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

Presumably Elementalists get 20-25 new skills in Nightfall.

Elementalists are fine. Even if you merely do E/caster for the energy Storage.

*sigh* why does everyone asume PvE eles are ALWAYS Nukers ?

Spiker Eles DO exist in both PvE and PvP !!

I played a Dervish during my "copious" spare time this weekend, and somehow, I came up with a different perspective on the subject of Enchantment removal than everybody who's posted here so far.

Did anyone try removing an Enchantment on a Dervish? Did it get you very far? I didn't think so. Now, since removing an enchantment can now hurt you, or benifit your opponent more than you'd care to, doesn't that mean that players will be more selective in using them? Give the game a couple of weeks post-release, and I think the answer will be yes.

I would be willing to bet that in the upcoming chapter, there will be some defense for E's against Enchantment stripping. As has been stated, that will only benifit PvP players who purchase the new chapter (My answer: buy the new chapter). Is it possible that there is another secondary that could benifit Elementalists aside from /Me or /Mo? Is it heretical to suggest that not every class needs to contain all of the cornerstones of character creation (damage dealing, damage mitigation, hex/condition removal, self-healing and energy management, +) since we do in fact get 2 to play with?

The Dervish will be altered to protect the balance, and skillsets that were exploited will be changed to make that more difficult, but I don't think your basic issues will go away entirely. The next beta event will be more telling I am sure, as existing classes get the skills that will help them deal with the Dervish.

I see a lot of postings (as I have ever since balance was first altered in this game) that seem to hinge around one principle: "I've been running this, and I don't want to ever change it, but now it doesn't work so well". This is not intended as flame-bait, but you guys are kind of stuck in your ways. When knights first encountered the Welsh Longbow, the rules of battle changed forever, but there were still mounted cavalry through WWI, so they were definitely not obsolete.

The Dervish is here my friends, long live the Dervish. Evolve or die.
Now let's post some Dervish killers. Ranged attacks anyone? Hex based snares? (Oh, the E's get those? )

I thought this thread was simply going to get at how much more damage the Derv does casting spells lol. And its even deeper than that, besides the fact Dervs are much better PBAOE...

There's less and less a role for my first character which I had a lot of fun with PvE and PvP. So many new tools for other classes in chp2, few for the ele, and more and more its obvious the energy storage primary isnt comparing to helping them compete in pvp - damage spike has been truly contained and in [pvp or LONG pve] battles that last their DPS can't be sustained.

Honestly enchantment hate didnt worry me so much - quite frankly eles aren't a hot target. I think every class has to take notice of these new ones, particularly the Dervish - as is it's silly good (I'd say absurdly), even w/o CoP.

Ah see you didnt play long enough. Somehow infact you managed to miss all those items that remove hexes and conditions for Dervs, and you totally ignored the D/Mo CoP carnage that does both in one fell big swoop.

Actually my 'byline' would be 'Balance or Next Game'.


They're simple utility at best in PvP. Any class is 'fine' in PvE (well outside of Assassins who haven't figured that class out yet). Energy Storage is a bit of a dinosaur. It helps up front but does nothing for sustainability. 3 out of the 4 new classes got energy built into their primaries, and the Derv got health built in as well. Crazy huh? Think about Ether Renewal in all of its eliteness and lasting 7 seconds, and reflect on what a Dervish can do with their AoE bombs and conditions on the way out while they strip themselves for energy and health.

Yeah it'll be interesting to see the new skills, but honestly how many in chp2 really helped?
Most of it will probably be in an effort to remotely handle/attempt to survive the Dervish and Paragon.

Greetings,

I have to agree with the hate that eles are going to get in regards to their enchants. There are only a (slim) few enchants that eles have that are worth running. IMO, those are the attunements and (possibly) aura of restoration. And, those have such a recycle time as to make stripping of them hurt significantly.

On another note, just imagine how monks are going to feel? For example, just think about the protection monk. Any kind of protection build I've seen relies on enchants to be functional, much less effective.

I also agree that the entire skill set for eles needs to be revisited. It has been proven by those more knowledgeable than me (Ensign in particular I believe) that the entire damaging style of elementalist pales in comparision to other classes. The example I remember is that a warrior with a sword or axe and an empty skill bar will keep up with, or outpace, a damaging ele with a full skillbar. That comparison was made, however, before Factions, so I don't know if it still applies.

Elementalists have been more-or-less relegated to a support role, like earth wards/air blinds/water snares and such, not to mention those who take eles for just the high energy levels (E/Mo heal party spamming). In many peoples minds, mine included, that just doesn't fit with what an elementalist should be. They should be the kings of high, but not necessarily sustainable, damage. But, with the current setup, elementalists can't even claim that title.

Merry meet, merry met, merry meet again,
Wyldchild777

Actually, I theorized about the CoP the moment the description came out, and there are posts around here to show it. But I also suggest to remove their enchantments before they can use CoP to remove hexes. Follow up a Desecrate with a Rend (No enchantments=no effect from CoP). You do damage, and remove enchantments. This is also not a build focussed on Dervishes. This works for other professions although against Monks, it hurts.

Now, do you really think the Dervish is going to use an Enchantment, then CoP with no one nearby, just to remove Mind Freeze? I've got a shiny nickle says they won't.

The point of what I was saying is that if you do this at a distance, you remove a lot of their effectiveness, I.E. PBAOE.

And you did not address my point about the effect Enchantment Removal Love is adding to this game. Don't make me come up with an E/D build to kick your butt with. Ew. ED.

my point with the bm is that there is no reasonable way to stop it, either waste energy on _a pet_ or ignore it. My pet does a resonable 75ish to 60AL, giving me energy and adding to the spike/attack. around 45 to warriors. But you cannot strip a pet, you can blind him, but thats about it. It was my own example on how to get energy without enchantments. not exactly a viable choice i know.

*i havent expiramented much with mirror of ice, but it seemed in the description it would do all those things, and for the time i used it, it seemed like it did, but aparently im wrong, sorry about that. ANET really should change it, i mean its like ele vs ele... when does an ele ever attack an ele!? anyways, it should be a cover up ench, especially with the new skills nightfall brings us.

cover up enchantment? Another wasted slot u mean ? God, just quit it alread trylo.

JoDiamonds, you did not get many of us as what i could conclude from your post. You are giving eles a hope which relies on a whole new chapter? and based on just 25 new skills?

If i am getting you straight, are you trying to say that leaving that huge pile of my skills on ele is a waste of skill slot?
If so, what is the point of me makin an ele?

Overall, i am just amazed at anet paying attention to every thing, i bet they read it all, but yet they never made a significant change in ele skills or designed them to make them proper.

"A Damage dealing class" Is not what an ELe is considered to be any more.

Regardz

*reads through thread*

*classifies it under The Usual Ele Whine section*

*remembers to add an entry in the GW dictionary for the word "eledramatic" while in this section*

*pauses to think*

*"Eledramatic"- Behaving, showing, or characteristic of a tendency for complaining in an exaggeratedly theatrical manner about the GW profession Elementalist being underpowered.*

You heal them for the amount of damage you inflicted with desecrate when you rend the enchantments, then they simply recast. This is assuming they havent already killed you in the time it takes to cast both spells. From max aggro range to the time they start doing damage to you, you have roughly 2s. This is assuming that a muddy terrain spirit is not already up.

Considering that CoP is going to get changed given the way the dervish build worked and the fact that pious restoration will remove 2-3 hexes in exchange for 1 enchantment that recycles every 8s, i do not see alot going for your theorycraft here considering i attempted full blown ice builds durring (ice spikes, deep freeze, shard storm, ice prison, etc)the pvp event and found that they were completely ineffective due to the slow cast and recasting times of the ice hexes coupled with the high cost. Muddy terrain was far more effective, as was just spamming gale till their avatar wore off.

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IF there was a cover up ench, this thread wouldnt be whining so much beacuse we could have elemental attunements, armor of earth, armor of mist!!!


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The whole point of this post is HOW to stop ench. removing from being disatrous to eles, and i think i made my point.

u made ur point by adding ANOTHER cover up enchantment which yet makes an ele worst than what it already is, do u know Why ? BecaUSE You are left with pathetic 4 slots ( after 3 slots, + cover up enchantment ) . What you need to see is, a way so your energy storage attribute becomes better on its OWN, and not due to some pathetic enchantment coverup which requires energy and time to cast + a slot.
Man, You really need to pay attention to the OP's point of view. he is speaking of ele enchantment hate which makes ele even more gimped in nightfall, not to mention that the damage caused by eles to foes is still pathetic.

Can someone please explain the purpose of this thread to him?

I stopped reading here.

Now, you're quite right, I was playing GvG as support.. what difference does that make? I was talking about using other e-management than enchant-based stuff.

Another thing, last time I checked (about a week or two ago), Fire eles are still great for PvE, you just have to think a little and not just drop all your AoEs in one place.

The 'wasted slots' comment, you only need to take one of the skills I suggested

Unless they get some good skills with nightfall, eles are dead. They will become useless and nonexistant. The only skills that would still make them useful would be blinding flash or ward against melee.

Heal Party: Mystic healing on a dervish with 6 enchants, as effective if not more.
Water Slows: Aura of Thorns w/ immediate ending for bleeding to cover it.
Windborne: Pious haste or whirling whatever anybody?
Extinguish: paragon has this one, forget the name but it makes everbody lose a condition when they use a skill. On a plus note, with more burning skills extinguish becomes a little better.
Ward against melee: Put a dervish in the middle of where you want the ward to be and get him spammign damage enchants, no wars are gonna frenzy making it as effective as a ward

Ok this post didn't come out 100% the way I expected it, they MIGHT get in there here and there if the dervish's get nerfed beyond comprehension. They really need to fix eles, they can't spike for the life of them with shelter (or even without it), they are one of the worst sustained damage in the game, and they die faster than anything else.

Hell the only true ele (as in nuking like I'm sure they are meant to do) was fast cast air, only because fast cast damn near doubled or more their sustained damage.

Oh and as far as the eles are good in pve.... according to pve players a wammo is good in pve.... If its a warrior, and its secondary is monk, get it outta my group. Hell I don't care what you are, if your secondary is monk, there is a 50% chance (in pve) your gonna be using mending and get outta my group!

PS: They could revert ether renewal to like... 15 seconds now, it can't be abused in ele smiting anymore because you nerfed basically every skill that build used. Yes you went overboard, draw got nerfed, renewal got nerfed, balt aura got nerfed, zealots got nerfed, one more got nerfed but its not coming to mind.

Alathys Tylderaan, i see your point. The issue i have is this, an ele is only going to be used for a support role in gvgs, hell even in hoh most of the times. Most spike is done through necros, warriors, rangers, even mesmers and spike monks, i would like to see an ele spike in current gw. OB Flame? Bah, come on. i have spent a huge amount of time in another thread by comparing blood spike with ob flame spike, i will find it sometime if needed.

Eles are OK in pve, not good. The moment you pass Iron mines of Moladune, things go bad. in THK, you encounter one of the mursaat bosses, and the msx dmg i could ever put was a pathetic 21 or 25ish (can't recall) with rodgort's invocation.

um.... you do see the issue here right... armour... hint hint hint?

Ele is the profession which i have been working on since the day i started playing with ele, and i can tell you this from pve expereince ( and believe me, i can play almost any attribute class for ele there is for any kinda build i can hear or make quite effectively, been used to them ) ele has been pushed way too far. The moment i feel better about me being an ele at any point, a higher damage taking char just makes me feel useless. I have done FOC nuking too. beside mm, i can do alot of builds, not that i cant be an MM, i just hate being one. FOC nuking is greater by far once used properly. i did THK with my FOC nuker, and i was just looking at that same mursaat boss dying so fast that just made me drop my mouth wide open.

Mesmer esurge spike is not bad either.

Wasted slot comment was over attunements, and their cover up. TO be honest, to do continious spell casting, you do need both of those attunements. As what Evilsod once said in his post, once ele energy is down to zero, rest of the team members can go and make a cup of tea for their selves and come back while it recharges. If you mention glyphs, thats just to deal with heavy mana spells, not enough nukage. I mean:

• Warrior (Strength) Need to see a week point here. Couldn't find any skill which makes their strength attribute need a skill to make it better. just need to drop points in it to use shield and stuff properly.
• Monk (Divine) We all know how that works, right? Extra heal for divine points spent.
• Necros (Soul Repeaing) Way better energy manegement. No skill is needed to make it better i assume.
• Mesmer (Fast casting, i have yet to see a skill which is required to make it better. Any weakpoints of fast casting? i wonder if there is though
• Rangers (Expertise) All attack skills, traps and preperations cost less energy. Let me put it this way, a 15 mana skill cost 5? 3 times the difference when jacked up the expertise to 16. 4 pips of energy regen, guess how fast that rolls for a small lookin mana bar? need any skill to make it better? the pips regen stays the same, about 2 energy a second ( if i understand how the energy rises. )
• Ele (Energy Storage) HUGE MANA, for what ? same 4 pips of regen (while need atleast a few spells to get energy back, else it takes ages to gain the energy back... due to the spells which cost 15-25 on average). Why not give us atleast more pips of energy? i wonder if 6 pips are enough to be honest. Maybe i am wrong abou the regen thing here.

Back to enchantments.
Bah f*** the enchantments, who needs an ele any way now adays while others do a better job at it in high end stuff. beside wards, snares, blindflash bots and heal party ofcourse.

Regardz
An Elementalist.

I have played an ele since beta.. seriously things have only gone from bad to worse with the class. The AoE nerf, the low armor, the lack of survival skills, being outdamaged by warriors, and becoming forced into being played as a utility class due to nerfage and flat out weakness. Sad to see once powerful casters functioning like this now. For the most party eles are forced to blind, ward, or flagrun. Out of all the classes, the elementalist has the LEAST survival time on the battle field. The continued breakdown of this class in the name of "balance" has been flatout rediculous. In my opinion elementalists should be dealing alot more pain than the currently are. The take too much and deal too little. Having a monk myself, the ele is the hardest to keep alive because hes almost 100% dependant on you. I struggled so hard and put over 1200 hours on my elementalist, but this nightfall event and now the complete destruction of enchantments that elementalists rely on to survive just threw the last wrench in the gears for me. Many elementalists would agree with me when I say that playing an ele during that preview event was hell. You know I waited a long time, and kept playing my ele hoping things would get better. Factions comes out and most of the skills are a joke and many issues that keep elementalists from really making an impact in the game still exist. From the start things have NOT gotten better for eles and I just about lost faith.

Sunday night when the preview ended, I was so upset with how badly my ele was crushed by hordes of dervish that I said screw it and started up a warrior that I now dedicate all my building time towards. Playing through as a warrior, I was almost upset at how easy things were compared to being an ele. Maybe not everyone agrees but this is personal experience, and yes I am upset on how eles have been treated throughout the course of the game. Its been this long and things have not improved for the ele crowd. So you know, I'm done. No more low armor and crappy survivability, its just easier to pick up the big fat hammer and mow down all the squishies. No matter what happens, warriors will always be the "tank" and im content with that. Now... to kill all those dervish and paragons. This preview event was the last nail in the coffin for this elementalist player.

Seriously, if eles were not having issues, Ensign wouldn't have had spent so much time discussing how gimped these eles are in most of the situations.

Seriously, no offense since i am just a player who has no reputation, GW programmers need people like Ensign to work all over again and remake this class.

If this was just bull, so many threads for eles wouldnt have existed.

As almost anyone of you i am worried about the nerfs because they can make a build or skill not very interesting, especially an elite, and in the worst case totally useless; for instance after the Offering of Blood nerf there are no more Mo/N boon protectors and OoB is now used only by Touch Rangers, whereas the boon prot is always Mo/Me with Mantra of Recall. Or do you know a non-toucher build that uses OoB?

I agree that the slogan is always evolve or die but it is also true that the elementalist needs a little helping hand here and there. These are my ideas:

1. If you cast an attunement on you and a foe drains/renders/shatters/interrupts/KD you then you need to wait 45 secs in order to recast them. So why not make the recharge time of all non-elite attunements between 5-20 secs mimicking Aura of restoration (5 secs recharge) or Divine boon for monks (1 sec recharge) ?

2. Monks have the elite Spell Breaker and the non-elite Spell shield, Assassins the elite Shadow form and Mesmers the stance Hex breaker. So why not make Mirror of ice "the next time an enemy uses any skill on you" instead of "the next time an enemy spell would deal damage to you" ? Its an elite with 10 secs recharge so it cannot be spammable, and in that way you do have real protection vs all professions. For balance ANET can remove the damage on the caster and add the line "50% failure chance with Water Magic 4 or less".

3. Armor. Rangers have in all their armors a +30 armor vs elements, so why not make all elementalist's armors have a +10 base armor vs elements and the extra features to be +health or +10 armor while enchanted/vs elements/vs physical damage ?

And lastly a petition. A lot of people here have mentioned Ensign thread/guide/post on elementalists but i havent found it within Guru, even using Google search. Can anyone of you post a link of the long acclaimed Ensign's insights ? (please i mean no sarcasm im serious, he has been quoted tons of times) Thank you in advance.

Someone please give the eledramatics a chill pill. How did this start by Dervishes having plenty of chant removers and so supposedly putting Eles at a jeopardy, and ended up with the usual buff this skill, buff energy storage brag?

Heh, the only solution I found to the problems was to shelf my ele until something worthwhile happens. I just play my war for now, because I know wars are going to make dervish cry.

eledramatics? let me ask a simple question, got an ele? let me know before i go further on your post. DIdn't see one listed in your professions for your profile. i dont care how much your experience is in PVP. As long as you have any thing to do with PVE, i will see what kinda answer you can come up with. You can even bring PVP in here though, lets see.

I kindly suggest Not to post stuff in a thread where you got nothing really useful to say. Specially a thread which is not the only one for this profession. There has to be a reason for so many threads regarding this profession's issues... agreed?

Read my 2nd last post, you will have a slight view of what i spoke of in terms of primary attribute weaknesses.

Regardz
An Elementalist.

PS: One of the threads by Ensign describing core issues with elementalist profession...
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=113319
Have a good few hours reading.

i make the same points as Cynn Evennia with the mirror of ice so that elemental enchantments are not so easiy stripped, and you dont mind flaming me and not her.

In no way do i think that a cover enchantment should be THE fix, but one that has been needed for a very long time. I personally think it is a waste of a slot, almost no one worries about being stripped once, maybe twice other than an ele. Which is not really fair because the enchantments are the only way to survive as an ele, and it really should not be this way. They need expertise build in for elemental att., add another pip at X es, i dont know, but it is not balanced at all for an ele.

Xpl0iter, thanks a lot for the link. Please feel free to post/whisper me/email me more (in fact i kindly ask you to do so). I have just read the thread of Ensign and it only made me feel really sad about elementalist failing as damage dealers but let me not complicate things more than they are and focus on enchantments.

[Side note: i was going to say "spectacular failure as damage dealers" but i agree with you, Hella Good, that we need to chill out; i hope this post will be relatively objective and undramatic for your high standards]

I think anyone playing an elementalist will agree that if you dont have any enchantments on you are very limited both offensive and defensively (eg attunements and aura of restoration, not to say armor). I am glad, Trylo, that you agree with me and my suggestion for a buff on Mirror of ice to make it counter skills used on you; your post makes me think Mirror of Ice should be a nice way to help elementalist and motivates me to continue the ideas on "buffs" on elementalist (for me "a necessary helping hand" is a better noun but ok, lets say buffs).

The point of making Mirror of ice useful against any skill is that, if elementalist cannot heal themselves, at least let them have a chance to counter enchantment removal, high damage and degeneration, being all of them skills. More precisely i propose this:

Mirror of Ice (Elite)
Energy Cost: 5
Casting Time: 0.25
Recharge Time: 10.00
Description: For 60 seconds, the next time an the next time an enemy uses any skill on you, that skill fails and Mirror of Ice ends. 50% failure chance with Water Magic 4 or less.

You dont want this skill to be abused, for instance by warriors or dervishes ? Make it Energy Storage dependent, a stance or/and raise its cost to 10 energy then.

I will really appreciate and thank any opinion about this Mirror of ice buff proposal, as well as my other 2 proposals: a little more armor vs elements and lower recharge times on attunements.

Ok Hella Good, i wanted to remain silent but i couldnt help it, please accept my apologies.

Why elementalist are the only profession that does not have a healing skill? Lets see: monks (duh), mesmers=ether feast, necros (duh), warriors=healing signet, assassins=shadow refuge, ritualists (duh), dervishes (duh) and paragons=leaders comfort (i dont remember well the name). Just as an example of this: has any of you casted Aura of restoration desperately when it was still on you to counter degeneration near death? Well, i hate to confess it but i have.

After this bias against elementalists dont you think that there should be a self healing skill in the line of energy storage ? A non-elite skill of course.

not to mention the fact that, if eles could splash enough damage arround, others would actualy worry about healing them while they do damage. issue is, they neither deal damage properly, nor heal their selves.

Lowering recharge time on attumenets alone does not help cynn. What do you need the energy for when your skills are not even recharged once casted? and even if you cast them, are you able to do enough damage to apply preasure? I am afraid... no. Mirror if ice is still not in my good books *yet* because of my thirst for energy usage.
i can't use my elite other than energy support in any of my builds unless i am not using ele skills at all. nearly all of them require huge manage consumption and i am afraid, their regen is quite slow on its own, even with the need of that Specific attribute related attunement on )

PS: sure, i will try to find and send you some more stuff Cynn.

Regardz
An Elementalist.

I had a PvE Ranger and Elementalist but after the Necro, Monk, and Mesmer, I had 0 motivation to roll my Ranger and Ele all the way to the end. I opened the slots up for PvP characters. Both Ele and Ranger and UAX and I have played them extensively in PvP. Fav Ele builds: Earth Chant Up Spike Up, PBAoE + AoDisplacement, Air WarHate, Water Hex Movement Management.
Ensign did not cover the entire Ele damage line (he only spoke of Fire and Air) or comment on the non-damage uses of Eles. He was arguing the case that Warriors have a higher dps at a lower "cost" than Eles do. With all due respect to the man, a comparison between two professions is incomplete without factoring in all things that are kept equal so that the number analysis can be made easier. Something he did acknowledge. Plus bringing a 6 month old argument into the discussion will not give any weight to what you are saying.
I was pretty happy using Aura of Restoration with Dagger spam. Keeps KA on and heals you for 15 or so every couple of secs. Nice compliment to Obs Flesh. And no, don't say Ether Feast is a viable heal, I'd rather classify it as e-denial. Seriously. I'd rather use Heal Sig or Parasitic Bond Spam for healing purposes on my Mesmer. Plus a lot of professions lack quality nrg management and borrow from Mesmers, does that mean these professions are somehow crippled? Lacking quality heals does not have any such implications either.

The only thing I will agree that is wrong with Eles is all the nrg management skills that cause exhaustion. Those just don't make sense. And it's not like the profession is lacking nrg management skills- there are plenty, just the solve one problem, create another attitude of these skills bothers me.

First of all, PVE side. Since you have never tried using an ele in pve to the end, i suggest you do so, and spealy try perdition rock area.
Factions, you will find your enchantments gone quite often. i was forced to use ether prodigy occasionaly due to that reason.

As far as the PVP goes:
Earth Chant Up Spike Up i suggest you clarify the build. Not aware of such build's name.

PBAoE with AOD: you are forced to be close to enemies, which is a bad idea with pathetic armour. Unless relying on your *Enchantments*.
Your skill recharge time for PBAoE:

• After Shock 10 seconds, when hitting a ranger, does half the damage. 10 Sec Recharge, seems right.
• Crystals wave and its copy cat skill, 20 second recharge. If i recall correctly, each use 15 energy. 20 seconds recharge. Both armour ignoring damage.

Spent total of 40 energy over these 3 PVAoE spells (If took Earth Attument ...Anotheer enchantment.., you will get a return of 13 mana in total) + Aura of Displacement's cost.

Lets wait for the waves to recharge to do another assault. Not to mention the energy regen here. where are u getting all this energy from to keep up with the spike any way? just curious.

Air WarHate, Water Hex Movement Management.
Lets just call them Water snares and Blind Flash bot. no need to give them fancy words. That is precisely what eles are used for nowadays any way. warders too though.

A 6 month's old thread had a last post sent at 30th of june if i recall, which is Still after Factions Campaign. I will make sure of the date once i am done with this post. Do have a look at that last 23rd page.
Just out of curiosity, what exactly has changed in last 6 months any way for the ele profession that makes you consider such thread obselete for the current GW situations?

Water: when it is not considered a damage attribute at all IMHO
Earth More of a defensive attribute with a bit of spike ...
I would still consider air and fire lines more damaging over earth and water lines. Hence, his thread sounds about right to me still.

I am kinda confused, why am i taking stone dagger spam with aura of restoration? Assuming that, i also need some energy manegement, so another slot reserved for this? 3 slots are gone. Kinetic Armour, 4th slot. Now you are left with 4 skill slots. So... What exactly are your plans for these 4 slots? am just wondering. You just spent last 4 skills to keep your self alive and AID your primary attribute. I would prefer taking a warrior with me when compared to your build, or any other profession for that matter. (Note: I hate to say, stone daggers just suck for damage dealing purposes)

I will re-write a few points from my previous post about primary attributes

• Warrior (Strength) Need to see a week point here. Couldn't find any skill which makes their strength attribute need a skill to make it better. just need to drop points in it to use shield and stuff properly.
• Monk (Divine) We all know how that works, right? Extra heal for divine points spent.
• Necros (Soul Repeaing) Way better energy manegement. No skill is needed to make it better i assume.
• Mesmer (Fast casting, i have yet to see a skill which is required to make it better. Any weakpoints of fast casting? i wonder if there is though
• Rangers (Expertise) All attack skills, traps and preperations cost less energy. Let me put it this way, a 15 mana skill cost 5? 3 times the difference when jacked up the expertise to 16. 4 pips of energy regen, guess how fast that rolls for a small lookin mana bar? need any skill to make it better? the pips regen stays the same, about 2 energy a second ( if i understand how the energy rises. )
• Ele (Energy Storage) HUGE MANA, for what ? same 4 pips of regen (while need atleast a few spells to get energy back, else it takes ages to gain the energy back... due to the spells which cost 15-25 on average). Why not give us atleast more pips of energy? i wonder if 6 pips are enough to be honest. Maybe i am wrong abou the regen thing here.

Out of those 6 professions i listed above, beside elementalists, which other profession has to use a SKILL to aid their primary attributes?

I will repeat, It is people like Ensign who still had a valid argument, and came up with facts which are just about right.
Ele class needs to be reworked at.
I would say, Every single attribute needs to be reworked. Energy Attribute is just pathetic. Sure, we do have a huge energy pool available, but only a few skills are enough to empty it out.

Let me make a cup of tea for you Hella good, and my self while this huge mana pool recharges..

Regardz
An Elementalist.

@ The random build stuff:

Was simply being figurative. Earth Chant Up Spike Up = Earth Spike, Obs Flame Spike, call it whatever- OFlame, Daggers, KA, Obs Flesh, Earth Attune, Res + whatever else. AoRestoration as in used in an Earth Spike build along with Obs Flame and Stone daggers. Reminds me to point out SD don't suck- often times SD do more damage than Obs Flame due to proto stuff (PS, etc.). In my opinion, Earth is the best element because it combines excellent defense with potent offense (mainly because of Obs Flame, Crystal Wavex2- armor ignoring damage is way better than ele dam).

Ensign's posts were 6 months old. You decided to bring his respected opinion in the discussion. I pointed out that his opinion might have changed since that post. Why? You wanna count the buffs Eles got since then? And AGAIN, Ensign talked about DAMAGE, not nrg management.

@The primary att argument:

If you head over to the Mesmer forum you can dig a min of 100 threads complaining about the use of FC. ES doesn't manage your nrg, ES gives you extra nrg. Why is that good? It allows for the use of costly skills (including skills with an Exhaustion component) at a high rate and makes Eles extremely hard to e-deny. Now there are ES skills that do manage your nrg, those are clumsy as I already said. EP is about as good as it gets, altho I personally seem to prefer alternatives like Glyphs and Attunement Chants, along with proper choice of cost of skills to equip.

That's all.

Few notes from a PvP perspective. The amount of Enchantment removal necessary isn't going to change significantly. Dervishes use large amounts of enchantments, but removing them is kind of silly. Therefore despite new skills, the total amount of enchantment removal required to win really won't change that much. Yes, there are fundamental problems with elementalists, but a huge increase in enchantment removal really isn't on the list. With paragons and ritualists, dependence on enchantments could possibly diminish meaning less reason to bring enchant removal.

Avatar of Grenth seems especially inefficient as targetted enchantment removal, since it would be like using a chainsaw to do surgery.

Since Nightfall seems to be focusing on self sufficient classes, I'm guessing elementalists will get there share of love this chapter.

Let me clarify couple of things which seems mixed.
I still have yet to see stone daggers being put to a good usage. i am not convinced about SD at all. Once someone is PSed, target another foe. I really do not see a point of keeping SD just to counter protective attribute of a monk. there are way better ways to deal with such, heard of OoA i assume? ur enchantment is gone, and your open for spike.

I will factor in the possibility of his opinion being changed. Though, i still do not see how differ could it possibily be? There is a reason that the thread lasted until the previous month, hasn't? and No, i am not just mentioning his opinions, i am basically pointing out his entire thread, a group of people have presented their arguments. have a look, they really do not sound obselete to me.
In last for that comment of yours, i suggest you re-read my previous post, i clearly stated Elemental attributes and NOT ES attribute while discussing, i ill paste it again i guess. Read it clearly k.

As far as your FC issues go:
FC, makes things extremeley hard to interupt.
Very few of your spells cost 25 mana with mesmer. mostly arround 15ish.
lets average 15 per spell cost. you have about 45 energy, about 3 casts?
how much damage do you inflict while casting those? what are your chances for getting interupted? are you not being used for fc air spike as a mesmer primary? why?
Because you deal more damage with ele spells when used with fc even though your attribute only maxed out at 12.
Less chances of interuption, hence more chances to dish out damage.

I got a huge energy pool, and yeh i can deal with exhaustion. Alrite, this allows me to play with exhaustion attribute. question, which other profession has exhaustion with spells? it is ridiculous to see heavy duty mana spells along with exhaustion.
Not to mention the easy interuption. who cares about the E-deny when the spell is not even going to be casted at first place.

That's all.

@Thom, i really hope that you assumptions are correct.
I just wonder if 25 spells are going to make that much of a difference?
Not to mention the spells in ele attributes which seriously need a buff ?
Am I to believe that the new 25 spells i am going to get will end my misery as an ele and make me self sufficient? if so, what about the previous 2 chapters? what about that huge list of skills which is begging for some rework?
Well, lets hope for the best
Are we going to be able to do enough damage to those insanly armoured rangers and warriors?
Are we going to be able to apply pressure when compared to that applied by mesmers and necros?

Preferably, i hope to get a buff on my current ele skills with nightfall, rather then depending over new skills introduction.

PS: I am assuming that you meant "Self Sufficiency" in terms of spells area and attribute buffs.
Just wondering.

My dear Hella Good, on the contrary. I know that its slightly out of the topic of the orgy of enchant removal foes but it gives supporting basis to the arguments presented here. Six months after that post and the elementalist still have the same problems: no real high damage per spell (that is Ensign's original complain), high-cost spells, insane casting and recharging times and exhaustion, and an almost total dependence on enchants that are easily removed with no possible counter and with offensive 45 secs of recharge.

Nevertheless im far from saying that elementalists are obsolete. I have two nice builds for general purposes (in particular for Fort Aspenwood), one Air and the other Fire based, with decent amounts of damage, but i totally depend on my enchantments in order to keep myself constantly casting: Elemental Attunement, Air/Fire attunement and Aura of restoration.

And as someone posted here (sorry for not quoting properly) the only use for energy storage with my air build is to endure exhaustion due to gale spamming; otherwise a FC ele can play my build (not as effective as before ANET made Elemental attunement an ES attribute but still feasible with 30+6 secs with 45 recharge). Moreover, this me/e could replace Aura of restoration and Gale with 2 mesmer spells like drain/shatter/inspired enchantment, power drain/spike or your favorite choice, boosted with mesmer runes, making her less dependent on enchantments and (surprise!) an anti-enchant ele!

But just imagine if Mirror of ice enters into the game with a minimum req of 5 attribute points on water and vs skills: then the FC ele cannot afford the split up of att points on 2 ele magic lines, and we ES eles can counter the remove enchantment skills out there.

I cannot pass by the opportunity of comparing necro and mesmer damage vs an ele with 3 enchants on; this will tell you that unfortunately Ensign's thread is still valid, and if you hurry me its more valid than ever:

Necro: Desecrate enchantments (10 nrg, 2 cast, 15 recharge) maxed with 3 enchants on you deals 64+63=127 damage (shadow, ignoring armor).

Mesmer: Shatter enchantment (10 nrg, 1 cast -substract FC atts-, 25 recharge) maxed deals 106 damage + removes one enchantment.

Ele: a maxed Meteor hit=119 dmg ( 3-5 cast, 30-60 recharge depending on single or shower, and substract armor); maxed Obs flame deals 118 (ignoring armor, but add exhaustion); maxed Lightning orb (15 nrg, 2 cast, 5 recharge) deals 106 damage (substract armor and add armor penetration), vs soft targets it deals 141 (recall its a projectile that can be evaded/blocked or useless behind a wall or a running foe).

So you would be able to ruin any assassin combo with this skill, by making him fail lead attack or whatever the chain starts with. In absence of assassin you could use this vs necros and mesmers as improved hex breaker, or by reducing the nuking on you. Also useful for making ranger or mesmer interrupt fail when you try to cast the next spell. etc etc. Sounds very powerful to me.

You have aura of restoration. You also have the option of secondary. Before you whine about aura of restoration:
At 12 ES it heals 350% of cost spent. Shadow refuge and ether feast have 9 and 10 second cycles respectively. In those 9 seconds, ele will usually spend at least 30 energy. That means you get healed for 105.
For instance rodgort's invocation and 3 flares will heal you for 140 at 12 ES.

Compare this to Shadow Refuge at 12 att which heals for 72 HP of regen and 68 if you are attacking when it ends = 140. Also, as any assassin player can tell you, shadow refuge is used when fleeing not attacking most of the time, so assassin heal is usually only that 72. Every 9 sec.

Ether feast @ 12 insp heals 120 every ~10 sec

So ele has comparable heal to 2 of the classes. Not to mention most mesmers, warriors and necros in gvg have so selfheal to speak off.

Yes, dear Spura, you posted exactly the applications of this prototype spell buffed Mirror of Ice i had in mind when i posted it, i thank you for reading between the lines.

I agree it sounds powerful but you know what? It is an elite, just defensive, it does not make people fail a non-skilled attack and almost each profession has something similar: i have already mentioned Spell breaker and Spell bond for monks, Shadow form for assassins and Hex breaker for mesmers, but the list in not exhaustive:

Wanna ruin any assassins combo or a ranger fail an interrupt? use: Guardian or Aegis or as a monk; (Deadly) Riposte, Bonnetis/Gladiators defense, Auspicious parry, etc etc as a warrior; Distortion, Spirit of failure, Clumsiness and Ineptitude as a Mesmer; Price of failure as a necro; Weapon of shadow/warding and Displacement as a Ritualist; Dodge, Escape etc etc as a Ranger. Not all these are enchantments but the enchants cannot be removed. I agree an ele has Silver armor but AGAIN this is an enchantment and this topic is about the excess of enchant removal skills out there and the lack of protection the eles have vs them!

I agree Aura of restoration is a great self healing skill and that in cold numbers it surpasses Shadow refuge, but Aura is useless if you do not cast. What about fleeing or being alone with no chance to cast attack spells? What about the 5 energy cost of Shadow refuge (8 secs recharge BTW) and the 40 cost of Rodgorts + 3 flares? the ratio energy-heals does not favour elementalists, dearest Spura.

As a matter of fact i got a mesmer and a warrior and i went X/A just for Shadow refuge. Maybe i should do the same with my elementalist and play E/A but do i have room for another spell?: Shadow refuge, Elemental attunement, X attunement, Aura. OMG just 4 slots to attack!, and 3 if you add Res signet.

Beg your pardon?
Warrior= Healing signet
Necros are vampires: in blood is obvious, in curses thay have Insidious parasite and Parasitic bond, in death Taste of death and Soul feast. And Grenths Balance?
Eles in GvG go Ether prodigy, which makes you lose all enchants, so Aura there is not a wise choice.

Let me put in a simple, minimalistic way my vision and the purpose of this thread:

1. Elementalists rely almost entirely on their enchants
2. There are tons of enchant removal skills
3. We cannot protect ourselves from getting stripped
4. We cannot recast the enchants due to their high recharge time
5. We need a hand to avoid getting stripped
6. I propose less recharge on attunements (5-20 secs) and a modification on the currently uninteresting (if not useless) elite Mirror of Ice

Dervish PBAoE blows away elementalist PBAoE. Bigger hits, lower costs, bigger AoEs, no ridiculous global cooldown. Toss in that dervishes came with their own built-in, permanent form of Ether Renewal.

I don't understand where the enchantment removal argument comes from. Dervishes are immune to enchant removal, their stuff is too cheap, too fast, and recharges too quickly. You're not going to see extra enchant removal finding its way into builds just because of dervishes.

There really isn't a point in bringing up elementalist damage - it's anemic, and the more I play elementalist the less I want to have anything to do with the fire line. It's so one-dimensional, doesn't have good synergies, and it isn't even all that good at the one thing it does. Fireball is nice, spammable and efficient, and I like the effect of Meteor (though Exhaustion and a horrendous recharge kill it)...otherwise the line is vomit-inducing. The character has to be all out offense and he's not nearly good enough at that to matter.

The best mechanic you have is damage + snare, it's great for setting up your offense and hinders their offense as well. Deep Freeze is the only really good ice you have available, but Spikes is decent enough to be a playable second snare. Deep Freeze you want to spam the hell out of, Spikes can be held back for tactical use. I liked Shard Storm for a while, but really don't like anything that misses anymore - it's really just a third snare to get a longer chain of Spikes -> Shard -> Deep Freeze. But Gale is just better so who cares. Frozen Burst is good against Smgzor, if you're not worried about him I wouldn't run it over Gale or something more important. People are prepared for blind now, it rarely lasts duration, alleviating the need to max air. It's still great for breaking up spikes though, and it puts any physical without Plague Touch or Empathic Removal on a leash. Orb is ok if you're setting it up with a snare in a fast spike build, otherwise Ice Spikes is just better. I think I like a second Ice Spikes better than one of each, but the third ele should probably have Orb. Don't know, have never felt the need to run the third ele.

Earth is just wards. All of the offensive skills in the line are bad - I don't want to hear about Obsidian Flame, you need to Glyph that thing to make it any good and then you don't have any emanagement in your build. All of the wards are good situationally, though melee and stability are the best in general. I don't think a super-long duration on a ward is really key though, battles move too much and you really just want to be able to put wards in the right place at the right time. Permanent ward isn't the worst thing but it really feels counterproductive outside of halls, people have to move to do their jobs and putting a leash on your team is just weak. Move the ward, not the players. I'm a big fan of the 7 spec, 14 second breakpoint.

I'm rambling. Short version: eles are proactive monks whose abilities don't conflict with what the monks are doing. They help set up the offense with snares but that's really the extent of it.

Peace,
-CxE

Greetings, Ensign!

who really wants to remove an enchant on a dervish? They are fed that way, in fact Mysticism is triggered each time they lose an enchant. The enchant removal issue is a delicate topic from the elementalists' point of view though.

And yes, damage has never been the insignia of elementalists. The ele is dead, long live the dervish! ...

Sorry Cynn but I have SO rarely used enchantments when playing an ele, That I might as well say I never do. If while playing ele you HAVE to rely enchants then your not much good at playing one. Since the rest of your points rely on this thier all pointless.

Have'nt you guys ever heard of glyph of energy? For 15 seconds, your next spell costs 20 less energy to cast and does not cause exhaustion.

It's funny how water magic has become so popular in PvP over the course of the game. I mostly run water exclusively in pvp nowadays, unless I wanna' piss people off in the arena's with Obsidian Flesh. I never would have imagined it a year ago. I guess controling movement in battle is just such a huge advantage.

@Hella Good:
I reserve my right to be an 'eledramatic' thank-you very much. Especially since most of my elemental abilities are poorer than they should be.

@Cynn Evennia:
Putting enchantment stripping aside for the moment, I'm intrigued by your re-design of Mirror Of Ice. In all honesty, it's not really hard to improve.

I quite like the inherant damage repercussion present in it's current form as it adds a deterant to further attack. If the skill simply failed, the enemy will just go for another. It might be a little too much if it also affected all skills though. However, like you say, it is an Elite. I don't here anyone complaining about Eviscerate (well, at least not anymore).
If with the possible failure with under 5 water, we also added and increased energy cost (like 15 energy) it wouldn't be so bad.


Oh. By the way, Aura of Restoration is not a healing skill. It is a skill that can heal you if you meet the requirements. By this definition Way of Perfection is also a healing skill. We all know however that you may never get one drop of healing out of it after the cast.

So you should only cast every 15 seconds? Oh and who has been healing and providing protection for you all this time? Last I checked Glyph Of Energy doesn't provide...

-extra armour
-a chance to not be hit
-protection from spell damage
-the ability to be untargetable with spells
-an increase in running speed
-healing

Sure you can get this from other classes, but the fact is you'll be required to dilute your attribute point reserves.

Just because you've found a few nice little builds that require no enchantments, doesn't mean that those who have builds with this requirement are "...not much good at playing one...". This assumption is about as ignorant as your gonna' get.