks of blind
-swirling winds does a small amount of damage every second
-make phoenix a target skill instead of aoe

focus: should be viable as a more defensive style offhand
-increase fire shield duration
-increase obsidian flesh duration to 6 seconds instead of 4 (making it even with other classes invulnerable skills) or grants retaliation

staff: might not be the best choice for pvp but it already has great AoEs and crowd control skills
-small casting time decrease on some of the skills

healing skills
-slightly increase healing power of ether renewal

utilities
-mist form duration to 4 seconds and/or cooldown decreased by 10-15 seconds or possibly allow mist form to heal self or damage enemies for a small amount
-small damage increase on arcane wave and arcane blast
-make arcane shield break stun
-remove or decrease casting time on all signets
-make the elementals from glyph of lesser elementals more powerful
-cleansing fire does 5 seconds of burning instead of 3
-reduce armor of earth cooldown from 90 to 75 and/or increase duration by 2-5 seconds
-give glyph of storms either a larger aoe or a damage boost
-make conjure earth shields fortify do a 5 second invulnerability
-Give elementalist a quickness skill, maybe something like "gain quickness for 4 seconds but you can not change attunement for the next 20 seconds"

Elites
-greatly increase hp and damage on tornado
-increase strength of glyph of elementals

Downed State
-make grasping earth interupt target on first hit

I feel like all these changes could be put into place to make the elementalist more viable in pvp or dungeons while still not overpowering it. Thoughts? and feel free to post what you think needs to be changed to make Ele worth playing in Pvp and late game content

[MaximumSquid]

DemonKillerX:

PvE: Ele is like an A- to A+ depending on your play style
AoE Hard Res, most Combo Fields of any prof, 2nd most blast finishers, really interesting Elites for PvE content, etc.

Things change very quickly in PvP as a lot of control gets removed from you side of the field
#1 complaint is the large number of skills that miss even without your opponent rolling

You can't keep pace when your spikes miss; your opponent is going to skip their heal cycle and just plow right threw you

#2 complaint is that even when our best spikes hit they will not kill anyone

You usually need to chain cast two independent spikes over a huge period of time
Time that your foe is going to dodge roll, heal, remove conditions, or flee

#3 complaint Ele's interaction with downstate; we are worst at unassisted stomps, stationary revives, and buying time while down

Mist form and/or Glyph of Renewal are basically required on your bar
Having no thief on your team pretty well guarantees that you will become the focus target
(if your opponents are fielding 2-3 100blades warriors it's gg even with the stealth res)

These 3 problems have created an enormous hole for the profession and have killed off dozens of otherwise viable builds

Would calling it a "Pigeon Well" be appropriate?

I think it goes down 30 feet

-

Edited by MaximumSquid, 08 October 2012 - 11:32 PM.

[DemonKillerX]

I think we agree pretty well upon what needs to be changed on the Elementalist and a lot of what I reccomended will help fix that

Complaint #1 attacks too slow/too easy to dodge/too hard to hit with
My ideas to help this were

-Make burning speed cast to target
-remove cast time/delay on magnetic grasp
-reduce churning earth cast time by .5 - 1.5 seconds
-remove the falling delay on dragons tooth (hits immediately after cast delay instead of floating in the air)
-make phoenix a target skill instead of aoe
-small casting time decrease on some of the skills
-remove or decrease casting time on all signets

Complain #2 was that they cant do sustained damage
-increase the damage or range on all or many of the skills in the set(daggers)
-make updraft do some aoe damage and/or a condition/knockdown/grant allies swiftness
-swirling winds does a small amount of damage every second
-increase fire shield duration
-small damage increase on arcane wave and arcane blast
-make the elementals from glyph of lesser elementals more powerful
-cleansing fire does 5 seconds of burning instead of 3
-greatly increase hp and damage on tornado
-increase strength of glyph of elementals

Complaint #3 down state
-make grasping earth interupt target on first hit (or push the target back maybe)

and then my final complaint is that they are too squishy which is what the rest of my reccomendations were aimed at

[Athletic]

nerf staff ele

[Rhasis]

Athletic, on 08 October 2012 - 12:27 AM, said:

nerf staff ele

On topic, i would love to see dragon's tooth land faster and burning speed on target. Probably frost aura giving reg and shocking aura blinding as well.

[blindude]

I dont like it..i mean i want some buffs but your ideas will make ele definately op.Not only that but you suggest changing many skillshots that require some form of targeting like burning speed and phoenix.Why would we want to dump the class down ? :S

[Rhasis]

Rhasis, on 08 October 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

i would love to see dragon's tooth land faster

blindude, on 08 October 2012 - 08:54 PM, said:

you suggest changing many skillshots that require some form of targeting like phoenix.Why would we want to dump the class down ? :S

Wut

I feel that the main source of problems is the looong time that we have to wait until the animations ends... you become less effective the better your opponent is

[treeqt]

Buff Ele.
And then buff every other class.
=> Balance.

[AetherMcLoud]

Not even being able to land dragons tooth with your own CC (updraft, gale, signet of earth) because it hovers in the air like a retarded godchild for way too long is really FUBARed.

[treeqt]

Don't rely on Dragon's Tooth.
You have a team.
Play another build.

[AetherMcLoud]

treeqt, on 08 October 2012 - 10:54 PM, said:

Don't rely on Dragon's Tooth.
You have a team.
Play another build.

Go fork youself.
You don't have a brain.
Troll somewhere else.

[Aetou]

Definitely a rather long and ambitious wishlist there...

1) Downed State, think everyone agrees that #2 needs to interrupt stomps somehow (I favour an earth-themed  KD personally.)
2) Making some of our 'skillshots' actually capable of hitting moving targets (DT is the worst for this) or if they don't hit more easily they need to hit much harder.  I think reliability is easier to balance but if DT is going to stay how it is then it needs to be hitting anyone who doesn't get out from under it very hard indeed (5k +)
3) Survivability.  Either increase base health to be second tier or make our heals scale better.  My Guardian heals for almost half his HP on a 32s CD.  My Elementalist has a lower CD but considerably lower heal (closer to 25% than 50%) and my Guardian definitely has better seconary healing sources.

[treeqt]

AetherMcLoud, on 08 October 2012 - 11:28 PM, said:

Go fork youself.
You don't have a brain.
Troll somewhere else.

How can one be so bitter over his own inability to make use of one of the best classes in the game.

[MisfitAndy]

If you make dragon's tooth fall nearly immediately, they would have to lower the damage by a bit.  It would be quite awesome if we were actually able to use scepter/dagger fire attunement in pvp, but I don't have any hopes that it will ever be changed.  As it was said by another person in this thread already, dragons tooth needs to deal substantially more damage if it is going to hover above the person's head for like four seconds.  If you are dumb enough to stand there for that long you should be hit for 8k+, to be honest.

After playing elementalist in pvp it is not really as awful as I had read on this forum, but it could use some minor improvements.

One thing that is depressing is our downed state, and how we are helpless as soon as we fall.  They need to add an interrupt or knock down on the 2 skill because the immobilize sucks.  Wow, you get to root them in place right next to you, because odds are that is where they will be at the time you are knocked down.  Great design, there!

Air attunement damage needs to be cranked up about 50%.  It is supposed to be our single target damage attunement and the damage is laughable at the moment.  What is the advantage for switching into air apart from travel?  Gale?  That ability sucks.  If it even bothers to hit, it buys you like 1 seconds closing time if they are melee and 0 time if they aren't.  If you are using dagger in pvp then one could argue that ride the lightning (if it were fixed) and updraft would be fairly useful, but the other abilities in air with scepter/dagger are insanely weak (I am not sure about dagger/*).  Staff air attunement at least has chain lightning, which is okay, but could still use a slight damage boost because against a single target (what air is supposed to be about) it does very weak damage.

Does anybody use tornado?  If not, maybe it should be looked at and/or changed into an elite skill that is worth using.  30 skill points for an ability that is as awful as tornado is a joke.  I'd bet that 9 out of 10 elementalists have summon elemental in their elite spot, and that is a 10 point ability!  The others may have fiery greatsword, although I have never seen one used in pvp.

Minor tweaks is all we really need.  Maybe a fiddling with the traits to make them more synergetic, but that's it.

[blindude]

MisfitAndy, on 09 October 2012 - 04:12 AM, said:

Does anybody use tornado?

Actually my buker build uses it.Its great to land people out of the node but its wonderful when you CANCEL it.
With a bit of boon + duration you can get 20+ sec of stability if you go in and out of tornado (stability remains)which is amazing for holding th point.
Still not as good as guardian but its ok imo and definately works

[MisfitAndy]

blindude, on 09 October 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

Actually my buker build uses it.Its great to land people out of the node but its wonderful when you CANCEL it.
With a bit of boon + duration you can get 20+ sec of stability if you go in and out of tornado (stability remains)which is amazing for holding th point.
Still not as good as guardian but its ok imo and definately works

Right, that makes my point for me.  An ability that you need to CANCEL to make use of :-|

[blindude]

MisfitAndy, on 09 October 2012 - 05:54 AM, said:

Right, that makes my point for me.  An ability that you need to CANCEL to make use of :-|

I know that..im just trying to use everything i got

[Coldznap]

The problem I have with dragon's tooth is that there's about 1 second delay where you won't be able to cast skills like ring of fire or phoenix immediately.

[chado2011]

Play thief or warrior. Leave the deep class for those of us that love it.

[Vuh]

I'd be happy with just slightly faster dragon tooth  and/or it being ground targeted---

[ultra_nubstress]

Vuh, on 12 October 2012 - 01:01 PM, said:

I'd be happy with just slightly faster dragon tooth  and/or it being ground targeted---

Yes Please

A lot of people talk about scepter being meant to "Zone". If this is supposed to be true then why would dragon tooth not be ground targeted? and if it's meant to be damage why isn't the damage proportional to the amount of time you have to wait for it to hit.

Edited by ultra_nubstress, 12 October 2012 - 07:24 PM.

[Mik Hell]

I like Burning Speed as it is, it took a while to learn aiming, but now I can hit two or more opponents dashing between them, plus a combo I'm using very often is: Burning Speed sligtly behind my target, then dodge back into the trail of flames to activate Evasive Arcana gaining might and dealing more damage

Of course it's not easy to pull it off, I usualy wait untill my target runs out of endurance and even then sometimes I can't execute it properly.

Same goes with Phoenix, it will deal damage while travelling too, so setting the explosion behind the target it will hit 3 times: while travelling to the designed area, impact and along the way back.

My number one complaint is the bugged state of so many spells at our disposal, I'm sure Elementalists would get a good performance boost if only they worked correctly.

Second complaint is the general sluggishness of animations, when i play my Mesmer I almost have the impression of being under permanent quickness: all moves are fluid and "react" promptly to my commands, heck they even sped up Mindstab...

Third and popular complaint is downed state: afaik every profession has a stomp breaker but Elementalist. Also damage seems pretty low, but that could be more of an impression than a fact.

Fourth has to be underwater damage, many don't care about it, but being a 360° player (i like to explore every aspect of the game) I find my performance greatly reduced while playing in a submarine enviroment, again compared to my Mesmer's damage is abysmally low: Illusionary Mariner deals up to 4k damage with a blue level 76 harpoon, while my Elementalist 's highest damage skill (water wall explosion) hardly crits for more than 3k with an exotic trident. Tidal Wave is so damn difficult to aim...
Granted that we've got a lot of cc (float, multiple sinks, blinds and lightning cage), but that's worth nothing when I can't kill an enemy player/mob before reinforcement or respawn.

I could go on with more flaws of underwater combat, like the lack of combos or Evasive Arcana not working etc, but my post is long enough allready

Edit: blindude that's a very nice trick, thanks for sharing!

Edited by Mik Hell, 20 October 2012 - 12:25 PM.

[Inso]

chado2011, on 12 October 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

Play thief or warrior. Leave the deep class for those of us that love it.

Could you please post your build and a video of you playing to prove your point?

[Caffynated]

It would be nice if Ride the Lightning traveled in an arc a few feet off the ground to avoid getting stuck on every twig between me and the target, instead of basically just being super fast running. The player should be immune to movement impairing effects while in RTL. How do you root lightning?

Tornado should blowout as soon as it's cast and the blowout pulses should have shorter delays between them. Unless you cancel it for stability, blowout is the only real use for the skill and it takes ~3 seconds to get that after casting (which already made you stop for 1 second to cast). As is, the skill would be difficult to recommend as a utility slot. It's about as elite as the Jacksonville Jaguar's offense.

Signets and glyphs should be castable while using normal weapon skills (the way cantrips and arcane skills are).

Fix the bugs with recycle timer reduction traits not affecting some skills.

The Phoenix should move much much much much much much faster. Did I mention that it should move much faster?

Fire grab should always crit a burning target, or its recycle timer should be decreased by 10 seconds.

[AetherMcLoud]

Caffynated, on 21 October 2012 - 04:50 PM, said:

Tornado should blowout as soon as it's cast and the blowout pulses should have shorter delays between them. Unless you cancel it for stability, blowout is the only real use for the skill and it takes ~3 seconds to get that after casting (which already made you stop for 1 second to cast). As is, the skill would be difficult to recommend as a utility slot. It's about as elite as the Jacksonville Jaguar's offense.

It also should have 90 seconds cooldown and make you immune to projectiles. Seriously.

[Varun]

- Buff health to the level of mesmers (there is no reason not to, survivability is lower than mesmer / necro and we're not exactly crazy glass cannons except behind a keep wall, not more than the aforementioned classes anyhow)

- Reduce activation (falling down) time of dragon's tooth and phoenix.

- Reduce cast time of magnetic grasp

- Slightly increase base damage of dagger mainhand skills

- Lower starting cooldown on downed mistform.

- Make us less dependant on the arcane traitline (for example: make the attunement buffs a native mechanic of the class, shuffle some of the more desirable high end tier talents and decrease switching time between attunements).


Many mentioned by the OP already, just wanted to repeat my own desires.

Edited by Varun, 21 October 2012 - 09:45 PM.

[Zicarous88]

Went from playing mesmer or guard to bunker ele and dps ele and finding no problems in tpvp... there are a few broken/ pointless traits but the class is not as bad as you think..

[ultima]

-downstate needs a buff
-and a damageboost 4 staffskills :'D
-armor of earth gives me to little stability as it should
- i wan a signet which can knockdown people instant

Edited by ultima, 22 October 2012 - 02:37 AM.

[DaPala]

Zicarous88, on 21 October 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

Went from playing mesmer or guard to bunker ele and dps ele and finding no problems in tpvp... there are a few broken/ pointless traits but the class is not as bad as you think..

I agree, Ele is not as bad as many people say, but there are some points that just make it less desireable than other classes.
In a game where you can easily substitute classes this is a big deal.
Imo there are three things that ned some changing:

#1 Downed state
#2 Some autoattacks (On many classes you can autoattack people to death. Ever tried that on the scepter in lightning [The single target damage attunement]? It deals the lowest dps of everything except some ele staff autos)
#3 Maybe some usability on some skills, ie DT should not have a long cast time AND long dropping time (IF you updraft and instantly DT someone, they should not be able to get out of it without a stunbreak..just my opinion. Might be a tad on the strong side though), phoenix could fly faster - or accelerate on longer ranges.

Edited by DaPala, 22 October 2012 - 04:55 AM.

[KaneK89]

Valk's ammy on a D/D auramancer, or even S/D auramancer is actually viable, and can spike pretty hard.  I think our numbers are fine, and we definitely have sustained damage, but we lack reliability as previously stated.  Bringing other classes down a notch or two would be better balance than making the Ele OP, and subsequently getting it over-nerfed again.

Fire Grab, DT, Churning Earth - our best spikes and so easy to avoid.  Fire Grab being bugged really hurts it.  Auto-miss if the target is half a foot above you.  Their long animations, and stupidly long CDs on CE/FG hurt us horribly, too.  I could deal with the lack of reliability if they had reasonable CDs.  Don't understand why DT, 100B, Blunderbuss, phantasms, etc. all have significantly shorter CDs than FG/CE.  

CE just needs to act like Eruption, or allow you to move while channeling it.  People can still interrupt it, or blink away, or cripple/immob and run, or dodge it, but rooting us in place for those 4 seconds is stupid.  It doesn't even hit hard compared to some other skills like 100B, and has a significantly longer cast-time and CD.  Being able to move while casting it would make it far easier to use.