A star just fell in lament for all eles...

Why? Because the enchantment hate in this game is growing. The dervish will force most current elementalists to reconsider their builds heavily. Well perhaps not the Prodigy guys...

Avatar Of Grenth: Foe loses an enchantment each time they are struck. (It's a form of a god, and has a 2 minute downtime. We'll see how it goes)

Intimidating Gaze: If you hit a foe with less hp than you, they lose an enchant and it ends. (Conditional. Not so bad. 20 second recharge to.)

Winds Of Disenchantment You lose all your enchantments. For each one, a random 'nearby' foe lose (only) 1 enchantment. (Meaning 4 nearby foes could lose an enchant. Very strong but still not so bad. Also 20 second recharge.)

Rending Touch: Both you and 'touched' foe lose an Enchant. (Um... Wow. 10 second recharge. A touch 'spell'. This could be very good for removing monky problem enchants and hurting the effectiveness of eles. Well again, we'll see what happens)

I bet a lot of ele's will be wishing certain enchantments become skills instead .

People are playing less and less elementalist due to allot of enchant removal and that EoE "nerf" back in the day. Well, I do hope SOME people countinue playing them.

I pretty much only play elem...but yeah, certain things need to happen by the time chapter 3 comes around for Elems to still be viable characters in the game. Damage? dervishes will do better pbaoe. necros do better single target damage and it's shadow damage. Support? Paragons. Nuking? not nearly as good after the nerf, but fire is basically the only usable element.

hmm interesting

i'd say wait til the game arrives before declaring ele's a dead char as there are many good skills in the game which dont get alot of use.

the elemntal class will not die, Yes elemetal class suffered alot. i am sure anet will figure how to balance everything.

mages should be very powerful

Whenever they are struck by an attack skill

Also Elementalists were already weakened, pretty much.

i dont use much enchantments on my ele (just elemental attunement), as i tend to just spike the hell out of the monsters and move on

naw its not the end of the world for elementalists.....theyre powerful, and very fun to play. maybe a nerf here and there, but they will fix it up when nightfall starts

calm down, nightfall is comming and so are new skills for every1, maybe a skill to prevent enchant removal?

ya or just use some glyphs... Ive always like glyphs better anyways but i started playing as a mesmer/necromancer for my first character... so I was always leary about using stupid enchantments by the time i tried ELE Because I was using Desecrate Enchantments with Echo before you guys even got your first ectoplasm (so to speak).

I DO think that at least the atunements and the aura of restoration enchantments must become skills.

1 in case of aura of restoration: Ele don't has any other good NON elite form of selfhealing.
2 enchantment stripped = low energy ele
3 desecrete enchantments + ele with their "superior" selfheal = death ele



Seeming as things are now ele MAY have the most energy, BUT their allmost all their skills Cost a hell lot of energy... And the results of those high energy skills aren't even as effective as a few adrenal build warrior skills....

meh, my nuker uses glyphs in PvE so i wont miss it, but my fav build for PvP is air magic+dual attunement T.T
*really starting to hope we get some kinda enchant removal protection*

I'm fine with that. My ele uses only one enchant, echo (not for a nuke either, but I instead echo an energy managment skill).

Eles need to start approaching the game like monks. They need to start concerving energy more and using 5-15 energy spells instead of 25 energy spells all the time. They need to carry +15 weapon slots for use in a jam. They need to be secondary mesmers for more reasons then just l337 echo ms.

In my opinion, the average ele prior to the nuking nerf was fairly unskilled. Few unstood energy management like they should. I saw too many meoteor showers cast after the mob was already dead. I think the average ele player has improved tremendously since that nerf (as far as I can tell with all the pugs I've been in). I see more earth and air eles now, and even a few hydromancers.

My ele's (my primary character) build has adapted with Factions. It will have to adapt again with Nightfall. That's just the way the game works.

My ele has very rarely if ever used enchanments. So it makes no difference to me. Glyph of energy FTW

So you are going to use that same build for every situation including HoH, GvG, TA, Randoms and against all PvE mobs? I just want you to try your build in some of those other situations and then tell me how it works. I promise you that it won't be an effective build in every situation.

By the way, you don't need to be a mesmer for energy management. There are elmentalist and necro skills that can do the same thing just as well if not better.

It's funny that you mention monks here because the only decent use for an ele in GvG is as a Heal Party spamming flag runner.

I don't think every elementalist SHOULD HAVE to be a mesmer secondary. In fact, neither does ANet. Every chance they get they talk about combining different classes together for new builds.

More, I don't think every ele SHOULD HAVE to carry +15 items just to compete. And I don't think any of what you just said was what ANet intended.

Before factions I had to actually think about my builds. Now, my only real option is one of two dumbed down builds (air or earth). In fact, the skill of the class is what originally drew me to it. It's way easier (as far as builds and thinking go) for me to be an ele now than it was then. (I will agree with you about the MS too late thing. That's an example of lack of skill.)

I agree with you on this point. I myself have adapted. Though I only use my ele for PvE now since he's next to worthless in all forms of PvP.

Bottom line, elementalists are uncommon, even very rare outside of PvE. There's a reason for that.

Elementalists have enchants?

My W/E earth tank

This event kind worried me; at times seemed that these 2 single classes can surpass every other in any matter, self healing, dmg dealing, support, etc. Recharges and casting times really need to be reworked if they want balance, or they should better give the core professions a big boost and rework around the almost never-seen skills. We are on the way to the 3rd chapter and mesmers and elementalists only have 1 way to heal themselves other than secondary profession and now they come up with a innate atribute that heals and returns energy at the same time? Rts and Assassins were pretty much fine and balanced imho, but these 2 new classes are way too far from being.

Regarding to elementalists now, I agree in adding a few energy management _skills_ for them, or reworking on skills and dmg. Do you ever see an hidromancer kill something alone? Quite hard, even in pve; some nerfs were based on spikes that frequentely happened due to high dmg (the very old air spike), but then, spirit bond, prot spirit, infuse would do the job, just needed time for people to develop familiarity with these skills. It turned up that only fire and eventualy air are used in pve, and earth and water as tactical skills in pvp, binded to energy issues, that leads to the enchantment problem. So yeah, they should give it some thought.

i am not sure why eles are the target of most of the unhappy updates which gw encounters.
with factions, they came up with OoA, ( Order of Apostasy ) to remove enchantments, and now these new chars.

i have yet to see a nuker doing sufficient damage to kill someone. a monk can take my damage in any ele form and laugh, tells me he is going to heal himself and then heals. mind u, i was spiking or nuking most of the time this monk spoke.

Not that i suck at eles, but i definetly find them very very fragile in most cases. attunements were made better, but definetly the nightfall chapter is going to force more hate against my eles. I have noticed the foes in pve areas as well, which encounter foes with enchantments first by removing them and then pick up the next priority target.

Ele hate and reworking issue has been discussed long before nightfall even existed. Ensign's posts have cleared it very well indeed that eles need to be buffed by far in most of the areas, be that their energy management system or their skills (spells mostly)

Expertise is by far stronger energy engine when compared to ele mana pool.

All skills ( Attack, traps, preperations, and for some lame reason, touch necro skills which i see fitting in none of the categories mentioned above ) have a reduced cost when spent into expertise.

On the other hand, ele mana pool is neccessary due to the fact that we have huge energy cost spells, a lame energy regen for such a high energy pool ( others might find me wrong here ) and a huge cast time. need atleast 2 attunements to keep us full ( means 2 skill slots devoted just to energy on top of the attribute points spent in Energy Storage Attribute ).

Well, this all seems a *bit* (understatement) unfair.
Specially the part where we are forced to use Skills or Spells to deal with our extremely high costing spells. We are given just 8 slots you know? and devoting atleast 1 or 2 just to deal with our energy storage on top of the attribute point consumtpions.... Well, You can all drive the conclusion at this point i believe.
I will quit my nagging here.

Regardz
An Elementalist.

Alot of neccessary elementist energy and health management revolves around enchantments which have long recast, so all this enchantment removal will be devistating, and the attacks a Dervish does outmatches just about any DoT spell for damage.

I can still see Elementist being able to blind dervish, and also being of great effectiveness with water magic which will now keep the 3 melee classes from reaching him, and perhaps some of these dervish enchantments will become very effective cover enchantments for Elementist, knowing that there is so much removal going on, a self AoE "enchantment" which just yeilds further effect upon removal may be just the cover he needs. Still, I have never been content with Elementist effectiveness with DoT spell capabilities and function, as well as the enchantment status of many neccessary energy management skills.

I still hope they decrease the recast time on some of those assassin teleports too, with those whirling warheads running around it will be more important than ever for Assassins to use proper hit and run, I can only imagine the kind of damage that a flock of NPC dervishes will put on the front line of battle.

I can't see ele's losing their 'support' capability with the introduction of the paragon, the 2 energy regen they get just can't maintain energy without using shouts/chants or mesmer energy management skills.

Elementalists still have the widest variety of useful skills.. snares, conditions, AoE, Spikes, buffs, defensives skills.

Also, as for the enchant removal stuff.. in recent GvGs I've been playing Ele, and I've been using Second wind, gotta be careful with exhaustion (I only ever have one exhaustion skill in my bar if I can help it, this case it's second wind), but it's a great energy management skill. Also, good ol' drain enchant or Edrain are classic ele favourites to keep energy up.

Hey, I'm still able to kick ass and never find it hard to get into groups, this should be a challenge if anything.

Well it will certainly be interesting. The reason Elementalists will have potentially the most difficulty here is not just because of energy management but also because most of their defensive, self-support skills are also enchantments...

Sliver Armour
Swirling Aura
Magnetic Aura
Armour of Earth
Kinetic Armour
Aura of Restoration
Armour of Frost
Armour of Mist
Obsidian Flesh
Windborne Speed

They aren't alone though. Monks will suffer also, just not to the same degree...

We have to remember that this is the team that actually gave us the elementalist in the first place. Perhaps they have reason for the madness behind the current state of them.
Maybe they have positive plans for our conjurers that require this level of hate towards their basic defence structure (barring wards of course). The much needed mass-buff perhaps.
However, this is also the same team that nerfed AoE, the 'god' spell (Ether Renewal) and gave us weaker armour than rangers against our own spells. They may just hate the elementalist and want them gone...

We shall see...

^^ best Glyph for me

Maybe un-nerf AoE for just eles? Increase wards to the size of aggro circle? Make some ele defensive enchants instant activating stances or normal skills?

I love Elems...blasting people with spells has always been my favorite thing to do in RPGs.

I'm note sure if the Attunements should become skills - that might be TOO powerful.

I think Energy Storage needs to be boosted a bit; it's too weak because that extra mana it provides has to cover an entire battle. Unlike health, it doesn't really matter what your max Energy is for HA past a certain point -- you're certainly never going to regen your mana back up to 80 (unless you user Ether Renewal the group's build has the ability to put a ton of enchantments on you). The 30 or so extra mana you get from Energy Storage just doesn't go that far. It would be nice if the attribute also reduced the cost of spells by 1% per rank.

How abount an enchantment spell (would be Me:inspiration)

"Lyssa's veil" (cost:5; cast 1/2s; recharge 15s)
(Enchantment spell) For 10...20 seconds, Lyssa's veil does nothing. When Lyssa's veil expires, the user gains 1...4 energy. If Lyssa's veil is removed before it expires, the user is unaffected, and the foe removing it loses 1...4 energy instead.

The ultimate cover enchantment. Cheap, pays for itself, and slightly hurts the assailant if removed. And it'd make it possible for other classes to be as strip-resistant as dervishes. All at the cost of one skill slot, basically. Of course, if it was added only to the nightfall campaign, it'd be pretty unfair to the other chapter's players, so it'd have to be a global update...

As an elementalist, i use NO enchantments on my own builds. My healing is a skill, my energy management is an attack. To bad cant get me with ench removing... the only ench i ever use is prodigy, and thats a 5 sec recharge...

Ferocious Strike {E} - 5e, 0c, 8r
You gain 9 energy and adr. and your pet does +25 damage.

(yes that really does help with energy management, its effective in my opinion, i usually bring glyph of lesser energy if im using more than 1 25e spell.)

Predatory Bond - 10e, 0c, 30r
for 17 secs you gain 25 health each time your pet hits with an attack.

(add call of haste for even more health, you can get over 300 with it)


So personally, i could care less about the ench removal, but the scythe wih its 41 damage 0_o... now hows that fair


Note: Obsidian Flesh stops all ench. removal... just making a HUGE point that anet already has given earth and water ench. removal defenses...

Obsidian Flesh {E} - 10e, 1s, 30r
For 18 seconds, you cannot be the target of foes spells, and gain +20 armor. You move 50% slower.

Mirror of Ice {E} - 5e, 3/4, 10r
For 60 seconds, the next time youre target by a spell, that spell fails and the attacker takes 70 damage. (note ~ does not affect hexes)

so mirror of ice is pretty much the ultimate cover up ench already. It does not trigger at hexes, (/mo with hex removal is nice) and this stops energy stealing, ench. removal, spikes, interupts!!! cmon look at the potential of this ench!!!

ROFL....still laughing..... ALMOST DONE...

Nuking... pshh nuking sucks, its been proven that nukes do a whole lot less than almost anything else, its only viable in pve. PVP, looks like the almight air spike is pretty much down the drain with all this ench. removal, but seriously NUKING THE ONLY USABLE!!! hahah... have you ever tried the other elements??!??!?!?!?? air can outdo a necro anyday, especially since necros usually have to get up close to do good spikes. air does enough damage, in the 50s to wars as well. for the same amount of energy. REALLY. Earth is my fav, with wards, spikes and aoe attack that do good damage and last for 5 secs, getting in at lest 3 hits if they are in the middle of it. Eruption is very good at spreading wars away from monks, and churning earth stops many of them from using sprint rush, and also totally annihilates touchers with escape. Unsteady Ground also is great as it will always hit 5 times beacuse if they attack theyre kd'd, who isnt always attacking...15 energy 20 recharge, now theres a good elite. water is snares, very effective, and also look at ward against harm, 15 energy 20 sec recharge, and a lot of defense, +24 vs EVERYTHING. warriors, rangers, elements, EVERYTHING, and no, it cannot be stripped. there is no counter.

ARE WE CLEAR NOW!?

ugg not another one...

Learn to use skills, energy tap, energy drain, GLYPHS... there are many many ways to conserve energy as an elementalist, you dont see necros or mesmers running out of energy do you? go about an elementalist the same way, you dont need to be dishing out aoe 25 energy spells do be effective, dont waste all the energy you have in the first 20 secs. find your own energy managment skills, i used BM, i was content on being a BM from the first moment the game came out. As for healing, thats what ur 2ndary is for.

Um... Ok. I understand what your trying to say but a lot of what you have written isn't entirely accurate.


Firstly, Obsidian Flesh: Yes it can't be removed by spell disenchantment, but there are now TONS of non-spell variants.

Chilblains
Well of the Profane
Order of Apostasy
Signet of Disenchantment
Expunge Enchantments
Spirit of Disenchantment

I think that's the current complete list. All but 1 of the dervish equivalents I mention are not spells either. The protection from the dark flesh is not absolute.

Mirror of Ice:

This enchant does not stop removal, it only mitigates the damage (if any). It only works on spells. If someone hexes you, like you admit, your still f'ed. The hex will go through. Spell interrupts will still go through (even if the caster is damaged in return). Things like Energy Drain/Energy Tap etc. will still take energy from you. Life stealing spells will still steal life. BackFire will be mitigated once only etc.
Basically the only thing Mirror Of Ice protects you from is spell 'damage', then it ends, A lot of the 'potential' you speak of just doesn't exist. That is much of the reason why it irks me so. A waste of an elite.

Ether Prodigy: Awesome. However imagine being stripped before you're ready to lose it. Could be a nice spike you hand to the enemy. Without a cover it could be dangerous.

Necro damage is just superior. It may not have the high numbers you see in the skill listings, but it is of far higher calibre. The blood line is mostly armour ignorant and most can not be mitigated. I'd gladly take consistency over random (armour dependant) damage any day...

Also his point about Dervish aoe has some substance. A lot of it is either instant or melee. Melee has never caused foes to flee. This may change. Instant damage has never done so either. This (which sincerely doubt) may also change.

. Now this is precious. Have you been playing the same elementalists the rest of us have? 25 energy spells are not the preserve of just aoe. Last I checked, mesmers don't have to worry too much about spending a huge amount of energy before their damage (degen/hexes etc.) has already surpassed that of the elementalist where high armour is a problem. Necro's get energy when things die dude. Like, for free (adequate Soul Reaping assumed). Your use of a pet for energy is commendable for it's originality but it is also inefficient and conditional as hell.

Three slots for energy management? You serious? Plus you are not a ranger so you will spend a great deal getting your BM to rank 12, at which point you'll get 9 energy (anything below this would amount to a waste of time as you spend 5 energy to use the skill. That's actually +4 energy dude. +4).
Since you can't use runes, that's 97 attribute points. Nearly half your budget. How much is in your main damage attribute? How high is your energy?
Most obviously, if your pet dies...

It's not really about learning 'to use skills' as you put it. It's about trying you use your elementalist as an 'elementalist' (not a fake monk or mesmer) to operate efficiently. This just isn't really possible (regardless of enchantment stripping or not).

You can not blind someone with form of melandru. You will not snare anyone for very long with them having contemplation of purity as it is, or if they use pious restoration and remove many hexes in exchange for 1 enchantment.

Considering their concept and how they are able to operate, id say the dervish is the "fixed" elementalist and the elementalist is the heal party/extinguish monk. Then again with cultists fervor you could do the same with a necro. The dervish's ability to perform aoe attacks is far surpasses what a ele could throw out, in addition to having a respectable form of sustained melee attack for damage over time. Then you have after effects from those aoe attacks that mimic some of what a ele could do, for less cost. For example fingers of grenth has a interesting parity to frozen burst.

Ive used ether prodigy for a long time now when i did play a ele and one of the last things i was worried about was enchantment removal. However, i really dont see much point in playing one anymore really. Lightning orbs miss alot, blinding flash gets removed quickly (or now with people simply immune to it), and the hexes get removed too easily due to the high costs, cast times, and recast times. Then you have the exhaustion mechanic, which doesnt create a snyergy with anything really and is only a limiting mechanic to prevent cross class overuse.

i should have mentioned that i only pve

Variety doesnt make a class good if you can only use 8 skills.

Not really. check necro elites too, mind you, they have their primary attribute if you can recall. MythiCheck their primary attribute too.
The variety of skills which you spoke of, let me describe them more from a PVE prespective to clear you.
Fire: Huge Energy Consumtpion spells, high recharge time. Huge cast time. ( AOE update has affected it already )
Water: Not sure, how many pugs do you find taking water ele with them? who cares of your foe is slow or not? if you were in range to cast your snare at them, expect them to cast something on you too. It is fast killing in PVE that pug groups need most of the time if you are an ele. not snare ele. Cripple does better job to slow them down in my honest opinion.
Earth: All defensive skills are enchantments, and we are speaking of "Hate Against Enchantments", i suggest you check the Op's first post.
Air: An attribute which does some damage even at high level, though not AOE. Wont go in details for this one.

Now, kindly list the *usefull* skills that you have found in the list of ele skills, i would like to see the ratio of USEFULL and NonUsefull skills.

GVG, you are an ELE, you are mostly used for BlindFlash, or Wards, or HEAL area. Eles are not used in gvgs for damage dealing purposes.
Ensign's thread about "Why nuking sucks" will explain thoroughly, along with the numbers provided to support the facts that he has presented.( The facts which are very fugly IMHO)

Wards, make senses, mind you, those 2 things you have mentioned are mere the tip of an iceberg

@trylo
dude, where the hell are u getting that huge energy pool from any way to cast all those eathly wonderful skills? their duration ( For conditions ) is pathhetic. Check their mana consumtpion. Wards are one of the major reasons why eles are in use still. Snare eles, as i have said above, others can do better. And mind you, to have that Beautiful +24 armour against ANYTHING, you need to cram your entire team into that small area of ward.

@Frojack, anonymous & Phades
Totally agreed.

You forgot dark apostasy.

Guys in pve try water magic. A simple deep freeze will keep those warrior and assassin mobs from rushing past you tanks into your monks. With 66% slow all you need is to run 2 sec and you lose aggro. Great spells. I think Mind Freeze's 90% slow is greatly underappreciated. Also ice spear has be buffed so many times, now it is decent damage.

If i EVER use one 25 energy spell it's Meteorstorm, BUT since i don't like the recharge and costs of that spell i won't be using it very often... (Unless i nuke offcourse )

As for the glyphs....
Glyphs on guildwiki.org
After a simple inspection we see that we have a WHOPPING 2 choises which are "good" options....

GLYPH OF ENERGY {ELITE}
E5 C1 R15
Elite Glyph. For 15 seconds, your next spell costs 20 less energy to cast and does not cause exhaustion.


Glyph of Lesser Energy
E5 C1 R30
Glyph. For 15 seconds, your next spell costs 15 less Energy to cast


Those look reasonable... but ......hey....wait a second..... 15 or 30 seconds recharge? .... Waiting that long is not the way to go for good energy management.


I certainly DO see those proffesions run out of energy, but not very often....
Due to the fact that most of their skills LAST LONG, or don't cost much...
And soulreaping is also helping the necro (which has been pointed out allready)

I may be mesmer as secondairy, but i don't use skills from them (maybe a FEW energy skills) besides arcane echo for echonuking. Going FULL ele is just better, because you don't have to spend your points so widely...

Also using Ranger as secondairy for just the energymanagement is .... original.... but NOT handy... Atleast 3 slots wasted for energymanagement.
Charm animal: dûh :P / Comfort animal: You can't gain energy with a death pet (except if you are a necromancer :P) / your elite skill thingy: for the energy.
And seeming as it is, your pet will get more and more dp until you have to res it over and over just for your energy management...





But enough babling, something needs to be done for our ele's, we don't want to be monk secondairy for just the stupid selfheal or heal party spamming thing. We want semi reliably selfhealing and energymanagement

I've heard this before with the intro of the rit and assassin, both of which have devistating ench removal or ench manangment. Ele's still do a good deal of damage, make strong support characters and have a nice energy pool. Before we cry wolf on enchant removal, i think the aoe damage from the dervish is going to be the main focus. They should have long ago lowered the attunments recharge, other then that, most ele ench's are pretty useless in both pve and pvp. Monk's have and will continue to suffer the worse over ench removal.

Let me start by between 2 accounts I have one of each class of character and I've played an ele since September of last year. That being said, for the most part I played a Paragon this past weekend. As a 'support' class they are FAR superior to the Ele. 2 energy regen was plenty. I NEVER ONCE ran out of energy. You say it is contingent on running chants and shouts. Well yes, this is the point of class (I don't think enough people understood that).
Chants/shouts to buff energy, attacks, armor and health with only 2 pips, it was plenty!! Plus adrenal attacks, I'm sorry my ele doesn't compare.

You mention drain enchant or Edrain - those are mesmer skills. Whether you use them or not is up to you. At that point you are going outside of your own class for energy management which should be enough to show that the class itself does not have enough e-mgmt without running the Enchantments.

That is what the OP is saying. That with emergence of the Dervishes ability to so easily remove these enchantments the Ele has no skills within its own class to manage that energy the way it stands right now.

it concerns me that the elementalists close up aoe dmg.. ie flameburst, inferno, starburst, aftershock etc are kinda obsolete with dervishes.. yeah the ele can get up to them and use some skills like that..but who cares the dervish just completely pwns it with 2 stupid skill -.- Heart of flame and balthazar crap

The Dervish AoEs need to be balanced in respect to the Ele ones. It's absurd that a Dervish can deal more AoE damage, more frequently, and from a more rugged platform (Dervish survivability is so much better than Ele, it's not even funny).

Also Ele AoE dmg can be reduced by ele resistance and ranger armor. Heart of Holy flame does Holy, Balthazars rage does regular dmg.