Time to fix the ele problem

Yeah...the only thing missing is the high damage.

Since that is missing, it makes their low armor pointless.

Warriors deal the most damage and have the highest armor....so why does an ele have low armor? I dont know either.

Edit: Just figured it out!!! Highest damage = highest armor. Lowest damage = lowest armor!

Edit2: thought about it more...and laughed at how completely true it is. (warriors deal most, assassins and rangers in a close second, all other classes behind)

Useless? Try telling that to my girlfriend when she tanks with her ele. Better than a warrior too, though it does require skill.

For solo farming, elementalists are fine. 55 HP builds, warriors, and elementalists are the three main ways to solo farm, although MMs of course work in zones where there are some easy starter kills to get you rolling. And PBAoE is a big part of most solo farming builds.

Elementalists are more problematic in group play, but as a solo character they work just fine. A standard Ether Renewal build has AL 222, further defense depending on your weapon choice ("when enchanted" shields are getting popular), two bursts per minute of over 550 points self-healing each, and (very roughly) 10 points per second of self-healing in the 23 seconds between bursts. (Obviously, various kinds of disruption can drive down those numbers.) And they can dish out considerable damage -- featuring PBAoE -- killing anything that's not getting healed in under two minutes and usually in under one.

I totally agree. I mean when a group wants a spiker for the group, who do they call? A ranger.....

Any class can use defensive skills. The fact that warriors start with higher base armour means no ele will ever out-tank one. No offense but clicking Armour of Earth is hardly my definition of skill.

Bottom line is that eles cant sustain the damage. Every break in using a skill to potentially compare to warrior damage not using skills causes any total warrior defense from one source to be laughable. See here http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/a.../t-113319.html
You are also forgeting interupts, which people largely do not have to bring specifically for elementalist skills, because many of them simply arent dangerous to warrent it. Coincidentally, elementalist skills are also the easiest to interupt out of all professions by percentage of skills and overal time spent casting per skill at the high end. What is funny is how mesmers get armor bonuses while casting, yet they have many of the fastest casting skills on top of their primary attribute further reducing that casting time, yet a bonus like that would seem to make the most sense for elementalists who spend the most time casting.
I hope you are referencing the named elementalist npcs that are level 24 or above or in groups greater than 8. Most of the ele spells dont hit hard enough or deliver a secondary effect worth the casting time/energy cost of the skill or is far too limited in recast time or exhaustion.

Considering shelter exists and has an area of effect that by far truncates anything an ele can sling, the point is rather moot. Even still, if the target of the spell spreads out 3-4 body lengths from his allies, then there is no issue of cross over damage from ele spells. This only takes a half second to do as well.

All of the DOT aoes need to be buffed or have the game mechanics changed with them. You are paying for the aoe in time, cost, recast, and in most instances exhaustion for a marginal gain in the ability to strike more than one target. You would have an argument if elementalist spells functioned in areas like the spirits affect or have text that reads like heal party, where it just auto hits the entire enemy team regardless of distance or positioning, or cast in less than a second catching the opponent off guard. These are the types of things the elementalist has to compete against when facing off against semi intellegent opponents on top of trying to balance casting with staying power. For hard numbers you can go back to the archived link provided above for reference.

That is the assassin's area of expertise actually.

Ask the question of why exhaustion is always 10e regardless of the initial energy cost before this one. Then ask why expertise is a passive skill for rangers, while its an active skill for all other professions and far more limited. Before you go down the path of, "eles get energy storage, so its the same thing" its not. The moment energy storage gives bonus pips of regeneration innately, give a comparable zealous mod upgrade to elementalists, and remove exhaustion from spells completely, then you have an argument.

What gets me is that parties routinely overcome named monster challenges with simple damage neutering techniques such as prot spirit and shelter against un-nerfed elementalist damage, but players are not allowed to weild such power as elementalists that would acutally cause them to be comparable to warrior damage output in most circumstances.

Your post is irrelevant.

It is absolutely necessary to have the warrior shutdown in your build - of the types you mention otherwise warriors will kill you. That eats up energy - attention and skillslots so in effect there is a substantial amount that you pay to not be raged on by warriors.

Sam

I definitely understand that something needs to be offered to make elementalists viable again. However with the bosses now doing double damage, I dont think increasing elemental damage is the answer, We are already being hit for 350-400 points at a time.

My biggest problem with ele spells isn't the exhaustion, cost or even the casting times. It's how anet has defined area of efect. Right now Aoe is centered on you with spells like lava font or where another person or creature is standing at the time the spell is cast. The most powerfull spells an ele has can be completely negated by walking or running away from them. Meteor Shower is the best example i can use for this. The description reads -

Create a meteor shower at target foe's location. For 9 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 7-91 damage and knocked down every 3 seconds. This spell causes exhaustion. Cost 25 energy.

It really should read -

Create a meteor shower at target foe's location. For 1 second, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 7-91 damage and knocked down. For the other 8 seconds the foes that ran away watch the 25 energy and 5 seconds cast time you wasted smash meteors into the ground every 3 seconds. This spell causes exhaustion.

Anet could leave everything about ele's the same and just change the spells so that the area of effect is centered on the player the spell is cast on and not the location they were in when it was cast. I can deal more damage with 5 flares for the same cost in the time it takes just to cast Meteor Shower without the exhaustion.

What other proffesion has to deal with high cost skills that at best deal only 1/4th of the listed damage with no other side effect on the person it was cast on. Someone is going to respond to this by mentioning mesmer or necro hexes like spitefull spirit or backfire but those are still cheaper and unless you or someone else has a hex remover you are going to take massive damage from them or be completely shut down for the duration of the hex. With most ele spells with the exception of a couple of hexes you can just run away while the ele wastes his time and energy casting these nearly worthless spells.

And i do know what it's like to play an ele my first char is an ele a little over a year old now and he had 1.1 million xp on him before the aoe nerf. i haven't played him as much as i would like because i can do more with my warrior than i ever could even before the nerf with my ele. I can farm in more locations with a warrior and its alot easier to hench with a warrior that it is with a caster in any situation. i have experiance playing every character now and the ele is the most crippled in my opinion with very little for self heals, spotty conditional damage, and even the best armor is conditional on the type of damage you take. And I'm not saying this as a causual weekend player either I have 3 prophecies accounts the first 1 is a collectors eddition 2 of them are linked with my 2 factions accounts and im thinking about buying a factions collectors also. So this is my opinion on the subject coming from someone with 16 char's and several thousnad hours of play time please do somethig to balance the problems with the ele char's.

I'd call it skill when she tanks 10 Grasps of Insanity and 3 or 4 Scythes of Chaos, and some Terrowebs all at once, being the only tank in our group. And at the same time, doing damage to those who surround her.

226 armor is nothing to sneeze at either.

The only real problem with elementalists is Exhaustion. About the only idea I could get was that for every point in storage the Elementalists gains a 3.5% speed recovery from Exhaustion. At 10 energy an elementalist would have 35% speed recovery from Exhaustion. Since he recovers usually 10 energy per 30 seconds. Youd have 1 energy recovered per every 3 seconds. At 35% it would be 1 energy recovered per every 1.95 seconds. Or give the Elementalist a NON ELITE stance in Energy Storage that does this same function except it would go something like this:

Name (Stance) 15E Cast Time 1s Recharge Time 30s
For the duration of 5-15 seconds you recover 1 energy per every 1.95-1.50 seconds from Exhaustion.

The only reason Elementalists dont get Exhaustion removed is because thats the only balance there is to their inmense energy storage compared to every other caster.

(almost all) Ele Elites should not exhaust, not going to think of them all right now. 1 off the top of my head that obviously should (and does) is Ether Prodigy. Whats elite about exhausting yourself to do average damage with a long recharge, anyone?

Quick addition: Eles are currently the most useless char, anything useful on them can be done on a X/E with ease. If I'm interupting, eles are my least concern, I'd rather sit there waiting for a warrior to use shock and interupt that, I can think of 2 ele skills I would stop; Deep Freeze and Blurred Vision and not for the damage (which eles are supposed to deal) but for the hex :S

oh and Zhou Feng, stances don't have cast time :P

Yeah well I wouldn't...you done?

It's more than any warrior can do. In fact, if you're going to be that way, I must confess I'm not all that impressed with warriors.

have you actually done that? I would like to see your ele tank one grasp and one scythe. Fingers of chaos + strips + interrupts = gg ele...

Fingers of Chaos only strips enchants if you are monk secondary (or primary). If you're an ele it interrupts, which can be countered with Mantra of Resolve. Spells that strip enchantments won't work on Obsidian Flesh (and Spellbreaker if your monk is helping with that) because no spells can get through.

Yes, we have done this. It was a 5-man Tombs team with no warriors and we got all the way to the end. Really good money.

hmmm i did not know that =\

Yeah Armour of Earth, Obsidian Flesh, Kinetic Armour. Spam all 3, use EQ and AS and maybe stone daggers or AoR to keep the kinetic going. Inspired build. Sorry I doubted your gf.

Eles can still do more spike damage than any other class. One ele can line up a few Air or Fire spells and time them correctly and deliver a couple hundred damage on his own in just a few seconds. DoT nukes like Searing Heat are still useful for getting mobs to scatter. Let's not forget...Burning is one of GW's ultimate killers, and eles have lots of spells that cause it.

Eles are great as they are and I wouldn't change a thing about them--they just can't compete with MM and SS necros for AoE damage.

Meteor Shower is rather dumb. The first Meteor hits 3 seconds after it being cast, which means that normally no one gets hit at all. Fire Storm could have the damage doubled or something, it's not like anyone's gonna stand in the AoE for more than 3 seconds max.
If the damage of non-DoT Fire Spells is buffed, people could spike alot easier and no one wants that. So adding longer burning duration would mean more damage but no ability to do some insane overpowered spike. Anyone think it's a decent idea?