25 replies to this topic

[Xyless]

Seeing the discussion about how ANet is handling patching Elementalist, I wondered what exactly people are expecting to be done with Elementalist. Instead of keeping it closer to a discussion, I feel it might be easier to keep views in order a little better by making something similar to a patch concept thread.
If you'd like to join in, try to keep it as specific as possible. As in, if you want a move's power to be higher, note it in the notes (Damage +/- X amount). Here's a slim couple of ideas from me, though I can't think of all of the ones I wanted right now since I just recently woke up.

• PRIMARY NOTES
  
  • Dagger Water Offhand Skills (Frost Aura / Cleansing Wave) swapped with Focus Water Skills (Freezing Gust / Comet) to make Dagger pure offense and Focus pure defense.
• STAFF
  
  • Fire Magic
    
  • Water Magic
    
  • Air Magic
    
  • Earth Magic
• SCEPTER
  
  • Fire Magic
    
  • Water Magic
    
  • Air Magic
    
  • Earth Magic
• DAGGER
  
  • Fire Magic
    
  • Water Magic
    
  • Air Magic
    
  • Earth Magic
• FOCUS
  
  • Fire Magic
    
  • Water Magic
    
  • Air Magic
    
  • Earth Magic

• TRIDENT (UNDERWATER)
  
  • Fire Magic
    
  • Water Magic
    
  • Air Magic
    
  • Earth Magic
• SLOT SKILLS
  
  • Mist Form: no longer makes you drop whatever you were carrying.
    
  • Tornado: Increased frequency of attacking to .8 seconds. Added new skill which prevents Launch condition, instead uses Pull condition.
• ALTERNATIVE SKILLBARS (CONJURED WEAPONS & TORNADO)
  
  • Tornado
    
    • [NEW POWER] Spiral Pull: Replaces Launch condition of Tornado with Pull condition.
• DOWNED & DROWNING
  
  • Switch Vapor Form and Grasping Earth back in positions.
    
  • Vapor Form: No longer adds another Downed count.
• TRAITS
  
  • Fire Magic
    
  • Water Magic
    
  • Air Magic
    
  • Earth Magic
    
  • Arcana

Edited by Xyless, 19 November 2012 - 03:35 PM.

[FrancisCrawford]

Two fixes would make up for the EA nerf's effect on staff:

• Make Ice Spike a blast finisher.
  
• Double the duration of Geyser.

Two fixes would make up for the EA nerf's effect on S/D and S/F:

• Reduce Phoenix cooldown to 15 seconds.
  
• Make Shatterstone a blast finisher.

Also:

• Increase projectile speed on Fireball.
  
• Triple the duration on Fire Aura (it's an absurdly weak skill if you don't trait Auras).
  
• Debug MANY things.
  
• Least important: Fix many tooltips.

[Aetou]

(1) Using Downed #2 no longer increased your Downed count. (Seriously, this is so stupid currently - give us parity with thieves and mesmers.)

(2) Staff changes: (a) Earth 4, Unsteady Ground, applies a 2s Knockdown instead of Cripple; dodging across the field still applies this effect. (b.) Geyser duration increased to 3s from 2s. © Ice Spike is now a Blast Finisher but its CD has been increased to 6s (from 4s); Vulnerability duration has been increased to 15s (from 10s) so that the total amount of Vulnerability applied is unchanged.

(3) Scepter changes: (a) Dragon's Tooth is now ground targeted and drops twice as quickly. (b.) Damage of Arc Lightning is increased significantly. © Phoenix and Water Trident reduced to 15s CD (from 20s.)

(4) Dagger changes: (a) Increased reliability of many skills.  (b.) Cooldown of Churning Earth reduced to 20s; Cast time reduced to 2s; Bleed stacks reduced to 6 (from 8) to compensate. © Fire Grab, Frost Aura, Cleansing Wave, Updraft and Earthquake reduced to 30s CD (from 40-45s)

(5) Focus... I really don't use enough to comment.

(6) General increase in damage of Trident weapons, in line with increased damage for almost all underwater weapons.

(7) Various trait changes to make options like Salt Stone in line with the abilities of other classes (i.e., 10% not 5%.); other improvements to the traits nobody takes, such as reducing the CD of Tempest Defence to 30s - again aiming to give parity with the abilities of other classes.

Overall I'm pretty happy with most of our utilities, although I think I'd like to see an extra Elite skill added at some point as our current ones are all a bit mediocre.  All of the above changes would probably be too much, but many of the changes are just to make things work better instead of being outright buffs.

Edited by Aetou, 18 November 2012 - 07:01 PM.

[Featherman]

Too much to list, but I'll try anyhow.

Conjure Weapons

• Removed useless trait in fire (plenty of them to be swaped out) with "Powerful Conjuration" trait that adds 20% damage and condition duration to conjured weapons
  
• Replaced emove another useless fire trait with "Debilitating Ether" which causes wielders of conjure weapons to pulse a condition corresponding to the weapon's element every 5 second in a 240 PBAoE. Fire>Burning, Water>Chill, Earth>Cripple and Bleed, Air>Weakness
  
• Conjured weapons have instant cast time
  
• Replace Conjure Fiery Greatsword Elite with Conjure Etheric Greatsword. The elite skill summons a greatsword the same element the Elementalist is attuned to. Each greatsword has a skillset similar to the Fiery greatsword but inflicts different conditions based on their element. Cooldown is now 120 seconds.
  
• The "Conjurer" trait is now an adept Earth trait and now adds 15 charges
  
• Weapon stats are preserved while using bundles (this applies to both conjure weapons and engineer kits)
  
• Added 5 charges to all Conjure weapons.

Arcana

• Reduce base attunement swap cooldown by 30%, and decrease the maximum reduce attunement swap cooldown from increases the Arcana trait line to 45%
  
• Evasive Arcana skills are now blast finishers with a shared cooldown of 10 seconds.
  
• Fixed Winborne Dagger Trait. The trait now compounds with swiftness.
  
• Removed internal cooldown from elemental surge

General Condition spec tweaks

• In order to differentiate condition spec elementalists new traits have been added
  
• Earth- "Hypovolemia" Master Trait has been added. Foes are weakened for 5 seconds whenever a bleed is applied (10 second cooldown)
  
• Earth- "Concussive Earth" Grandmaster trait has been added. Earth attacks daze foes with 4 or more conditions for 1 second (15 second cooldown)
  
• Water- "Cold Anemia" Master trait has been added. Water attacks chill bleeding foes for 5 seconds (20 second cooldown)
  
• Fire-"Searing Fire" Adept trait has been added. Inflict 1 stack of vulnerability for 5 seconds every time you burn your foe. (no cooldown)
  
• All traits are affected by "Lingering Elements," i.e. attacks from fire attunement while under the effects of Earth and Water lingering attunements count as Fire, Earth and Water.

Other Elite Skills

• Reduce Major Glyph of Elemental cooldown to 90 seconds. Increase health of summoned elementals by 30%. Earth Elemental now passively reflects projectiles. Fire Elemental burns nearby foes for 1 second every 5 second. Ice Elemental removes 1 condition every 15 seconds. Air Elemental's AoE blinds enemies for 2 seconds.
  
• Tornado reflects projectles. Added "Gust" and "Vacuum" skills while in tornado form. Gust knocks down nearby enemies for 1 second in a 180 range (12 second cooldown). Vacuum pulls surrounding enemies towards you. Range is 400 (30 second cooldown, i.e. you can only use it once while transformed). Increase movement speed of cyclone by 30%. Cyclone blocks projectiles.

Edited by Featherman, 18 November 2012 - 08:43 PM.

[justf0rnow]

Aetou, on 18 November 2012 - 06:59 PM, said:

snip

Featherman, on 18 November 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

snip

now, could you two both apply to work for ANet? because those sounds amazing

[Featherman]

justf0rnow, on 18 November 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

now, could you two both apply to work for ANet? because those sounds amazing

Heh, I think they should hire people to work on eles period. From the looks of it, there aren't any designers actively playing the class and the only response from ANet on the elementalist forums are the ones telling frustrated players to not attack eachother.

[Fenice_86]

Mmh interesting topic!
I'll throw in my wishes!

Skills:

Staff:

• Flame Burst - Increased CD to 15 sec, this skill is now a Blast Finisher
  
• Ice Spike - Increased CD to 6 sec, this skill is now a Blast Finisher
  
• Geyser - Increased duration by 1 sec

Scepter:

• Flame Strike - Cast animation reduced from 1+1/4 sec to 1 sec
  
• Dragon's Tooth - Increase CD to 10 sec, this skill is now ground targeted
  
• Shatterstone - Increased CD to 4 sec, this skill is now a Blast Finisher
  
• Arc Lightning - Cast animation reduced from 3+1/2 sec to 3 sec

Dagger:

• Earthquake - Reduced CD to 40 sec

Focus:

• Fire Shield - Increased duration to 5 sec
  
• Comet - Reduced CD to 20 sec
  
• Gale - Reduced CD to 45 sec

Trident:

• Magma Orb - Damage increased by 50%
  
• Boil - Now also inflicts Burning for 3 sec
  
• Rock Spray - Increased range from 400 to 600

Elite:

• New Skill: Armageddon - Damage 400, Casting time 5sec, CD 180 sec, Range 1200, Radius 360. Summon the ultimate power of elements, dropping on the ground Meteors, Ice Shards and Lightning while channelling. Depending on which elements hit the target it will also inflict: Burning (2 sec) from Meteors, Chilled (2 sec) from Ice Shards, Stun (1 sec) from Lightning. Also it will also inflict Crippled (5 sec) to all enemies in the AoE.

TRAITS:

• Sunspot - Fixed to actually trigger a Flame Burst when attuning to Fire
  
• Persisting Flame - Fire fields last 50% longer
  
• Pyromancer's Puissance - Might duration increased by 1 sec
  
• Weakspot - Increased the number of Vulnerability inflicted to 2 each Critical hit
  
• Tempest Defense - Reduced CD to 60 sec
  
• Grounded - Increased damage by 20% to disabled foes instead of only Knocked Down and Stunned foes
  
• Rock Solid - Increased stability duration by 1 sec
  
• Elemental Surge - Conditions caused by arcane skills all increased in duration by 50%

Edited by Fenice_86, 19 November 2012 - 10:54 AM.

[Xyless]

I didn't realize other classes didn't have a Dropped Skill that added to the Drop Count. That might be my biggest annoyance now.

[Isms]

I would simply add explanations for nerfs. People need to understand that Evasive Arcana was a bug, that made Ele WAY overpowered, and definitely the strongest PvE class in the game. ANET's goal was to make this game about teamwork, and when an ele can provide the best fields and best finishers on call throughout entire fights, there's no teamwork needed.

[Dominique de Lombre]

Isms, on 20 November 2012 - 07:09 PM, said:

I would simply add explanations for nerfs. People need to understand that Evasive Arcana was a bug, that made Ele WAY overpowered, and definitely the strongest PvE class in the game. ANET's goal was to make this game about teamwork, and when an ele can provide the best fields and best finishers on call throughout entire fights, there's no teamwork needed.

Fields/finishers to me is what made the ele unique, but also know that EA wasn't just used on MY fields only. I could roll into a guardian's light field for retaliation, a sylvari's aoe heal to give extra healing w/out switching to water, and countless other fields created by other classes. EA needed tweaking (a shared 10 sec CD - mayb slightly lower or a higher CD if CDs aren't shared), but taking away blast finishers completely isn't fair. I'm a staff ele and my only options now for blast finishers are ice spike, eruption, and arcane wave. 2 of those blast so long after I cast them that they're only useful if i time them to use for MY fields only and NOT my team's. Arcane wave is instant but the CD is 30 secs and hardly worth to take into a dungeon. That's why EA blast finishers are better in game w/ tweaking instead of taking them out and asking questions later. Becasue I use w/ my team not just myself.

[BlaineTog]

Isms, on 20 November 2012 - 07:09 PM, said:

I would simply add explanations for nerfs. People need to understand that Evasive Arcana was a bug, that made Ele WAY overpowered, and definitely the strongest PvE class in the game. ANET's goal was to make this game about teamwork, and when an ele can provide the best fields and best finishers on call throughout entire fights, there's no teamwork needed.

PvE is about more than starting and finishing combos.

mcmgw, on 20 November 2012 - 07:28 PM, said:

EA needed tweaking (a shared 10 sec CD - mayb slightly lower or a higher CD if CDs aren't shared), but taking away blast finishers completely isn't fair.

Given that you have to spend Energy to use these, I don't see why a shared cooldown is even necessary but I would've taken that in a heartbeat over losing blast finishers.

[Dominique de Lombre]

BlaineTog, on 20 November 2012 - 09:48 PM, said:

Given that you have to spend Energy to use these, I don't see why a shared cooldown is even necessary but I would've taken that in a heartbeat over losing blast finishers.

I could see why a CD is necessary. Endurance isn't that hard to gain back as long as you use it conservatively. Eating food/traiting for vigor make endurance something not too hard to get.

[draxynnic]

BlaineTog, on 20 November 2012 - 09:48 PM, said:

PvE is about more than starting and finishing combos.

However, the ability to set up and use comboes is regarded as one of the elementalist's main strengths when otherwise it's not exactly the strongest profession in the game, and removing the ability to self-combo makes life quite difficult for elementalists trying to solo. There's a reason S/D is so popular among solo elementalists.

Now, a lot of wishlists here seem overly powerful, although I can definitely get behind a buff to Arc Lightning (possibly just make it do the end-stage damage throughout the channel, and provide some other incentive to complete the channel such as applying a conditions such as Weakness). The current form does seem a little silly, partially because Arc Lightning seems to be S/D's go-to for front-loaded damage versus the conditions offered by other elements. I'd also have my eye towards making Lightning Strike more tactical rather than being a spam-on-recharge-for-DPS skill.

If possible, I'd also like to see Chain Lightning get some buff for situations where it doesn't bounce (dealing double damage, perhaps). At the moment, it is at a disadvantage compared to skills that can bounce to allies because the latter are fairly easy to get to make full use of their bounces.

Another thing I'd definitely have in there is a rebalancing of elementalist healing for levels below 80 - while the wiki numbers are such that they are on par with other professions, elementalist self-healing at low levels is definitely not on par with other professions.

Edited by draxynnic, 21 November 2012 - 09:36 AM.

[Mik Hell]

Staff:

• All autoattacks animation have been sped up roughly by 25-33% depending on base speed.
  
• All autoattacks projectile speed have been increased by 25%.
  
• Chain Lightning will now bounce on yourself when no other ofensive target is available providing a short (one second) swiftness boon.
  
• Gust is now a 90° frontal cone attack.

Dagger:

• Vapor Blade has it range increased to 900 and now will deal damage based  on the distance of your target: 0-600 will deal 100% of base damage, 601-900 will deal will deal 75% of base damage.*
  
• Vapor Blade has it's base damage doubled, will inflict two stacks of vulnerability, but it wont return back to you.
  
• Fixed Magnetic Grasp so it will never stuck your character midflight.
  
• Fixed Ride the Lightning so it will never stuck your character midflight.

Scepter:

• Flame Strike now has a small radius (120, like fireball)
  
• Dragon Tooth is now a ground target and it will drop about 25% faster.
  
• Fixed a bug which removed Dragon Tooth's blast finisher.
  
• Lighning Strike has a small radius, but will deal a lower amount of damage on targets away from its center.

Cantrips:

• Mist Form will now correctly benefit from Cantrip Mastery even outside of spvp
  
• Armor of Earth's Stability and Protection now last 8 seconds and benefit from boon duration
  
• Cleansing Flame now correctly breaks stuns

Conjured Weapons:

• All Conjured Weapons lost their charges and will now last 40 seconds
  
• All Conjured Weapons now overwrite only their element weapon skills
  
• All Conjured Weapons now keep base weapons stats (kits too)**
  
• Conjure Flame Axe now will cast Ring of Fire on its target location
  
• Conjure Frost Bow now will cleanse 2 negative condition from allies at the target location.
  
• Conjure Lighning Hammer will daze enemies at it's target location
  
• Conjure Earth Shield will cast a PbAoE knockback at your current location and it's now a blast finisher.

Elite Skills:

• Gliph of Elemental now has a secondary activation which will issue a command to your summoned Elemental to cast it's special ability(offensive on your target, defensive pbaoe centered ont the elemental).
  
• Conjure Fiery Greatsword now turns you into a dervish of destruction, you gain: 100% temporary base hitpoints (10k), 10% increased damage, swiftness, fury, protection and vigor for its duration.****
  
• Conjure Fiery Greatsword will now cast Lava Font both at your current position and at ground target.
  
• Conjure Fiery Greatsword now lasts 14 seconds
  
• Casting Tornado now will create a blast finisher (whirl during it's duration is still active)
  
• Tornado form will now destroy incoming projectiles inside it's area of effect.
  
• Tornado form's blowout will be cast on a one second pulse rate and knocks back by 200 units.
  
• Whirpool will now destroy incoming projectiles inside it's area of effect.
  
• Whirpool's pull will now be cast on a one second pulse rate.

Traits:

• Conjurer will increase Conjured Weapons duration by 50% and damage by 5%***
  
• Evasive Arcana's Churning Earth now has a blast finisher
  
• Evasive Arcana's Fire spell is now a working version of Flame Burst.
  
• Final Shield will now correctly proc at 25% health

*Vapor Blade changes are meant to give D/D users a way to deal a little ranged damage and not be totaly useless if in a situation where they can't switch weapons and get to melee range.

**Credits to Featherman

*** This trait will basically allow an Elementalist to keep it's favoured Conjured Weapon up all the time, damage increase is only 5% because more would make Fiery Greatsword already more overpowered than I have suggested

Also I added some bonus effects on conjuring because that's the greatest limitation of CW for me.

There are many more traits and bug that I'd love to see fixed, but my time is limited, I think I already wrote a lot

P.S: English is not my main language so forgive any possible error.

Edit:**** It's a transformation just like Tornado.

Edit2: some grammar correction

Edited by Mik Hell, 21 November 2012 - 06:23 PM.

[Isms]

mcmgw, on 20 November 2012 - 07:28 PM, said:

Fields/finishers to me is what made the ele unique, but also know that EA wasn't just used on MY fields only. I could roll into a guardian's light field for retaliation, a sylvari's aoe heal to give extra healing w/out switching to water, and countless other fields created by other classes. EA needed tweaking (a shared 10 sec CD - mayb slightly lower or a higher CD if CDs aren't shared), but taking away blast finishers completely isn't fair. I'm a staff ele and my only options now for blast finishers are ice spike, eruption, and arcane wave. 2 of those blast so long after I cast them that they're only useful if i time them to use for MY fields only and NOT my team's. Arcane wave is instant but the CD is 30 secs and hardly worth to take into a dungeon. That's why EA blast finishers are better in game w/ tweaking instead of taking them out and asking questions later. Becasue I use w/ my team not just myself.

You'll see that most classes can't create fields and blast them as well as ele can, we're complaining because something was taken away that shouldn't have been there to begin with. You could be like a necro or mesmer and create fields all over the place and nothing to do with them. Blast finisher is the best finisher in the game, and people are complaining about our lack of them. Thief has more, and that's about it. If you try to argue another class has more, they have to trait and spec and utility select way out of their way for it, but if we did the same, we would also.

[draxynnic]

Different professions have their different strengths and weaknesses. Elementalist is currently regarded by a lot of people as one of the two weakest professions - which the other is can vary, but Elementalist is almost always the other. The ability to set up and use comboes had been regarded as the specialty of the elementalist, making up for the fact that it is otherwise, in the words of some people, "a glass cannon without the cannon" - having the least ability to soak damage of any profession, mediocre damage, and limited control.

From my experience with mesmer, it does fine with its relatively limited ability to perform self-combos. Necromancer too, although I have less experience there. Elementalists live and die by them.

Mik Hell, on 21 November 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

• All Conjured Weapons now overwrite only their element weapon skills

This might actually be a bit of a minor nerf - Lightning Hammer, for instance, possibly gets the least benefit out of the passive effect of Air Attunement compared to Water, Earth, or even Fire

[Mik Hell]

Isms, on 21 November 2012 - 11:54 PM, said:

You'll see that most classes can't create fields and blast them as well as ele can, we're complaining because something was taken away that shouldn't have been there to begin with. You could be like a necro or mesmer and create fields all over the place and nothing to do with them. Blast finisher is the best finisher in the game, and people are complaining about our lack of them. Thief has more, and that's about it. If you try to argue another class has more, they have to trait and spec and utility select way out of their way for it, but if we did the same, we would also.

Take a look at the Engineer profession, it's the closest to an Elementalist in terms of complexity and they too have many blasts and fields. Almost any profession has a mean to blast it's fields, even mesmers.

The difference between Elementalist (and to a lesser degree Engineers) and other professions is that they do not need to use combos because they are much easier to play.

Elementalists on the other hand are almost required to use combos in order to perform at an acceptable level, sometimes even to survive and while i was learning how to play mine I thought I had to use combos because of a design decision.

How else could I explain the huge difference I experienced while, to get a taste of each profession, I was trying the first 10/20 levels of a Guardian or Warrior?

Also rolling into fields, even small or tiny ones like Geyser or Burning Speed's trail, was fun.

It was so fun that now I can't play my Elementalist in pve anymore, he feels dull.

Boring.

Having the possibility of blasting a water field multiple times thanks to vigor and energy sigil was OP, I will never deny it, but it was a fun mechanic which needed to be balanced.

Not erased.

Edit: draxxynic beat me by a few minutes

draxynnic, on 22 November 2012 - 01:06 AM, said:

This might actually be a bit of a minor nerf - Lightning Hammer, for instance, possibly gets the least benefit out of the passive effect of Air Attunement compared to Water, Earth, or even Fire

Well I think that the possibily of a combo using Static Field and Magnetic(to name one) Grasp could outweight passive effects from other elements and I personaly find boring being limited to only 5 skills on my Elementalist, I have fun using combos and rapidly switching elements, so letting a CW overwrite only its base element is more entertaining for me

Edited by Mik Hell, 22 November 2012 - 01:34 AM.

[Dominique de Lombre]

Isms, on 21 November 2012 - 11:54 PM, said:

You'll see that most classes can't create fields and blast them as well as ele can, we're complaining because something was taken away that shouldn't have been there to begin with. You could be like a necro or mesmer and create fields all over the place and nothing to do with them. Blast finisher is the best finisher in the game, and people are complaining about our lack of them. Thief has more, and that's about it. If you try to argue another class has more, they have to trait and spec and utility select way out of their way for it, but if we did the same, we would also.

I'm not arguing if another class has more. I'm saying that it's a specialty of the ele. It makes the ele fun. The ele is still viable but I just don't find it as fun w/out EA. You can disagree but it's purely my opinion and I don't believe the class is ruined or anything just less fun...

[MisfitAndy]

Mik Hell, on 22 November 2012 - 01:24 AM, said:

Also rolling into fields, even small or tiny ones like Geyser or Burning Speed's trail, was fun.

^^^THIS x 100!  Why they would choose to get rid of a mechanic that was ENJOYABLE instead of just tuning it down is beyond me.  Put a cooldown on the amount of blast finishers that it can pump out to 1 every 10 seconds, even, and it would still be enjoyable.  It was like a little mini-game within a game, and it offered solid incentive for being able to play skillfully.

[Shadowrose]

No big changes.

-Increase ele's base vitality by 9%
-Add worthy grandmaster traits in the Fire and Air trait lines
-Remove evasive arcana as a whole and add something else
-Make ether renewal based on 3 pulses instead of 4
-Ice spike is now a blast finisher
-Eruption cast time reduced by 20%
-Increase Chain lightning missile speed by 50%
-Fix the effing RtL trait bug
-Make scepter autoattack abilities less shitty.
-Fix the air scepter #1 visual bug
-Dragon's tooth is now ground targeted
-Shatterstone cast time reduced by 20%
-Improved Fire grab responsiveness
-Fixed the trait "lingering elements"
-Fixed mist form to actually grant invulnerability to conditions.
-Buffed Signet of air damage so it's actually worth taking
-Reduced gale cooldown (focus air #5) to 40 seconds
-Removed fire wall (focus fire #4) added something better
-Ice comet now has ground targeting, and the aoe is increased to 180 base.
-Focus water #4 cooldown is reduced to 20 seconds.
-Armor of earth cooldown is decreased to 80 seconds
-Fire, ice and air elemental are 20% harder to kill.
-New traits somewhere in the water, fire and air trait lines that make eles more resistant to burning, chilled and stuns.

I think that even after all of this, eles would still not be top tier or anything close to it.

[BlaineTog]

mcmgw, on 20 November 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

I could see why a CD is necessary. Endurance isn't that hard to gain back as long as you use it conservatively. Eating food/traiting for vigor make endurance something not too hard to get.

Yeah, but then you're spending more traits to facilitate extra blast finishers, and you're losing out on potential Magic Find from peach tarts.

draxynnic, on 21 November 2012 - 09:25 AM, said:

However, the ability to set up and use comboes is regarded as one of the elementalist's main strengths when otherwise it's not exactly the strongest profession in the game, and removing the ability to self-combo makes life quite difficult for elementalists trying to solo. There's a reason S/D is so popular among solo elementalists.

Precisely.  It's a weak profession, fundamentally good but numerically lacking.  The ability to complete our own combos with some regularity make it possible to feel somewhat useful even though our spells aren't hitting for very good damage, and it was also fun.

[AetherMcLoud]

WEAPON SKILLS:

+ Cleansing Wave is now a water field.
+ Reduced cooldowns for firegrab, updraft, gale and earthquake by 20-50%
+ Lightning Touch now blinds instead of giving weakness, now instant cast
+ Increased damage and healing of scepter water skills by 20%

UTILITY:
+ Armor of Earth now has a base cooldown of 75 seconds
+ Cleansing Fire does 3x more burning damage
+ All Conjure weapons are now instant cast, have double the base charges but no longer spawn a second weapon, and are no longer time limited.
+ Frost Bow now has 1200 range
+ Signet of Air: now passively increases movement speed by 20%
+ Arcane Power: fixed ALL the bugs.
+ Glyph of Storms: Firestorm now burns, Lightningstorm gives aoe Weakness
+ Spells used while in mistform now correctly benefit from traits.

ELITE:
+ Whirlwild now has a base cooldown of 90 seconds, duration reduced to 15 seconds.


TRAITS:


+ Evasive Arcana spells now behave exactly like the real spells. Water is a field, Earth a blast finisher.
+ Every "reduce skill cooldown by 20%" trait now gives additional boni: fire gives +50 power, air +50 precision, earth +50 toughness and water +50 healing
+ Persisting flames: now increased burn duration by 50%
+ Grounded: now works with updraft
+ Elemental Surge: Instead of on arcane skills the effects now happen upon switching attunements. Each effect has a 15 seconds cooldown.

Edited by AetherMcLoud, 22 November 2012 - 05:53 PM.

[SpelignErrir]

-Elementalist is now useful

[Milennin]

Dagger
Ride the Lightning now applies a short stun at the end.

Staff
Ice Spike is now a blast finisher and deals more damage.
Decreased casting time on Lightning Surge.
Unsteady Ground knocks down moving opponents when skill ends.

Traits
Returned blast finisher on Evasive Arcana. Added a 5 second cooldown for blast finishers to occur.
Flame Barrier now works in any attunement.

Miscellaneous
Fixed all bugged skills and traits.
Removed damage from Lightning Flash. Reduced cooldown (to 25 -30 seconds)
20% cooldown reduction on elemental spells now affect conjured weapons as well.
Improved damage output by Greater Elementals.
Tornado now applies 1 second invulnerability and removes 1 condition every 2-3 seconds.
Remade Fiery Greatsword into the Elemental Greatsword. The EGS is a conjured weapon with 4 times the amount of charges a normal conjured weapon has, and has different skills and appearances for each of the 4 elements which change when the player swaps to another attunement.

[bdatty]

Churning Earth - Decrease cast time by 1 second
Mist Form - Cancel ability implemented on number 1 skillbar
Arcane Shield & Arcane Power - Remove time duration. Finishes when number of use is depleted. Cooldown activates after effective use.
Attunement - Based on element attuned, the user gains x amount of stat bonus until changed.
Toronado - When using this spell, you take 40% less damage.

[Isms]

Dominique de Lombre, on 22 November 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

I'm not arguing if another class has more. I'm saying that it's a specialty of the ele. It makes the ele fun. The ele is still viable but I just don't find it as fun w/out EA. You can disagree but it's purely my opinion and I don't believe the class is ruined or anything just less fun...

I agree with you, it was fun as hell. But it shouldn't have been there in the first place, because now it just teases us. But it was way too op when it was there. I wish we could come up with some sort of compromise, like the actual AE skill blasting in one attunement or the other.

draxynnic, on 22 November 2012 - 01:06 AM, said:

Different professions have their different strengths and weaknesses. Elementalist is currently regarded by a lot of people as one of the two weakest professions - which the other is can vary, but Elementalist is almost always the other. The ability to set up and use comboes had been regarded as the specialty of the elementalist, making up for the fact that it is otherwise, in the words of some people, "a glass cannon without the cannon" - having the least ability to soak damage of any profession, mediocre damage, and limited control.

From my experience with mesmer, it does fine with its relatively limited ability to perform self-combos. Necromancer too, although I have less experience there. Elementalists live and die by them.

This might actually be a bit of a minor nerf - Lightning Hammer, for instance, possibly gets the least benefit out of the passive effect of Air Attunement compared to Water, Earth, or even Fire

This would be a HUGE nerf actually. The best thing about Conjured Weapons is that you can get the +20% dmg to vulnerable mobs (depends on your group setup as to how long they are vulnerable) and stay in water attunement while using them. I actually use conjured weapons on my D/D build all the time, and damn they hit hard.

Edited by Isms, 26 November 2012 - 04:37 AM.