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

I think the dervish build is fine. Every class has its ups and downs. Yes, I admit, Elementalist is going to get changed some, but It shouldn't be too bad. The dervish's weakness is quite alot of things. For one, spikes, cant cast spells then they get screwed. Seccond, DoT like Conjure Phatism, Thirdly, Mesmers.

People who say they don't use enchants you must be a horrible ele. You have to either use dual attunement, ether prodigy, or at the very least arcane echo.

And for those arguing about FC ele only have 45 energy... you know with dual attunements you basically don't lose any energy, even hypothetically spamming 25 energy spells.

Face the facts, ele is dead, they are going to be completely useless upon release of nightfall. Even more so than a sin is now.

To the guy above me, you honestly think DoT will phase a dervish? A dervish outheals 10 degen without breaking a sweat. Conjure phantasm hah.

Not nesisairily. Like I said, each class has its downfall. Elementalist can whoop its counter class like any other class can depending on skill setup and skills.

people always want to be a nuker and have a nuker, it sounds cool and fire magic is very useful in pve. ELE WILL NOT DIEZ

Glyph of Energy is horrid. At least use Second Wind, it's not terrible in the face of enchant removal...but it's incredibly vulnerable to interrupts and edenial. Pick your poison.

Eles didn't start to be prevalent in flexible builds until warriors had solidified their place. Then they started to show up as strong, anti-warrior and anti-pressure characters. Originally it was Blinding Flash, wards, and Heal Party. Ice started to be popular once Crippling Shot was nerfed and was no longer crazy spammable. It's definitely a metagame character, but such a strong one that it's hard to play without it.

If the dervish is going to have an effect on the amount of eles you see played, it is more likely that the reason will be a dwindling physical population to hate out than the dervish taking the ele's role. Eles are really only as good as physicals are. If dervishes spamming PBAoE become the new metagame, say goodbye to the class.

Peace,
-CxE

That is my general concern, but i do think that the dervish option to play a parrallel role to a warrior and be a viable threat would be a good addition to the game. It would create more depth in what types of setups could be faced, but the current version of what the dervish can do and what actually slows it down needs more work.

I still think that some people are in shock at how effective the dervish pbaoe was in comparison to the existing elementalist options, in both damage and efficiency.

*reads....*

*gets something to drink*

*reads....*

@Cynn,
Breaking ANY skill may just be a little to much to handle, especially with 10 recharge, but longer than that and you couldnt set it up properly for a spike. Anet needs to find a way to make this viable and fast...

@Ensign...kinda
Water is a nice snare, but i personally think we need a nice fast spam for ice that hexes for ...3-5 secs and is aoe with little to no damage to stop the blessed light etc. monks who can spaz out on hex removal. I am a huge fan of ice prsion and tenai's prison, very effective, but ANY monk should be able to get rid of it quick.

@ ppl who LIKE AoR...or think its viable...
1) Enchant.
2) 10 energy...
3) You have to waste energy to get healed, and usually be preyed on by interupts before you get your spell off, hence why a FC ele is superior. Its almost as if you have 45energy and 30e in reserve for healing, i mean its obviously not gunna outdamage a monk's heals.

Now if by every point in Energy Storage your elemental spells dealt 5% more damage, now that MIGHT be a solution for this pathetic damage output, wars have strength and are good at phys damage, why not give it to the supposedly ranged killer

My personal call is to make Mirror of ice 10 energy so it cannot be spammed like mad by non-elementalist classes without a serious sacrifice of energy pool, or 5 energy with the addendum "if it prevents a foe's skill to be used on you, you lose x energy and MoI ends" in the same way Distortion works. *sigh* How i wish ANET would hear this...
Unfortunately ANET hates elementalists in every facet. They have just made Elemental attunement ES dependent, so with 0 ranks the FC ele has EA on just 30 secs, maybe 36 with a 20% enchant weapon, and a recharge of 45 (btw with 12 rank it lasts 50 secs). This is the third mod on EA; the second one was 60 recharge to 45 recharge, which made FC ele THE option.

Nevertheless i must thank ANET because now i can keep twin attunements on all the time... if there is not a shatterer around, so i always cover my twin atts with Aura.

Its sad that ANET made FC eles disappear but keeps the touchers on with an hilarious and absurd repetition of skills: now in Nightfall Vampiric touch/bite will be Vampiric what, smell? and the same skill repeated thrice (3 times) just because they are "core"?
Extra damage with elements as a primary Elementalist would be really nice to have, for instance +3 energy storage and +3% elemental damage per rank in ES: for me 39% @ 13 ES is acceptable: it would make an ele deal 169 damage with a maxed Obsidian flame if she has 13 atts in ES (and besides 3-3 is more symmetric lol ). In that case id propose to rename "Energy storage" with "Elemental wisdom" or something inspired in energy storage and elemental attunement...

PS My HoH warder uses Glyph of energy because i run Obsidian Flame and Earthquake and so i need to reduce exhaustion and energy costs.

Thankyou for Supporting my argument of "Why Nuking Sucks" thread being valid to this point, Still.

A simple thing my friend.

• An Assasin can ruin our spells by causing daze with temple strike, an elite.
• A Necro can cast Lingering Curse, and watch what happens to our Echantments. All gone.
• A Mesmer, well the list is huge.
• A ranger, Well the interupting list is long, no to mention the natural armour they have against eles by default... any ranger crying? Not to mention Equinox, not every one carries it arround (thanks to God) affects spells with exhaustion.. Which targets mainly ele spells?

So whats up with a person asking for an ELITE which allows this person to have security 1nce every ten seconds while casting extremely huge cast spells (and thanks to Anet, believe me, we have tons of those long cast spells which have loads of energy consumption and a bad bad bad recharge) so why not? It is an Elite, and knowing how bad an ele is without its energy management elite skills, don't you think that it is not really overpowering an ele? Mind you, this last question was a rhetorical question, and i will let you think over that one for now. No need to answer me.

Um.... hello, have we met each other somewhere before? like some place called.. ZOMGiMsoLoST!!!!!?
DUDE. Let me explain Aura of Restoration and its Limitations and Flaws.

1. An Enchantment (Welcome to the thread of ELE ENCHANTMENT ISSUES)
2. Requires a Spell to be Casted, and heals you depending on the spell cost. Let me know the spell which we can continue thrrowing at u while u chase me wit ur assasin ok? um wait, did i say you chasing me? means i am not stationary so no way to cast and thus no heal? well....
3. Which spell do you wish me to cast if its a huge mana costing spell? meteor shower(5sec cast)? rodgorts(3sec cast), deep freeze (3sec cast) earthquake(3sec cast) Dude. you want me to actualy cast a 3 second spell to gain my health back while you chase my ass down the road? not to mention the horrible recharge time. I will prefer just kiting over this and let my health regen (Hoping you will not use dash or something of that sort)
   Mind you, i am spending 25 mana spells to heal only 350% which is about 85-87ish health per spell cast?
4. Ok, even when i hit the damn spell and heal my self, am i to be compared with that ether feast which heals for 120 every 10 seconds? sure 3 second cast, but just 10 energy and if i assume right, better heal?

And in last, PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT me to carry FLARE on my bar. i prefer doing some damage you know..

Agreed to all of the above.

Ah, your here atlast good to see you here Ensign.
Well, the description that you gave of those dervish, isin't kinda sounding like the one every one was looking for in Eles?

*sighs* Hella good, that was for you. Any comments on that 6 month old thread that you were speaking about yesterday?

Welcome to the thread Spike. Meet me sometime in game. My In Game Name is Darkest Elemantal (yeh spelling is wrong, found that out when i had about 2 mil exp, which was a few months back) We will discuss your elite ways of nuking. Till then, God bless that poor ele in your hands. Am more of a PVE guy who understands a bit of PVP, and claims nothing of PVP. I have my own ways of doing stuff though.
@Frojack
We all love Ele-Dramatic People (Specially when the drama is quite right)! Cheers for making a good thread!!


Long live the huge doubts with your comment!

You my friend, are Scary (and speaking The Truth)

I actually love your idea of making this attribute better.
Spells will do more damage with energy points spent. Though, spells needs to be fixed still. Huge cost, recharge and cast time.
When dervish can be in front lines and do a damage like that of an ele, with warrior type abilities, eles, at ranged need to do better damage with spells for AoE, or for that matter, any damage at range.

@Cynn,
Nah, 3% is not enough due to the fact that this game is not just about PVP. It has a Huge area for PVE. I am afraid, the monsters we encounter in-game are still bad ass, hence, adding side damage ( like burning to fire, armour penetration for air, snares for water, and I Wonder what for earth? )
I hate to say, but an ele fireball gainst level 28 aataxe is still 31 damage, Plus they flee.
I will find one of my posts where i argued about monsters fleeing. I will look for it now and will edit this post when i do find it.

Regardz
An Elementalist.

You see, the problem is, buffed Mirror of Ice wouldn't do much in GvG or HA, but it would be incredibly powerful in arenas and AB. Thus I don't see the point or such a buff as it doesn't help eles any.

My dear Xpl0iter i said 3% because i was "trying to bargain with ANET"... LOL but let me support the argument that Fire sucks at PvE: I went to Abbadons Mouth with maxed Meteor and Star burst (119 fire damage) and this is what i found:
Level 24 Mursaat Mesmer/Necro = 125 dmg
Level 24 Jade Armor = 64 dmg
Level 24 Jade Bow = 70 dmg
Level 28 Mursaat boss = 21
I wanted to laugh out loud but then i hesitated between a laugh or a tear

Nevertheless, Elementalist bosses are fearful, they DO DEAL REAL DAMAGE. Or tell me isnt Bounded Teinai in Tannakai temple and his "one spell kill" Star burst the boss you fear most, or what about Tamu the dragon at Nahpui quarter and his 299 dmg Lightning surge vs soft targets?

EDIT: The level 24 ele boss Chung the Attuned hits for 324 damage with his Lightning orb on a 60 armor foe. Can we just hit over 200 please ANET ?

My dear Spura im afraid i completely disagree with you. Try to cast a Meteor shower (5 secs) and before releasing it you will receive tons of attacks, inters, conditions, hexes and KD. My Mirror of ice is meant to prevent ONE of this attacks, ONLY ONE, because it is not a stace and hence it cannot be turned on while casting. Moreover, 10 secs means it is not spammable, it is the natural recharge of SS, and that is why people echo SS to really spam it.

Let me post again my proposal.

This is the current Mirror of ice

Energy Cost: 5
Casting Time: 0.25
Recharge Time: 10.00
For 60 seconds, the next time an enemy Spell would deal damage to you, that damage is negated and that Spell's caster takes 10..70..90 damage.

Compare with Hex breaker, a stance and non-elite mesmer skill related to domination:

Energy Cost: 5
Casting Time: 0.00
Recharge Time: 15.00
For 15..63..79 seconds, the next time you are the target of a Hex, that Hex fails, the caster takes 10..39..48 damage.

or with Spell shield, divine favor non-elite enchantment, rarely seen since interrupting a monk is VERY hard and the healer cannot afford an auto Blackout, but useless for another profession for the divine favor dependence:

Energy Cost: 10
Casting Time: 2.00
Recharge Time: 30.00
For 5..17..21 seconds, while you are casting Spells, you cannot be the target of spells. When Spell Shield ends, all of your skills are disabled for 10..6..5 seconds.

Personally after seeing the numbers id better equip Hex breaker than Mirror of Ice because MoI does not make Backfire, Lingering curse and degen spells fail. Moreover, when shattered you Do lose your enchantment, meanwhile Hex breaker can be turned on again immediately after ending since it is a stance, protecting you from a second hex.

This is my buffed Mirror of ice

Energy Cost: 5
Casting Time: 0.25
Recharge Time: 10.00
For 30 seconds, the next time an enemy uses a skill or you this skill fails and Mirror of Ice ends. If Mirror of ice ends before natural expiration you lose 5..2..1 energy.

I say SKILL because the enchants can be removed using hexes, spells, signets and skills.

A personal note.

Mirror of ice is an elite, and if you are an ele or have followed this thread you will realise that in general we use twin attunements, Elemental attunement (elite) + X attunement, in order to cast as a machine gun because one single spell does not deal a decent amount of damage. Otherwise we equip an elite for extra damage or energy management. So if we have equipped the buffed Mirror of ice, which is pure defense, we have sacrificed extra damage or energy management. Moreover, almost all interrupters have at least 2 skills for that purpose so MoI will only help us against the first one.

So i think it is a fair to trade extra damage or energy buffs for a little protection.

*****

PS Maybe this is the Mirror of ice FTW people think i am asking for (not a bad idea ANET but no thx anyway i wanna keep the challenge on):

Energy Cost: 5
Casting Time: 0.25
Recharge Time: 2.00
For 60 seconds ALL enemy skills used on you fail and disabled for 10 seconds. 50% failure if Energy storage level is less than 4.

[i hope the sarcasm was obvious]

@cynn
ROFL, would love to have that godly skill.

Wow this is frightening... the more we unravel this nightfall problem, the more we find out how elementalists suck at their jobs...

Obviously the cons of the class outweight the pros... The only reason elementalists are around now is because intelligent players took all of these extemely lacking skills and traits and the best that they could come up with is a psuedo-healing flagrunner, or even a half decent warder.

I'm seeing less and less eles as well. Minion Masters dominate in PvE and the only places an ele is really usable is FoW due to the lack of bodies.

So now the big list of cons:

-Poor Energy Management; including lack of decent non-elite skills. 4 pips of regen can't possible handle an 80 E bar. Seriously only about 40 of that energy is really usable once you spend it on what? 2 spells?

-Absolute Crap Armor and Defensive Options. 60 AL, the lowest max in the game and complete reliance on enchantments for self defense. The ONLY viable source of solid defense an elementalist has is wards, which still aren't enough to protect against the big damage an ele will be take because of AL. The best choices for self defense are ALL enchantments and can be easily stripped, Obsidian Flesh being the best but forcing the elementalist to forgo any kind of decent energy management in order to use it. Non-targeting strips still remove flesh as well and the 50% slow is murderous. Mirror of Ice as explained is crap, and Mist Form offers no protection against added effects (vampiric and so forth). With defensive elites, forgoing the energy management elite is a massive drawback and will leave you with no energy and not enough regen to fill up that 80 E bar. With the coming of dervish, the eles will have the submarine parked in port anus, as was seen in the preview event.

-Impossibly Long Cast Times and Exhaustion. Many of the elementalist skills have extremely high cast times, cause exhaustion (which lowers the max E that you will NEVER use because of a piddly 4 pips of regen) and also do little mass damage to cover their cost and casting dangers. The problem with these spells (Like MS and even EQ) is that without negligable energy management think of how long it takes to regain 25 energy off 4 pips? You think that 80 E matters? No once you cast 2 spells you wont even break the 50 energy mark. Ether Prodigy is one of the few solutions to this and is suicidal AND is an enchantment, not to mention it strips you on use and kills you enchantment defenses. Glyph of Energy is also a solution but has a recharge of 15. With the glyph an elementalist can function off 5 E but still suffers the pains of that 15 second recharge. This further proves that energy storage just plain sucks.

-No Protection Against Hexes or Conditions and No Self Heal Survival Skills. A mesmer will kill you, nuff said. Aura of Restoration suffers from the long cast times and can't be used on the fly to save you. It requires the cast of huge cost spells to be effective, but chokes on the cast times of those spells. These drawbacks make you 100% reliant on your monk, who in turn hates your guts for being a blackhole for his heals. What a team player.

So why do I want to be an elementalist again?

Breaking it down:

The BIGGEST Issue:
-The crappiness of Estorage, which ties into alot of things. With a measly 4 pips of E regen and such a huge bar, elementalists swoon on the battlefield so long just to use skills while other classes cast 3x faster. Not to mention the hundreds of interrupts flying around. Just to cast one earthquake at 5E, which an elementalist can get down to very quickly, I will have to wait for my 4 pips to recharge me to 25, then wait an additional 3 seconds to cast. Now im not even going to go into what a warrior can do in that time span. The reliance on a elite for E management throws alot of elementalist possibilities out the window since you will be focused on maintaining that huge bar of energy and the high costs that go with it. Think about how many spells a 40 E monk can cast and even throw out some aegis spells before an elementalists gets off ONE meteor shower, not to mention the time it takes before the elementalist can do that again. Guildwars is a very fast paced game with an emphasis on timing. It is because elementalists are too slow to keep up that they remain on the bottom of the food chain. Having so much energy does more damage to an elementalists than it does good. Seeing fast cast mesmers perform better nuking jobs than elementalist primaries proves this. Elementalists have some very big bars, big numbers, big cast times, and even exhaustion. Because of Estorage, having inadequete regen to manage those skills and completely reliance on enchantments and easily strippable/interruptable skills, elementalists move at a pace way slower than any other class. Seriously after reading throw this, when I mow a lone ele down with my warrior now in PVP I feel like I'm picking on a slow kid off the short bus.

In short, looking at the rates of E regen and consumption:

Take a monk with 4 regen and 40 energy using 5-10 cost skills.

Compare this to an elementalists with 4 regen and 80 energy using 15 and 25 cost skills.

Which one of these is more effecient? The monk will blow his energy very quickly but gain it back very fast. The elementalist will blow though his energy just the same but whats quicker? Gaining back 40 at 4 regen or 80 at 4 regen? Do you know how LONG it takes to get 40-60 energy back at 4 pips? With Eprod an elementalist is working with 9 pips and an 80 energy bar, which is FAR more managable. Eles have to use Eprod just to maintain a NORMAL rate of use and consumption.

So think about that if your gonna argue about the benefits of having more energy, because really I don't see any. More energy and that weak regen rate just slows the pace that an elementalist functions at. If an elementalist had 4 pips and 40 energy, but was using 5-10 cost spells the functionality of the class would be way different. It would have more sense to make the class function that way and just boost the cast times longer than other classes by a small margin.

But no elementalists are stuck with that HUGE freaking bar, loads of super expensive skills that take an eternity to recharge, and long cast times that are prone to interruption AND on top of that they deal with exhaustion. I see a problem in mechanics here.

As an elementalist your waiting on alot of things.

-The long recharge it takes to gain 25 energy off 4 pips.
-The long cast time of the spell ranging from 3-5 seconds.
-The long cooldown time of the spell ranging fro 30-60 seconds.
-Exhaustion that lengthens the time you have to wait in order to use a high cost spell if you are heavily stacked with it.

At 5 energy im trying to cast 1 meteorshower.

-If I gain an estimated 2 energy every second of my regen thats 10 seconds right there until I hit 25.
-5 second cast time.
-60 second cooldown on MS.
-I stack exhaustion.

A SEVENTY FIVE SECOND CYCLE just to cast 1 meteorshower and have it return AND I stack 10 points of exhaustion. If I glyph of sacc it its a 90 second recharge.

Come on now... this is plain wrong...

If you want to know the problem with elementalists, the major one lies right there, with Estorage and all those big numbers. The entire set of mechanics on which an ele functions is broken in comparison to other classes. Eles live in a different world from those guys... a much slower one. Having so much energy and big spell costs just totally bucks the system for eles. They would be better off functioning on a smaller bar like other classes. To compensate for this elementalists NEED more raw energy regen to manage all that E. Whether its in the form of cleverly constructive skills or maybe more pips, i would say as much as 6 pips would be needed to make a 80 E bar that uses 15-25 cost spells function as well as a normal monk or mesmer bar that maxes at 40 and uses 5-10 cost spells. This is the reason why glyph of energy and Ether Prodigy are the most popular ele elites, only because they speed up the eles regen cycles up to a normal level that functions fast enough for an ele to compete with other classes.

And now nightfall comes along with all its enchantments crap and threatens the already broken class even more... It's really not that hard to figure out.

The easiest solution would be to up the regen of the eles E to 5 pips or even 6. This would put the elementalists on a way more functional level. It would be just like having a monk that has 5-10 cost skills with a max of 40 E.

In short, having a ton of energy doesn't do crap for you. All you get is 1 or 2 free spells before your stuck waiting to cast energy taxing skills that your piddly regen can't ever manage. This is ALL Estorage does. A big bar just buys you a few more spells, but once you cast down to 40, your stuck with the same mechanics as all the other classes, but instead of 5 and 10 cost spells you deal with 15 and 25 cost monsters. That my friend, is what is murdering this class. The low armor and crappy defenses and just more nails in the coffin.

In my opinion, Estorage is the worst attribute designed in the game. It's because eles function on this attribute as a cornerstone that they are so weak. Sorry all, but theres the truth. With Estorage at the core, Eles are a castle built out of poop. Unless something is done about that bad smell, Nightfall is going to come along and tap that flusher once and for all.

My dearest Lordhelmos you are totally right. I have just made my mesmer a FC air spiker, and it hurts me to say that even with Elemental attunement nerfed (vs FC eles) i was able to mantain my energy over 20 always, and my spikes were more effective (faster) than Cynn's not to mention that i had an extra slot (Aura was out) for an inter spell.

You have touched a nice point, milord. E-storage just makes E/Mo a Heal party spammer and a nice healer with the Arcane Healer build (i got masters in Unwaking waters on both sides with me as a healer ) but it does not help any line of elemental magic. It would be nice to eliminate the 3 extra energy for each rank in ES and to have instead 1 extra pip of energy for each 4 ranks on ES but im afraid its not feasible nor desirable: it would make the Elementalist the best primary profession, and we would be seeing tons of E/N necros, E/Me mesmers or E/whatever but NOT A SINGLE ELEMENTALIST.

The task we need to adress here is how can we make the Elementalist a better profession without buffing cross professions.

I have this ideas:

1. Lets modify Mirror of ice (or create a stance or anything) to protect the ele's enchantments
2. Lets forget the extra energy of ES and lets consider instead "Elemental wisdom" with extra damage per rank when using elements
3. Lets make all attunements ES dependent (now EW dependent lol) with the energy rebate (payback, return) depending on ES ranks and with a 100% rebate when ES is maxed (btw having twin attunements gives 83% back)
4. Lets halve cost, casting and recharge times of ele's spells

Undoubtedly, an elementalist with only 45 energy but a Meteor shower (or rodgort invocation or earthquake) costing 15 energy, casting in 2, recharging in 15, with an energy rebate over 70% and with no exhaustion would make the difference in PvE (and in PvP also), that i can foretell.

I confess this "Elemental wisdom" have made me rethink the stats of the elite Elemental attunement but lets say it has the same rebate rates than the modified attunements (ie depending on ES-EW ranks) with the elite extra that it pays back for all elemental spells. And like Necro's Orders it would be correct to make the attunements non stackable.

This would be really interesting since its a buff on eles and eles only.

PS if you have just the elite Elemental attunement on you cannot cast all the time, 50% energy back and always rounded downwards is not enough, thats why we usually run twin attunements and cry when they got removed.

I have a nuker, the only char that people at least be happy to accept me in PvE ( damn Assassin are moch hated and Warrior is everywhere). in fact my only worth is Rodgort invocation and Meteor shower. which bot use 25 energy and casting time exceed 3 second that everyone can interupt me by forcing me to run or interupt skill.

I spend quite some time in FoW farming adn explore arround. I notice a lot of things

1. beside Rodgort invocation and Meteor Shower, other attack spell are NOT effactive against foe for these day, not even ice golem and ice imp which fire should be a pain to them. even the 2 most powerful fire spell do not much to foes.

2. high cast and recharge time. being a nuker, we are request to use Meteor shower as much as possible. the most I can do is 3 Meteor shower, some do 4 . but what after that? the exhaustion and depletion make ele totally useless for almost forever. if I went on and become a spell spammer, then my energy will run out in 20 second before I can really kill anything. 2 attunement is the onlypractical solution in solve energy issue but I become totally useless when a foe strip them out. because the skill are still recharging and the shatter enchantment almost put me to death.

3. Why is enemy deal more damage then we do to them. take example of jade brotherhood, they are human and are lvl 20, when they have mage arround, I have to kill them ASAP else they bring a lot of pain to my team, while I am lvl 20 and my spell do little damage to them, I didn't careful look at it but there are little reduction in their health bar.

4. like other said, 4 pipe of regen is WAY low for Ele. Energy storage give us a huge looking energy bar but the cost of spell is huge too. after 20 second of casting we are totally drained if not those attunement. even those glyph are not enough to cover much.

5. I need to maintain my fire attribute to keep up the power of AoE / nuking dmg but I have no mean to heal or protect myself. I use distortion from my mesmer line to keep me alive and allow me to finish the everlasting cast of AoE spell which still not quite reliable. the high cast time of spell make aura of restoration totally useless against enemy attack, glyph of concentration do nothing but let me get kill.

Come on, what can ele do best these day with all these nerf, warrior can take damage yet deal a lot of dmg depend on build. assassin is a monk/ caster killer although they still need some buff, Ritualist's spirit has huge AOE affect and spirit attack range is so damn long. monk, no need to say. Ranger has AoE spirit, trap and all these nausty arrow. memer has huge spike and degen as well as inerupt that ruin the day. necro is all arround caster that can do almost anything.(SS, SV, BR, MM.....). the only thing that Ele should od is give huge damage to foe (damn foe has deal much dmg then we can with the same spell). AoE of Ele is small range, 1 on 1 spell is nearly useless in dealing damage. we are easily interupt and take huge energy and time to cast a little attack that can easily be dodge (you can't dodge hex).

Ele need abuff, in Energy management, self heal/ protection and damage for sure.

let hope Anet read this, They said Ele is damage dealer in their GW game guide, but these day, anything can out damage them. . we need a buff in Ele adn assassin too

Elementist will never go down, i love my ele. i use flare, so? want 1vs1?

I Lol'ed when he hit my ele/war for 29 damage

oh, btw, Earth doesnt need any buffs, leave it alone, everyone, please. ES is pretty insignificant too in the kind of build i play - i never run more than 50~55 energy, sometimes, I only run 40-something. Yes, as you can guess, my build is very weak against enchantment removal, but hey, these things can be worked around by timing your casts cleverly. hey, maybe the class needs buffing, but i get by with earth and can pull my weight as a team member - thats all that really matters to me.

Let me guess, gracious Moa bird, do you run an Armor of Earth + Kinetic armor build with 16 earth? Whatever, you have touched the inner fibres of this thread: ES is pretty insignificant as it is now and eles depend on enchants that can be easily removed and cannot be locked/protected.

Well, remember that eles do have the strongest elite emanagement skills in the game. It's just that those are the only valid options, and they cause exhaustion. So instead of EStorage being this decent attribute that gave you the flexibility to use good emanagement skills while still buffering some exhaustion, you have a situation where max energy and exhaustion are just tools to use to power your energy elite of choice.


Eh? Eles have some of the best defensive options in the game, it's just that all of the PvP-viable ones are proactive - blind, knockdown, speed, snares, wards. Yeah their armor isn't all that impressive but there's more to defense than armor. People play eles as third monks a lot of the time and there's a reason for that.

Peace,
-CxE

In reference to my arguement I apologize for not supporting the claim of eles having the worst defensive options. It was really more of a spinoff from my rant on the clunkiness of energy storge, which is one of my main arguements against the class.

In tournament play, the best builds I see an elementalists run are flashbot/healparty flagrunners and AS/EQ warders. EQ/AS can be very devastating and actually deal good damage to an IWAY team, which 1-2 earthquakes on the bar and glyph of energy it can easily be maintained and mantra of resolve can be used to stop interrupts. This is the most effective elementalist build I've found personally.

Ward of Melee and Foes are both quite powerful when an enemy team becomes ensared in them and can absorb alot of damage. Maybe with nightfall im thinking if one ele roles survives it will have to be the warder. No enchantments, large field benefits, and easy to maintain with the glyph. EQ/AS also gives some nice damage.

I will still stand by my arguement of Energy Storage being inefficient and the limited choice between dual attunes, the glyph, and ether prod as viable solutions that still choke on recharge time or exhaustion.

Because of the limitations of Estorage, it really seems that warding or heal party spam with blind or snare are all an elementalist can really do at this point. The damage and recharge times of other offensive skills are proven to be pretty sad.

To me being stuck with these two choices and not functioning well as the damage class it should be has caused me to lose interest in playing an elementalist. Warding really isnt my thing (although it is effective), and being a keep away heal party flag runner doesn't fit my fancy either.

I believe the ineffeciency of Estorage really cans this classes ability to tap into its true potential. Maybe this is a potential that is too good, which is why elementalists havent changed much past the AOE nerf. The high costs and large by prove to be a handful to maintain. Ironically, using an elite like Eprod still has nasty drawbacks which really reduce the effeciency in which you can manage your energy. The exhaustion and suicidal properties of the skill are an example.

Like I pointed out, without Eprod there is no real way to function better than a 40 E mesmer or monk using lower cost spells. The glyph's 15 second recharge is also way to slow as well.

My main arguement is with the recharge cycles that I pointed out with the 75 second meteor shower example.

-Long cast times are bad.
-Slow natural regen and wait times to use spells are bad.
-A large pool of energy with no effecient way to put anything about 40E into good use without breaking the barrel of your glass cannon is bad.
-High Costs are bad.
-Exhaustion is bad.
-Long recharge times are bad.
-The damage you get from experiencing all the above being worthless is bad.

There are just too many malicious dominating factors that underlie elementalist spellcasting to make the class perform effeciently. I think that some of these factors just need to be toned down a little.

Now lets look at some pros on an ele and see why an AS/EQ ele is effective:

-Large area of effect protection and snare that greatly benefits the party. This effect cannot be stripped or undone.
-No ward costs over 15e
-Wards cast quickly.
-Glyph of Energy allows continuous spellcasting with a minimum of 5 E every 15 seconds. With a ward duration of 16-20 seconds, the party defense can be upkept indefinitely.
-MoR protects the warder from interruptions.
-The excess energy not used to power wards due to the glyph or even the glyph itself can be applied to an earthquake spell that causes KD in a wide area. AS can be tacked on the end, and with a glyph the net cost of the entire combo is 15E with a recharge of 15 and a cast time of 3 and 3/4 seconds for aftershock. The damage dealt from this combo is very good and can cause widespread interruption in the enemy team. Now thats good and efficient nuking...
-The only drawback is the lack of a self heal, you will be reliant on a monk but in turn you provide the monk with continual protection from melee attacks, sometimes elemental attacks and KD. You also snare the enemies to allow effecient kiting.

The reason this build is good is because like a heal party spammer, it bypasses the problems of Estorage. The lasting power of wards to compensates for the 15 second cool down of the glyph.

-Problem of recharge times is solved.

The EQ/AS combo powered by the glyph and protected by MoR provides good area damage that can devastate an enemy party for a low cost of 15 and a recharge of 15. Which is not bad for 300+ earth damage and wide area KD.

-Cost and damage problem compensated and solved.

Even at lower levels of energy the glyph cast and fast casting of wards allows an effective defense to be placed even if the elementalist only has 5 energy and the glyph is recharged.

-Effeciency of the energy bar problem is solved and the fast action of wards bypass the normal 3-5 seconds of other ele skills. Also if EQ is used the mantra of resolve protects the user by putting excess energy to use to buffer against interrupts. For 15 energy, and a 3 seconds cast time 300+ dmg and KD is worth it.

EQ/AS warder is an illustration of how an elementalist SHOULD function. The problem with eles is their clunkiness in Estorage and limited possibilities in bypassing energy management problems through a choice of only 3 elites really narrows down what an elementalist can do effeciently. If some of these issues were resolved the elementalist would be a very effecient class and more possibilities would come around to put elementalists on the forefront of tournament level play. It would only take ONE very clever elite, skill or tweak to open this door, but because of the power illustrated in a build like the one above; I now see why Anet is very cautious in removing the cap on eles.

...In fact they haven't.

I would really like to see possibilities like the above one with different elements and skill sets. The problem with eles is they have been capped so hard by Estorage, the roles they can effeciently play have been severly limited to a very select few. Any tournament level gamer will tell you that going into a fight without one of those few builds is suicide as an ele.

In my opinion this constriction to a very select number of skills and roles is a problem with the balance of the game and balance of the class. Elementalists should be able to do MORE things effectively as a core class. Its because of the clunky design of that primary attribute that elementalists are forced to be played the way that they are. To me, with so many elemental spells and effects its a shame so few are really efficient in comparison to other classes and their jack of all trade abilities *cough ranger*.

In my opinion, elementalists have really been overnerf to a psuedo support class. Water magic, Wards, and Flashbotting is all an elementalist can really do with its primary class skills. As far as elites, Ele Attunement, Glyph of E, and Eprod are your only choices if you plan on surviving a long drawn battle. With so many elementalists skills its a shame nothing else can be put to good use without running into the clunky limits of Estorage.

This is not a rant as before, but a much more clear and concise arguement on the pros and cons regarding the mechanics that an elementalist is built on. From playing a ele since beta these are my personal conclusions regarding the class as a whole.

The solution to the problem I see is the rebuild the elementalist's energy management and cost issue in order to implement something a little more effecient but not unfair. With better energy management elementalists will still suffer from exhaustion and cast times but still be able to participate at the forefront of battle instead of stumbling out of the short bus like a fat kid with down syndrome after a few casts and a "pick your poison" set of energy management skills that hog an elite slot. This can be implemented by shortening the recharge or lessening the cost on a few key skills or adding some skills that give semi-effecient forms of energy conservation and management without having MASSIVE drawbacks that kill your effeciency as a whole.

Edit to Ensign:
also ensign, watching Guilia Crystalheart run an ele for iQ as and effectively blind wars while runing a great heal spam during the FoTM where the build first came out is what really made me want to play an ele. Playing an elementalist for while and using an EQ/AS build, flashbot/runner with heal party spam I know an elementalist has alot of potential in tournament plays. All this class needs in my opinion is a few clever energy maintainence skills that are fair but firm that will allow the ele to tap into a wider array of skills and add more diversity of the class. Elementalists don't suck, they are just choking with restrictions.

Well Elementalists have issues. Enchantment hate, general incompetance... This is old news. If Anet did nothing before, I sincerly doubt they will turn things around now.
Plus a huge number of people still use them despite their weakness. I know I do. Simply because I have a fondness for my first character. She Brings back fond memories of when I began playing the game. If it weren't for decadent nostalgia, she would be as dead to me as my assassin.
I digress. The point is while many continue to play the elementalist, I can imagine Anet just saying "why fix something that seems in healthy circulation anyway?". Even if most are playing them out of mis-guided love and a hope that they will be 'fixed' one day.

Again, we shall all see how things turn out in the next chapter. A return to the warm fire and the dinner table, or a final push out into the cold abyss.

Some eles never even use enchants, like me. Im an E/Mo, and I only use enchants like healing breeze, which don't seem to last long enough(or to waste energy on)to strip. Glyphs seem to be the only thing that keeps energy management for the ele safe, but Anet is going to have to buff the ele in terms of energy management or damage(or both XD)or the ele is dead as soon as nightfall hits the stores. Or maybe Anet will nerf the hell out of the dervish, so that they can't strip us naked of all our enchants like this.

It still doesnt make sense to force a handicap in more than one place to make up for it with being forced to use only 1 eliete out of all the options in the game in order to have similar efficiency and time to recovery that other professions enjoy innately.

Still, if they allowed divine favor and divine boon to affect those "3rd monk" skills, i seriously doubt we would see elementalists being brought to field those skills.

Im intrigued, no enchants? Well in PvE attunements are the option (i run twin attunement sometimes btw) whereas in PvP Ether prodigy is a common call. Maybe you use glyph of energy and of lesser energy? That is 2 skills, elite included, instead of one single elite: Ether prodigy.

Maybe we should precise when do we mean PvP and when PvE. Personally im more PvE but sometimes i feel like doing AB and RA; not GvG,HoH nor TA though. So plz read me in terms of PvE.

This thread has many points that I agree with.
Problems:
- Stupid long cast times and recharge times.
- Limited elite choice (you HAVE to bring e-management, unless you are running some wonky build for something).
- 4 pips regen do NOT support 70+ energy.
- Exhaustion on skills that don't need it (the Mind ***** skills come to mind).
- Really high energy costs for skills that don't need it.

I don't think damage is a problem (except in later stages of PvE. The AoE in the Necromancer's curses line is way more potent.) The problem is the frequency with which potent spells can be used.

Anyway, I recently made an ele, and my first char was an ele. I have found Air to be way more potent than fire, especially later in the game. However, I have to use dual enchants and use Aura as a cover to be able to cast. That's 3/8 of my bar right there. What would be nice would be some sort of elementalist varient of the monk's Spell Shield spell.

Oh, and Chilblains in the desert = pain. Why? because it strips two enchants now. Jade Scarabs would run up to me and BANG! there goes Aura and one of my attunements. Just like that. The recharge on the attunements is killer.

Additionally, elementalist's DoT AoE is just sad. Give Firestorm something like a 5 second recharge, then I might consider it a good spell. As it is, it is only good in Pre searing, where the enemies are still stupid enough to hang out in it. Searing Heat is a joke (25 energy just to warn your enemy that if they don't move, you get to burn 'em for a couple seconds? Give me flame trap please.), and Eruption suffers the same issue.

Additionally, some elites are just sad. Did you know that Lightning Surge DOESN'T have armor penetration? I didn't realize it until i did Dragon's Lair the other day, and my Lightning Orb was hitting for more damage. Seriously, increase the cost and recharge to 15, and you could make Lightning Surge a non-elite. It isn't like it isn't removed right away in RA (the only place it might be used in PvP, imo) by the energy needing monk with Inspired Hex.

Overall, there have been, in my views, a lot of good points made in this thread. Energy Storage doesn't help much, except for increasing duration of vital e-management elites. While I think bonus regen could help, it doesn't make sense to do it because such would be overpowering. I also don't think Eles need to do more damage, I think they need to be able to cast more. The only places I think eles should do more damage is later PvE areas, and that could be altered just by changing the enemies armor levels, which would be a lot easier than trying to fairly buff ele's damage from spells. Afterall, both aspects of this game have to be looked at. You can't just balance for one or the other (PvE or PvP). I do like the idea of the Attunements being linked to e-storage and scaling up with that, or just having a higher scale, and not stacking with Elemental Attunement. Sadly, that still leaves them vulnerable to shatters and enchant removal. What would be nice is if e-storage had a built in energy redeeming factor. Like, whenever you finish casting a spell, you get 2% back for each point in it. Afterall, necros gain energy when stuff dies, why not give eles energy when they finish casting? Dervishes get energy when enchants end on them (health, too), etc. And that would max at 32% energy back, which would be about the same as one attunement. I personally don't think it would be overpowered, considering that rangers (with max in Expertise) can reduce costs of all non-spells by 64%.

So, things I would like to see:
- Less exhaustion on elites!
- Lowered energy cost for spells that have stupidly high energy cost for their payoff, or buffs for such spells.
- Better non-elite energy management, possibly built in, so that eles can actually use other elites.
- Lowered cast times.
- Lowered recharge times. Like, way lowered. Eles should be able to through out a LOT of pain, not just launch off some stuff, then go and have time to bake a pie while waiting for the recharge of spells to be able to cast again.
- Ability to throw out DoT AoEs like crazy. Firestorm doesn't hurt much, and is a joke as it is. But imagine if you could get 2 going at the same time? That could actually add up.
- These changes to be balanced. For example, the cost on a 5 second recharge Firestorm is fine at 15, at the current recharge, 5 is appropriate. After all, you're probably going to do less damage than a flare would do for all the longer your target(s) are going to stay in it.
- Rethink certain elite spells. For example, Lightning Surge could use the usual Air Armor Penetration.

And finally: I'd like to see some cool 15k armor that actually has some burning effects, or mist, etc.

On a random side note, to feel powerful: put 16 in fire, and use Inferno on a Frenzying Hellhound. 500+ damage.

Oh yea on a side note I transformed a fast cast mesmer into an elementalist primary.

I shot him with broadhead arrow.

The sad part is, even if all these things were implemented and elementalist STILL won't match up to a dervish in its current state. If something isn't done, it will be really easy to put down the wand and pick up the scythe. Half of the community is going to do so anyway. Even with nerfs, I have a feeling that the 2 new classes are going to be much more effective than the ele.

Two thumbs up to Lordhelmos.

I am afraid i will be one of those ex wand-erers that will take the scythe in order to deal real elemental damage, nasty AoE, better armor (add up the buffs) and healing skills, all included in the same profession:

Dervish = elementalist + monk + Melee (cyclone axe included with hammer-like dmg output)

But dont forget that spear > bow: a paragon can poison, daze, set on fire, bleed and interrupt, like having poison arrow, incendiary arrows, broad head arrow and melandrus arrows all equipped (all those are elites for a ranger). Add the 96 armor and then you have a beast.

I can foretell that since we will be facing Dervishes and Paragons the Elementalists will play the same roles in PvE @ Nightfall than those they run in PvP: Heal Party + Freeze spammers, some Blinds and maybe a Ward here and there. I must confess that this supporting role is certainly useful and somewhat necessary, but it is really disappointing for the supposed damage dealer to end up as a defensive spammer.

Sarcastic but true. ANET are you hearing? Prove us that this assertion is not true:

ELEMENTALIST = DAZED MESMER

I DO NOT pvp or solo. I play as part of a GROUP so I relay on others in the group to do thier role so I can do mine.

glyph of energy (e)
Rebirth
fireball
Incendray bonds
Healing breeze
Rodgrots invocation
metor shower
8th slot changes depending on what I'm doing.

16 (12+3+1) fire
11 (10+1) Eenergy Storage
8 Healing

I have 105 energy. I get this from wand +15e -1r and off hand +27e -1r +hp 30. I play a lot in the waren. So I start with glyph, shower, fireball,glyph, rodgrots, bonds. In the 1st 2/3 rooms with the huge numbers of mobs.

While this may not work for you. It works fine for me. As for as cookie cutter crap. I say if it works for you then its not crap.

by the time eles are done putting their energy management skills and 'defensive options' in the skill bar, there's no room left to do any damage.

something new i learned yesterday: While attuned, it takes the original cost of the spell, even while the spell might be reduced by glyphs... interesting huh?

Well, i learned that while i was out capping Peace and Harmony, which is a really odd boss, like a Xunlai Agent in the middle of a snow storm

ANYWAYS...

Why not have a peace and harmony warder? why wouldnt that work? 5 regen is quite nice, and you can keep it up for as long as you want... just throw a few wards on, some defense and some backup heals like dwaynas kiss and you have a very defensive, helpful, progressive ele. With only 1 more pip of energy...*hint hint* *nudge nudge*

Well, ANET, please look at some proportions, that was like 3rd grade maybe...

1.3 energy a sec = 45 max energy = 5-10 energy spells, rarely 15, MAINTAINABLE

1.3 energy a sec /=/ 80 max energy /=/ 10-15 energy, MOSTLY 25
maintainable? with dual enchantments, enchantment hate = high...

2 things change, the most important one doesnt.

...my point may not be very complex, but either buff the attunements further and betray eles to FC, or give eles around 2.3 energy a second... roughly 7 regen, which is only 1 pip below the "what an ele needs to outdamage a war 1v1" math. Seems right to me. To many abuses, unfortuneately.

An Idea : Have some recharge times linked to energy storage, ie:

Elemental Attunement: 10e, 2s, 45r
For 45 seconds, you are attuned to Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. You gain 50% of the Energy cost of the Spell each time you use magic associated with any of these elements. If your energy storage is below 4, this skill takes an additional 30 seconds to recharge.

...might stop FC mesmers...as long as arcane echo doesnt ... arg redoing my redone skill...that would give a what...65s attunement which has been recharging for 65s seconds...giving a 12 second respite... umm no...

Elemental Attunement: 10e, 2s, 45r
For 45 seconds, you are attuned to Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. You gain 50% of the Energy cost of the Spell each time you use magic associated with any of these elements. If your energy storage is below 4, this skill takes an additional 60 seconds to recharge.

Yeah. do that anet.

Interesting build without enchantments, but even if its a good idea it does not give you the right to call others "crap".

With your build you cast Meteor shower or Rodgorts after glyph of Energy, and thats 1 shower and 3 rodgorts in one minute: not bad since you deal damage via burning with rodgorts and incendiary, but not enough KD for me.

You are totally dependent on Glyph of energy. Try any other elite choice without enchantments and you will see its impossible to cast with a decent frequency without them. For instance If you switch for Glyph of renewal you can cast a Meteor shower every 15 seconds and a Rodgorts each 15 seconds. Of course that in that way you need Fire attunement to manage energy, and Aura of restoration to cover it.

Now you understand why the need of enchantments, even in PvE?

Lastly, Having just 3 pips because of the wand and using Rebirth means to wait an eternity for your energy to be fully recharged, and 4 pips does not change much the situation. I bring Resurrection chant instead.

I do not agree at all, Trylo. What we need is lower recharge times on Attunements, not just to "kill the FC ele". We need to recast attunements when they are removed, just like we can cast Aura of restoration or a monk casts Divine boon.

I have proposed that all attunements dependent on Energy storage ranks in order to get better percentages of energy back. This is what i ask concretely:

Air/Earth/Fire/Water Attunement
10 energy, 2 sec cast, 15 sec recharge.
For 30...70 seconds you are attuned to Air/Earth/Fire/Water. You gain 30%...100% of the energy cost of the skill each time you use Air/Earth/Fire/Water magic.

Elemental Attunement
Same stats but with all elements.

Note: Twin attunements give you 83% back and the other 17% its the pips that give it back. I expect to have the same 83% at 13 or 14 Energy storage ranks without using twin attunements.

Might have been posted here already (but I'm too lazy to read through the whole thread ):

Elementalists won't be the only ones cursing those Dervish skills... I play a devoted active protter Monk, and trust me, I hate them already.

Yes I am totaly dependent on glpyh of energy, BUT thats because how the build works and was built. While you CAN cast faster with glyph of renewal your forgeting about the exhaustion that both rodgrots and metor shower cause. So even if you could cast the spells you would be so exhausted you could'nt. This is the OTHER reason for useing glyph of energy not on does it give you 20 energy off the next spell its ALSO stop exhaustion. Which since I play in the warren alot is VERY handy in the rooms where every spell you cast causes exhaustion.

I actually only have 2 pips of regen. But if I have to rez people it means something has gone badly wrong and I will have enough time anway to regen. Res chant has only half the range of rebirth so since I will only be rezing people if something has gone badly wrong I find that haveing a bigger range is better.

Dear Spike, Rodgorts does not cause exhaustion. Yes i have exhaustion due to Meteor shower but after all the extra energy granted by E storage allows me to get exhausted, and thanks to fire attunement and the Glyph of renewal i can cast 2 Meteor showers and 2 Rodgorts per mob. Meteor shower is nice for the KD effect and because enemies flee away and so they are not attacking; the damage is nothing impressive but is not terrible.

As a matter of fact I cast the first Rodgorts after the Glyph of lesser energy and the second one free but since you got the rebate without counting the glyph reduction i get nice paybacks.

Ara of restoration is my cover for Fire attunement and for alleviating monks a little bit from healing me.

About res: i res people as soon as they fall down, and res chant grants me to raise them at full health.

Sorry. I had to...