Elementalists [Hard Mode]: Ideas on how to Buff them.

I always thought they were supposed to be scythe users with AoE on the side . Either way I did say "in a certain mode", dervs and paragons retained their "melee damage" and "party support" role in the entire game regardless of how their skills are. Only eles went from flashy nuker with 90% of their skills somewhat useful to a bond bot with 90% of their skills useless just by pressing a button

I agree they do need work. More specifically, it seems they all had something OP in PvP that was nerfed and overflowed into PvE, all the while the other classes recieved powercreep when these professions did not. I also blame client degradation related to PvP/PvE skill split. When thinking of ways to buff them, the best options(for ANet) would be PvE skills or skills that already have a PvE/PvP split.

Exactly what? Scatter gives the ability to make the game's AI change targets or to run off to their deaths without damaging while giving damage.

I'm not an expert with elementalists, but I have to suggest.. how about tuning down on the casting time for some water spells? Or perhaps add more versatility towards elemental spells? As it stands, very few elementalists can play two elements at a time as there are greater cons than pros. Perhaps buff a few skills, or create new skills, that will better promote the use of chaining elemental spells.

That's a rather interesting point.

Have non elite versions of Master of Magic which crank up various attributes to promote synergy. Chilling Winds, for example could make your water and air attributes use whichever one is higher in number, or Chilling Winds could greatly enhance the armor penetration of all air magic spells used on foes hexed by water, etc. There are plenty of throwaway skills which could be converted into combination powers (Iron Mist, Swirling Aura, Earthen Shackles come to mind).

I like your idea.

Exactly that scatter does not qualify as protection. Its a ridiculous grasp at straw argument. I could bring a mesmer hero and interrupt every spell and blind everything but I wouldn't call it "protection", even though I am prevent them from doing damage while damaging them also....there's a reason why the term "utility" exist. Similarly, I can make enemies "run away" simply by kiting in a certain way every time they come close...its still not real protection though.

The main point is that whether or not you classify scatter as "protection" doesn't really matter, useless is useless. I have a dozen different ways to prevent damage rather than using expensive, long cast time, long recharge "terror" spells. That 10-25 energy spell would have been much better used to cast some armor ignoring damage spells and kill the mobs as quickly as possible.

As much as I like this idea, the work that needs to be done to make it possible would be even greater than just trying to buff the damage. The current single element eles already need to bring 2-3 energy management skills, which usually include an element specific Glowing Gaze equivalent. Multi element would require 5 slot for it to work, unless the plan is to bring only 30+ recharge spells....

A cure to that would be a buff to Elemental Attunement, or equivalent. Perhaps skills that reward the caster with energy if used while meeting certain conditions; IE, burning, water hex, KD, blind.

make monster armor level cap to 80 and gg

There's still a ridiculous level damage decrease. Even on 60 armor casters you only do 70% damage usually. Against warriors and rangers you do about 35-40%.

At this point using my Ele means Red Candy--> Mindbender --> EVAS --> YMLaD --> 12 Domination --> Armor ignoring damage. I can always fall back on Glyph of Renewal-Assassin's Promise-Meteor Shower nuking with an Earthbind Rit, but the problem is that playing with only primary Ele skills is never really a viable option.

I think changing some of the skills in each attribute line to be armor ignoring with a 1 second casting time and making Master of Magic a skill as opposed to an Enchantment could make for some wonderful builds, especially with Prismatic Armor Insignias. That way the Ele could be a viable "Nuker" again. AS it stands now, Necromancers, Rits, and Mesmers all do better damage than the class that was designed to be the party's damage dealer. Or, ANet could release a statement saying that they would like the Ele to be support snares and moderate damage AoE dealers in PvE.

Don't use such skills if you think they're useless, other players will. Protection utility same stuff with countless blurs between them.

And players would use mending wammo too...this entire thread is meant to make useless useful, unless if the title has some "hidden" meaning that I don't get.

I actually find the recharge more of a limiting factor in comparison to cast time. Even 3 sec cast time would be fine if i could cast it every 2 second as opposed to 30+ seconds.

What or where is the hidden meaning?

...What?

60 armor gives an Armor Effect of 1. In other words, on 60 armor targets you do the listed damage. Every 40 armor after that reduces listed damage by half.

You're correct, but only if you can assume you're attacking level 20 foes, which you aren't. Level difference matters when it comes to damage.

Armor raises with the level of the foe at 3 * creature level + armor bonus. A level 30 monk will have 90 armor.

The more you know.....

Yes, because higher level foes have more armor.

I don't see how cracked armor would help. It only reduces 20.

For example, a stoning ~14 (101 damage) only does 32 on a Quetzal stark lvl 26 even with weaken armor.

42 vs 30 on a mountain pine soul (out of 101) is another example.

75 vs 53 on Mahgo Hydra (a caster)
71 vs 50 on Avalanche... (a caster)
101 vs 74 on Frozen Elemental... (a caster)
88 vs 62 on shadow of fear (caster)
101 vs 75 on margonite seer (caster)

75 on Quetzal sly, 101 with cracked armor which means it has at least 80 armor. So basically eles are only going to be killing casters with no additional armor.

This is all fine and dandy, but you have to keep in mind that when half the professions and some casters take about 30-50% even with cracked armor, then it is pointless to run a damage elementalist when on that same 5 cooldown you can pump out Mystic Sweep (+30 damage), overload (75ish), desecrate enchantments or some other spell. That's not taking into account Barbs/Orders/AoHM/"I am the strongest!"/Asuran Scan/etc.

Your token ele spells (save for Searing Flames) are on at least 5 cooldown. So unless they put out 100+ damage (20DPS) they aren't really worth it (even a single ritualist spirit does that, never mind SoS or SoGM spirit spam). With AOEs, it's slightly better but it needs to compete with scythe users with no buffs other than AoHM. If a melee wielding a scythe can carry 1 skill and outdo entire skill lines then we have a problem.

If enemies were given the WiK treatment we'd be better off.

The enemy's level has no direct effect on your spell damage. While enemy armor does go up with level, it's entirely up to Anet exactly what it will be and it often doesn't follow the same 3 armor per level players use. For example, the WiK white mantle enemies all have 60 armor + profession bonus regardless of their level (this is why WiK doesn't suck for elementalists). OTOH, Death Threshers in UW @ lvl 27 have 101 armor even though they should only have 81 by player standards.

The same is not true the other way around, though. A lvl 28 caster effectively penetrates 28*3 = 84 armor players for full damage. This is why armor ignoring enemy spells suck hard while armor-affected spells get large damage boosts (about 50% before you even consider attribute differences or the boss multiplier).

Please just reread all my previous posts on this thread. Our little argument is getting way off topic. To summarize my point: Scatter f**king sucks when the damage is already so low. If Anet won't balance the damage, then remove scatter and be done with it.

Eles would still have a disadvantage when facing non-caster professions. But the fault lies in the fact the armor ignoring damage spells of other classes surpasses Eles' when it shouldn't even be close. I always thought that armor ignoring damage spells is supposed to be a trade off of damage in exchange for more stability.