Time to fix the Elementalist

Wouldn't you agree that if PBAoE spam becomes truly as popular as people suggest it might, the ability to toss a Ward vs Foes and spam Heal Party will become all the more important? Certainly, not the most fascinating part of the Ele skill arsenal but nevertheless a use of sorts. Do you think that better energy management will solve some of the issues involved? And by better nrg management I don't mean anything radical like adding extra pips, more along the lines of new nrg management skills (that don't cause Exhaustion for a break).

Max on regen is +10, isn't it?

Maybe just have energy storage work like the attunements do now, only for elemental spells...

QFT.

also dont forget that straight buffing the skills will turn good old imps/golems/titant/etc into death machines.

Dear Ira, DEATH MACHINES is supposed to be the definition of a true elementalist: nasty raw damage. And yes, id love to deal the same damage with my ele than imps and titans but the difference between NPC foe eles and PC eles are gigantic:

I deal 141 dmg with a Lightning orb at 16 Air magic whereas the level 24 ele boss Chung the Attuned hits for 324 damage with his Lightning orb, we both on a 60 armor foe.

I hit for 21 dmg with a Meteor or a Star burst at 16 Fire magic vs any Mursaat boss, even the "soft armored" necros and mesmers.

I think the most elegant solution, if you want ele's to be damage threats and not heal-party spammers or support characters, is to add an armor penetration bonus linked to energy storage.

Why not just have ele runes that increase damage output, warriors got absorption runes after all.
Or put player elementalist on par with monster elementalist in damage output.

As it stands now, the Derwish will take the position as best AOE dealer , making Elementalist even less frequent as desired party members.

But then again in a party of 4-8 there is only so much room, people will discriminate in attempts achive optimum result or "best" group. A party of 4-8 will now be composed of...?

I apologise beforehand for repeating myself over and over again, but here is my proposal that echoes SpeedyKQ's:

Replace the 3 extra energy points per rank granted by Energy storage and have instead "Elemental wisdom" with an extra 3-5% damage OR armor penetration per rank when using elemental spells.

Regarding energy management, I humbly submit this for consideration

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10017623

I also like the armour penetration suggestion. However, to avoid it being a monk-style 1 class primary, I think it should apply to all Spells that do element damage, such as Ritualist spells.... and Dervish spells :P

Having said that tho, I really think recharge times on Ele spells should be looked at. Balance issues aside, its just not FUN to be locked out of doing things for so long. I dont think any damage skill should have a recharge longer than 60s, and many of the 30s recharge skills really need to be changed to 15s or 20s. Sure, modify the damage to keep them balanced (probably not necessary) but they should be available more often.

If you want armor penetration then use air magic. Why changed their primary for something that already exist?

Stop complaining about an ele's dmg. The problem with the ele is recharge and cast times on skills. They have to be in the mid line to use those skills. That puts them in postition to get owned by a mes or ranger. You use a high energy skill, get interrupted, and now you are out the energy and have to wait the long recharge. Oh btw, you didn't do any dmg.

With their current set up for GvG they are the best flag runners. This also puts them out of range for heal party to be interrupted or shutdown. They also carry wards, snares, blind, ect..... Set it and forget it skills.

There is nothing wrong with the dmg from ele's the other classes just own it because of the paper rock system of GW. Just like every other class in GW is the same it can be beaten by something else.

Hella, i guess you mean Ward vs foes because the damage dervishes dealt in PvP beta event wasnt really scythe based but magic based.

The sad point, as it has been mentioned everywhere is that since eles do not deal real damage their role is limited to be a support player that spams Heal parties, snares like Deep freeze or wards.

Real damage is what we ask. Against early foes like chars we do rule, but once we get to the desert the things get complicated vs Enchanted swords and bows because their armor pwns our biggest spells. In that case only Immolate or Mark of Rodgorts can save us because the degeneration they cause.

Yes, exhaustion is really a pain, but the real issue of energy is that we drain ourselves out as a desperate measure: we do not deal enough damage so we keep casting to overcome the lack of one bazooka spell with several machine gun spells that are expensive, slow to cast and with huge recharge times. Let me precise it with an example:

I cast Meteor shower on a couple of Mursaat bosses and i realise i am dealing 21 damage per meteor, then i cast Rodgorts invocation and i see the two yellow 24's, "omg!" then here i come with Mark of rodgort and i end up with a "wand spike" because i have less than 10 energy, all spells recharging, and i see that the burning deals tons of more harm than my raw spells.

That is exactly the problem. The elementalists are one of the best support classes ingame: flag runners, snares, wards, HP spammers, KD and Blind. Yes indeed, they are really impressive doing that, but they are a total fiasco as damage dealers:

A Lightning Orb at 16 Air magic deals 106 dmg and has 25% armor penetration. Against Jade armor deals 92 dmg (not bad i must confess) BUT against a Mursaat boss it deals only 38 damage: the same amount of damage a Vampiric Gaze deals with only 7 ranks on blood.

You know, it's funny, when I first started playing Guild Wars (about 6 months ago) I thought Ele's were one of the best damage dealing classes in the game, and I thought Mesmers were just lame. 6 months later, my opinions have completely reversed. Ele's are (unfortunately) one of the worst classes (and Mesmers are pretty cool).

I can easily match an Ele's damage output with my Warrior. That's pretty sad, but do you know what's worse? ANet made it that way on purpose. They "balanced" Ele's by reducing their ability to deal massive damage. But when I can deal as much, if not more, damage with a class that has much better armor, why would I use an Ele?

Yea, Ward vs Foes, thanks for pointing that out. See... I don't know if it is really bad that Eles are mostly used for slows and blind/weakness spam in PvP. I mean... it is pretty impressive to be able to keep something slowed and blinded (or weakened) for prolonged periods of time all the while pumping your whole party with mass heals. Sure, there is no fireworks involved but the benefits of these are obvious.

As for the PvE side of things, when Ele damage doesn't work anymore you can do a couple of things: switch to PBAoEs which are generally higher dam so they compensate for higher armor, play Earth and use the non-elemental skills, focus on conditions and hexes spam, or do KD. I mean, it used to be that Eles did kill anything with the Echo nuking be4 the AoE nerf. Sure it was great but it wasn't rly anyhow logical for Eles to unload a ton of nukes and wipe out a whole bunch of high lvl monsters within seconds. This said, I find it funny that the highest dps AoE- Mark of Pain- never belonged to Eles.

Yeah, but there really isnt anything in the ele lines that "overpowers" by force or manipulation like the other professions do. If the "real" strength of the ele is to not be in a fight, there is a much larger problem than many individuals are putting forward. Personally i dont agree with that observation, because that would be more of a ritualist/spirit thing to me.

elemental atunement, immolate, fireball, rodgort's invocation, meteor shower, glyph of lesser energy, glyph of elemental power, res skill
that's my pve ele set up, I only pvp with my necro and warrior so I don't bother with a pvp set up

maybe if they lowered the exhaustion to 5 points rather then 10

Hella, i have a guess of how did that work that way: against warriors and rangers after Dorks you deal 60 dmg with a single meteor, so if foes do not flee and you cast 2 meteor showers it is 60x6= 360 dmg + KD, which is a nice damage considering the 50 energy cost and 20 exhaustion. Now the foes flee and spread to minimise the effects, which is good because AI should mimic real behaviour, but in than way a Meteor shower only hits one foe, and only once, so 25 energy, casting in 5 secs, cooldown of 60 and exhaustion is not a fair trade for 60 damage.

If Meteor was a 60x3=180 single hit vs high armored things would be different: 3 secs cast and 30 secs cooldown.

Again, the point is that, due to the lack of damage, the Eles have been forced to play other builds in order to use cleverly the extra energy granted by ES, which should give a bonus on elemental spells.

I won't post any 'quick fixes'. I really begin to tire of continually writing the same thing only for it to fall on deaf ears. All I will say is this...

I think everybody can at least agree on that. Anet know what they need to do to improve them. They made this game. Came up with some of the best builds. If anyone knows, they do.
If they do not do anything for the cunjurers in the next chapter, I would then reason that they just don't give a damn. Simple as that really.

I was wondering why the elementalist henchies in Prophecies are Fire based and sucked, but those in Factions are earth and air based and they are really decent. Well here are my guesses:

1. Mind burn is really decent fire elite (except for the exhaustion factor) because you set the foe on fire for 7 secs (that is 14x7=98 dmg) plus the 63x2=126 fire damage. Versus a Jade armor it deals over 150 net damage.

2. In Factions there are monk foes in almost every spawn, so fire is easily coutered. In that case direct damage (Obsidian flame), the double hit of Stone daggers (the first one possibly neutralised with Reversal of fortune but not the second one) or an air spiker are more useful.

3. Against the melee foes a warder is really valuable. Add Unsteady ground and Churning earth and you can clear the area because foes do not stay there to receive the whole damage, they flee.

4. Fire storm always arrives late, but even if it comes in good time is a joke because foes just take one step right and voila!

Just imagine Mind Burn without exhaustion: it would be a nice elite worthy to be echoed, and in that case the fire elementalist could really be a fearful goddess of damage.

PLZ PLZ ANET remove exhaustion, or make it only 5!

That is one idea i'd like to see being executed... it'd give the elementalists the needed buff (as well in strength as popularity, hopefully), and it won't disable any fast cast elementalists in PvP

If ANet will do that, i'm gonna start my own elementalist, 100% sure of that.

Just a little mathematical exercise:

Warriors have ~20 energy and 2 pips
Rangers ~30 energy and 3 pips
Monks, Necros, Ritualists, Mesmers ~40 energy and 4 pips
Assassins have 4 pips but ~30 energy, why? because their skills are very expensive, 10 energy, and they are meant to use them continuously.

How many pips should a ~70 energy caster have? Yes, 7. I know this is absurd, it would make Ele the best primary profession, but Energy storage as it is now only helps secondary profession spells (Heal party spammers or Arcane healers) or allows us to have a better e management against exhaustion and E denial.

How could we improve the elementalist?
How could the elementalist cast continuously?

Maybe the ranger has the answer: Expertise. It keeps the ranger using 10-15 energy skills: think about trappers setting non-stop 10-25 energy traps with Mantra of resolve on; remember the premade R/A build "fangs of melandru"; or think about touchers, a real threat even better than a primary necro using the same skills. I quote:

"For each rank of Expertise, the Energy cost of all of your non-Spells decreases by 4%. Several skills, especially those related to Energy costs and skill recharge times, become more effective with higher Expertise.'"

What about this idea of "Elemental expertise" or "Elemental wisdom" instead of Energy storage:

"For each rank of Elemental wisdom, the Energy cost of all of your Spells related to elemental magic decreases by 4%"

In that way we could cast better than we do now: with 10 atts a Meteor shower or any 25 energy spell would cost 15 energy.

Finally, i echo the proposal of a rune for extra elemental damage. But please post how much extra damage should minor, major and superior runes grant? 10-20-30 ?

I agree that Eles have become a support class.

I would blame their primary attribute for this, since is has very limited uses.

I suggest either:

a, Make Energy storage an automated attunement, for every point in Estorage, you gain 5% back when casting a spell.

b, Make Energy Storage give an additional energy recaharge pipe. For every five points in Estorage, gain one extra energy regenaration. With 16 Estorage, that would max out at 4 + 16/5 = 7.33 energy regenaration.


Note that these balances might overpower for Ele, but please take in mind that these are not final numbers and i would love the idea. It would actually make the Ele a powerful class again.

Obsidian flame, gale, no.

Amen. Radical changes to Eles aren't needed. Little bit goes a long way always.

a would be overpower and make ele become more of a support class like rangers, maybe only elemental spell(may or may not include the lightning spell from ritualist)

b is a good idea, in addition to the current +3 mana per point.

They can make the elemetal attribute have inherent effect, for each point, increase damage and spell crit chance like the warrior weapon attribute.(this might make Air magic overpower)

or instead of adding spell damage or crit chance(do they have spell crit, i never seen 1 myself, if not, they can add spell crit in as well), they can make them do special effect.

Fire: for every 3 point in fire, target foes will suffer burning for 1 sec, spell already do burning effect will have the burning effect extended.

Water: For every point in water, target foes will move 2% slower than normal for 3 sec(only the slowing effect get stronger, not the duration).

Air: for every rank in Air, air spell have 1% of armor penetration.

Earth: maybe extra armor for each rank or earth spell have a KD effect, like, for each rank of earth magic, earth magic have a 1% chance of knock down.

I think people are thinking way to ahead with this and please don't start anouther 5 posts about the same subject like a few months ago.

I think ele's just need a few skill buffs is all which ones however I don't know. But all this talk about changing energy storage and stuff like that is just plain silly it would take way to long to do and knowing Arena net you would all have to re-do your ele's again IF they changed this.

no keep it plain a simple buff up a few skills done.

Why not?
I like your idea, only because I think ES is fine like it is, and that we don't need E/X casting anything else than their own spells.

But I would see something like that:
Fire: Each rank increase AoE and Burning duration by 3%.

Water: Need skill reworking. Each rank in Water increase water hexes duration by 3%.

Air: Every Air damage skill has 5% armor penetration instead of 25%. In addition, each rank in Air adds +2% Armor penetration.

Earth: Each rank increase damage from Earth spells by 2%.

My a idea wouldn't make Eles a support class, it would make them powerful and open up for more comboing of elementalist primarys.

To the people suggesting more chances in form of critical spell hits, no, please don't include more chances instead of skills than there alraedy is. I thought Guild Wars was trying to avoid that?

Answer to:

Fire: Each rank increase AoE and Burning duration by 3%.

No, this would undermine the already known sizes of AoE, thus not keeping it simple.

Water: Need skill reworking. Each rank in Water increase water hexes duration by 3%.

No, every non-hex water spell would not benefit from this.

Air: Every Air damage skill has 5% armor penetration instead of 25%. In addition, each rank in Air adds +2% Armor penetration.

Armor peneltration is already nearly useless, this would be just as useless as strength.

Earth: Each rank increase damage from Earth spells by 2%.

Ranks in Earth Magic already does this, no need for a double effect.

But do not forget that this is a CORE class. So the class will surely die out if they leave it like this or make only a option or two available (thus leaving us with a number of cookie cutter builds).

The elementalists are stuck in a unhandy position, the pve elementalist mobs are WAY stronger than our pve elementalists. So they have to change things with care . Otherwise you could get a few situations which could be.... nasty

Elementalist bosses (canthan sided) doing 600+ damage in one strike anyone?

It would make them able to continously nuke which lots of nuker able to do so with good energy management but it makes it easier to do so.

The a suggestion will actually promote Elementalist primary as support class like Ranger. It open up more combo for Elementalist for sure, but it doesnt make them a primary DD which people want them to be.

cry...

Elementalists have some of the most powerful spells in the game. I say lower the recharge and energy costs and exhaustion of some earth/fire spells.

Then remove the 20% armor penetration on all the air spike spells. that'll get the pvp'ers whinning.

Gale ok but Obsidian flame?

Obsidian flame is the only ranged spell in the elementalist's repertoire that ignores armor, the other one is the PBAoE Crystal wave (it is repeated as Teinai crystals). Its sad that the only armor ignoting spell we have have exhaustion; i quote:

"When Exhaustion occurs, the caster loses 10 maximum energy... Maximum energy is recovered at a rate of 1 pip = 1 point of energy every 3 seconds."

Let me compare Obsidian flame with another armor ignoring spell, Vampiric gaze:

A maxed Obsidian Flame deals 118 damage, but the exhaustion makes it cost 10 energy. You need 30 seconds to get rid of the exhaustion effect, and then you energy is fully recovered.

A maxed Vampiric Gaze deals 63 damage. In 30 seconds you can cast 4 times to deal 252 damage with a cost of 40 energy. But since your energy recovers at a rate of 4 points per 3 second (4 pips, no exhaustion) after those 30 secs you have your 40 energy points back.

118 vs 252 damage !

I insist, why Obsidian flame should cause exhaustion? Better make it cost 10 and recharge in 10 than adding exhaustion.



I have some ideas id like you all to have a look at (any feedback is welcome):

1. We depend on enchantments and we cannot avoid their removal. There should exist a "lock skill/stance" that prevents the enchants to be removed. I propose to modify the currently uninteresting Mirror of ice in order to have that.

2. The recharge of all attunements is really excessive because if they are removed we cannot recast them as we do with Aura of restoration or as a monk does with Divine boon. A recharge of 15 secs should work.

3. Better percentages of the rebate (payback) of energy when using an attunement, and depending on Energy storage ranks. Its really sad that we need to use twin attunements in order to keep casting (btw both give 83% back). Why not having x attunement with over 70% back when E storage is above 12 ranks?

I know this would kill FC eles but if the best damage dealer Ele is a FC ele then Elementalists do have a serious problem.

4. Glyphs with less recharge times would make them really usable: Lesser energy and Essence @ 15-20 secs, Renewal and Energy @ 5-10 secs.

5. Reconsider exhaustion. Exhaustion was added because of the Gale warrior build, wasnt it? Then instead of the gray bar that recovers at a rate of 1 pip of energy make Exhaustion remove one pip of energy from your natural regeneration rate for 5 seconds. And make that stackable.

In that way an elementalist exhausted would have a rangers regeneration for 5 seconds. But a warrior exhausted using zealous or vampiric weapon should have no energy recover: am i killing the shock warrior? i dont think so.

Exhaustion was around long before the Gale War. All that happened to Gale was the base energy cost was increased from 5 to 10. And I do like the lesser cooldown for glyphs. Watch for people calling cutting Glyph of Renewel to 5-10 seconds too powerful though. Using it, you can effectively cut the recharge time of a single spell down to the recharge time of the Glyph (meaning, in its current state, 15 second recharge on any one spell, such as Meteor Shower). An overall lessening of the time it requires for both casting and recharge on spells/glyphs would be nice.

I think it would be nice to have the Attunements more potent, and (as was stated in another thread, the enchantment one), have Ele Attunement and the regular attunements not stack, but all be an equal level of return. Be nice to have them be stances (watch people cry overpowered on that...just get a wild strike Assassin or start equiping Wild Blow on wars. :P). That would help with the removal issues that elementalists suffer from them.

I would also agree that exhaustion needs to be reconsidered, but not necessarily in the way it functions, but more on the number/type of spells it is applied to. All of the Mind spells come to mind...

Overall, I know for sure that I want a non-elite viable e-management option. And no, eles can't just do like other classes. Mesmer inspiration e-management is just not strong enough when all of your spells are 10+ (usually more like, 15 or 25) to cast.

Armor (ESPECIALLY in later PvE stages) really is what hurts the ele as far as damage goes with individual spells. The other problem is cooldowns and cast times.

Oh, and please make Meteor Shower hit wait 3s, hit, wait 3s, hit instead of wait 3s (warning all human players to MOVE), hit, wait 3s, hit, wait 3s, hit.

Also, in my opinion, a large number of AoEs need to be buffed. This isn't about PvE, this is about PvP (though it applies to both). Firestorm is a joke in PvP. Why? Long recharge, easy to int, easy to move out of, low damage.

I would ask that those hard core GvG/HA PvPers out there come in here and offer their views on what changes would make them consider Eles for primary damage dealers. I'm focusing here on PvP because balance is more important there.

What is wrong with air in pve as a guildie used his Ele all through out Factions by useing air?He wasn't going back to fire as it cost to much enrgy.I have seen them use air in PvP.

I wouldn't say there is to much wrong with Eles sure in pve everyone want a Nuker like an MM as well but it is not always needed.I played a protection Monk in Factions as I played healer in Prophecies so I wanted the change and it worked well.

I think the basic idea of the ele is to do insane damage, but have serious drawbacks, like long recharge times, long casting times, and exhaustion. I think this is an interesting balance. I'd rather they kept the drawbacks in place, but ramped up the damage so the profession is fair.

And add more one-shot ranged AOE spells like Rodgort's Invocation, which is what the ele really wants to be doing. Ranged DOT AOE is too easy to run from, and PB AOE is impractical for a squishy.

Yeah. The only reason to use an E is for Shock/Blind in PVP and for nuking in PVE. Nukers are weak in Faction PVE, compared to Prophacies. Air Spiker is one of the best antitouch noob builds. Luxons like to use their touch rangers 3-8 at a time, so I rarely use anything but my Spiker for pvp these days. Nothing like electrified touchie.

Energy cost is not that bad when you use Ele attunment and x elment attunment. I assumed they did not stack, until an alliance member told me. Nuke is hardly worth using in PVP, thanks to the rediculous recharge time.

Reducing the recharge and cast time would be nice, especially with the D comming soon, if not their is no major reason to use the E except for blinding.

Exaustion has to be there for a couple of skills, but some really don't need it. It should be removed from Meteor and Meteor Shower, the long cast and recharge times make up for it. Obsidean Flame and Gale need exaustion.

Nukers are weak in PvE in any context after Droks in Prophecies. I play air spiker now with twin atunements and blind since Factions release, or Fire with Mark of Rodgort and renewal Meteor shower for the burning condition and the KD effect, not for real raw damage.

Interesting the antitouch build, can you post it of whisper it to me?

Thats what i have proposed several times, dearest curtman, i apologise for the repetition ad nauseam but here i go:

1. Attunements with high Energy storage should grant us the 83% of energy back that we obtain using twin attunements now (elemental+x attunement), so we can be free to choose an elite out of Elemental attunement for once in a while.
2. Attunements should have a recharge time of 15-20 secs so we can be able to recast them when they got stripped.
3. Exhaustion should be removed from Mind x spells, Meteor, Meteor shower and Earthquake.
4. A Glyph of non-exhaustion should exist: non-elite, 10-15 secs recharge, to use Mind x elites.

Examples:

Casting a Meteor shower each 15 seconds with Glyph of renewal each 15 seconds without the exhaustion penalty would made of me a very happy ele and a real nuker in PvE. Isnt the lack of damage what we are complaining about? well that is one solution... Thx curtman.

Mind x elites are impressive but useless since the only non exhaustion glyph is Elite. I havent seen a single person using them out of RA context where its rarely but possible to see Mind shock. No exhaustion using Mind x spells would make eles to use those skills at ease: imagine an PvP ele using echoed Mind shock or Mind freeze to neutralize melee (a necessary task with the arrival of the Dervish), or a PvE ele using echoed Mind burn to deal real damage and burn people.

Id love that !

QFT.

The question is, then, if eles are a damage-dealing class or a support class. They're fine for support, but if they're supposed to do anything but support & knockdown, then they need a buff, and the most obvious way of making their non-armor-penetrating attacks do decent damage would be to change energy storage to armor penetration.

Which shows that even ANet consider the Elementalist too weak as opponents. Honestly if those monsters where as weak as normal player elementalists, they would be total pushovers. To Bad Anet only improved the monsters.

I totally agree, Roupe.

Just as an anecdote: the Elementalist boss Chung the Attuned hits for 341 dmg with his Lightning orb on a 60 armor foe, whereas i hit for 140 at 16 Air and for 156 at 18 Air (Glyph of elemental power).

I made some maths to figure out the attributes on Air i should have in order to deal 341 dmg vs 60 armor foes and my calculations spat a 41 attributes result.

Conclusion: Yes, ANET is totally aware of the fact that we suck as damage dealers but they dont care about PC Elementalists.

*sigh*

Not to mention, Necros get energy back when something dies, and Vampiric Gaze is healing them at the same time!

I always thought Eles should be immune to exhaustion (or, suffer less effects), since it seems Exhaustion was originally set up to keep other classes from exploiting spells (like a Warrior casting Gale ).

Actually, I have no idea what the hell Anet is currently thinking with eles. You basically have a class which is somewhat usuable in causing mass damage to mobs in PvE (although, more likely to just scatter and aggro even more mobs), and as mentioned be support in PvP.

To those who object to a wholesale revamp of the ele, I have to ask "why?" It's the class with arguably the worst Primary ability in the game, and it abolutely fails at causing the most damage of any class (which I think is still advertised on the official website.

I would love to see a whole revamp, but failing that, at least advertise Eles for what they are: a second best alternative to other classes when it comes to dealing damage.