Time to fix the ele problem

Don't you mean ftl? As in for the loss? As opposed to for the win, which generally applies to something good. Of course, more than likely you were being sarcastic, but that doesn't come across all too well in text. I say that second bit because I always instinctively see it as faster-than-light. Too much sci-fi, I guess...

Like QFT, which I always read as quit f*cking talking. Kinda jars with the rest of the post, usually. Leaving me confused for a couple seconds.

Eviscerate = 200 damage.

GG

Don't factor in Deep wound.

Then only a rit can do above 150 in 1 hit. (To one creature. Energy surge could do more)

Why not? Eviscerate has the net effect of reducing health by 200. You can play stupid word games all you like, but I'm still a lot more worried when I get hit with an eviscerate than when I get hit with a lightning orb.

Relying on conditions for damage is bad.

Pretty sure when your character is face down in the dirt you don't care that 100 of it was caused by a condition. Eviscerate is a spike skill and Deep Wound adds ~100 damage for that purpose. If you don't kill them, sure, the damage is gone as soon as the condition is, but if you're going to go there then Lightning Orb is worthless because any monk with a brain can heal that all day.

If you're randomly eviscerating people without aim, then yes this is true. However if you're doing that you're an idiot and there's no point arguing with you over it. Eviscerate is a spike skill in the same way as Lightning Orb, it's just eviscerate is better.

Hey, stop hatin' lightning orb. It's not its fault it's a deficient skill. If you base your entire argument vs. eles on lightning orb than it's kind of sad. For those who say eles are weak and have a problem, you obviously haven't seen a good elementalist in action, PvE or PvP, elementalists can be useful. Just a few examples, in PvP, air eles can be good vs. warriors. Obviously blind, along with the armor penetration does wonders vs. the high armor class of warriors. If you don't see why, you need a math class or 10. In PvE, fire skills can make it impossible for a monk(maybe even two) to fend off the attack damage of even one elementalist, let alone an entire group focusing an attack. As it turns out, you can do about 450 points of damage with three skills, while setting your enemy on fire, all within a very short amount of time. And it's not just one enemy, its an entire area, making a monks job very difficult. I'm not going to tell you how though, because I don't share my builds with n00bs, but if you don't think it's possible, prove to me that's it is not, MATHEMATICALLY, and I'll believe you.

My basic point, is that an elementalist with decent skills(not one who spams lightning orb or meteor shower or stone daggers or flare or w/e) can keep the heat on the enemy. My elementalists build is able to use 5 different attack spells without running out of energy(granted my attunements stay up) and to use them continously, so that there is never a break in spell casting. Even without attunements, I could keep it up for quite a bit too, but obviously not very long. Elementalists are not weak, just the people who play them. Get used to it.

Have you read the thread "Why Nuking Sucks"? If not, then perhaps you should go read all 25+ pages before you continue to make a fool of yourself.

Sure they are useful, they just aren't useful for doing damage.

Actually, you would need the math class. Armour penetration makes spells work better against targets with low armour than targets with high armour. Air magic is far better at spiking squishies than it is at spiking warriors.

Why should I be impressed that you've managed to figure out a build that does a pitiful 450 damage when a warrior will also do the same damage using less skills in less time, with more armour?

Your point is incorrect. Please go read the "Why Nuking Sucks" thread for the full explanation, and please stop spreading your ignorant misinformation.

Ha ha and I guess your the elementalist expert? Nuking sucks? That must be why I kill things all the time...

And yes, a warrior can do more damage in a shorter amount of time with less skills, sure, but it's only to one enemy... :O If an elementalist only attacked on enemy, yeah, 450 damage would be pathetic, but last time I checked there were a lot of skills that did this...AoE...thing...odd. Maybe that would do 450 damage to a broad area of enemies...causing up to like...1000s of damage depending on how many monsters are in the area. OMG! Can warriors do 450 damage to a lot of enemies simultaneous over an area? Oh that's right they can't. I forgot that they had to do that whole physical contact/reach their enemy kind of thing.

But don't say something like "Monsters run from AoE" because there are AoE spells they don't run from. Examples are Phoenix, Dragon's Stomp, Fireball, Rodgort's Invocation, etc. I'm not listing them all. Yes, I know they run from AoE spells that are also effective over time, with examples like Fire Storm and Meteor shower, I don't use any pathetic spell like that.

And yes, obviously armor penetration would end up providing better results against weaker armor, I thought that would be obvious. But spiking air spells, not just lightning orb, is effective vs. warriors, and it's just and EXAMPLE. Not a Gospel. If you would like another example, there are spells like obsidian flame, which do the said amount of dmg no matter which armor.

Double dragon @ 18 = 133 * 2 (Assuming this is your start skill and you used the glyph)
Fireball @ 16 = 119
Flame burst @ 16 = 127
Inferno @ 16 = 142
Meteor @ 16 = 119

Anyways...Double dragon & any 2 other skills will deal ~450 aoe.

Of course 101 is standard warrior armor with an of defence mod and a shield.
That mighty 142 turns into a managable 69.

So really
65 * 2
+ 58
+ 58

Your 500 damage turned into a measely 246 that takes place over ~5 seconds. Good luck convincing the monk to not heal.

Also, warriors have penetraiting blow...which they can use a lot faster than orb. (Did anyone mention orb misses 75% of the time due to sparatic movement of everything)

You kill them slower than the warrior would. You kill them incredibly slower than spiteful spirit would. I told you to go read Ensign's "Why Nuking Sucks" thread, and since you obviously hasn't, I'm going to treat you like the ignorant child that you apparently are for the rest of this message.

I'm really concerned about the area of effect damage when half the spells only work against adjacent targets, and the other half will have their damage reduced by more than 50%.

Cyclone axe + triple chop.

Useless as it's an "adjacent" AOE spell.

Another PBAE. I thought it was bad that warrior's had to run up to the monsters to hit them?

Would be nice if it would actually hit more than one target at a time. You'd have to increase the AOE so that it would actually hit people more than a body length away from each other.

Has a nice AOE, but is horribly overpriced and takes far too long to cast.

You'd be better off spiking that warrior with another warrior, a blood necro, or any one of the classes that provides armour negating damage rather than an elementalist.

Obsidian flame is one of the very few elementalist spells that are actually good. Of course, it does less damage than eviscerate, and causes exhaustion, so good is a relative term.

I dunno, I seem to get tunderclapped+lightning striked+lightning orbed+that evil skill that knocks me on my butt to death when i try to take the ele shrine with another warrior. And eles do NOT need better armor. They have more energy than any other class, and if they had the armor of a warrior they'd be unstoppable. Consider it for a moment. You're getting obsidian flamed to death, you move in, try to kill the mo-fo that is doing that to you, and HE JUST WON'T GO DOWN, because you're doing like THREES to him. And if that wasn't frustrating enough, lets view the scenario with a whole team of them.

Eles are a SUPPORT class, not a primary damage class. Get over it, stop whining.

(however, the ele exhaustion is just stupid. Remove exhaustion or make less of it plz Anet)

Why don't you go read your manual again.

I play every class in the game. I enjoy my elementalist, but I am fully aware that the only thing he is good for is taking out stationary targets. I recently went thru Vizunna Square. Every fresh target I picked was dead before I could cast any damage effective spells. I eventually started spamming Flare and Immolate just so I could accasionally share in the drops. (I got three through the entire mission.) If this experience is universal then I agree something needs to be done.

Energy Storage is fine. I can start fresh with 75 to 80+ energy at any given time. However casting costs are not fine. I can still run out of energy as I did spamming in Vizuna Square. They are too high for the secondary holder of the class also. Costs should be dropped by about 5 points on every skill that isn't already 5 points. Exhasution isn't bad, but it is too high. The only two elite skills I use are Trident and Glyph of Energy. The latter allows me to eliminate exhaustion and carry one exhaustion causing skill. Reduce exhaustion effects by half and you have something a little more functional. I would rather make the secondary use of Ele more functional. There are very few X/Eles. Those that are tend to be Rangers or now Ritualists. With 15, 20, and 25 casting cost one might as well have told warriors not to bother.

Self healing is very limited for an Ele or Ele secondary. That also is a problem if you are thinking of being an Ele combo. Classes like Assassin, Monk, Necro, Ranger, and Ritualist are atleast ok for healing. A Mes only has Ether Feast, Warriors have the infamous Healing Signet. Aura of restoration is a primary attribute skill and so makes other classes comboing with Ele dependent on the monk or virtually nothing. More self heals would be good for Ele, Mes, and Warrior, and maybe a few others as well. I would think each class should have one regen and one flat heal available for use in secondary attributes.

If the costs are lowered that still will not make the Ele improve on DPS. Reducing casting speed would. Better chances at not being interrupted would also. (For every point in Energy Storage create a 5% chance to prevent interruption.)

Concerning the AoE nerf, there are skills that would help if they were effective. The Area of Effect is so small in most cases that even chaining in Ice Spikes, Gale, etc. the foe still departs before there is any real damage (30 maybe). I do better using SoJ/Kirrin's Wrath on my Warrior than any AoE from my Ele. With my warrior I can maneuver someone into a trap. The casters cannot do this and remain at range. The fact remains, if a warrior traps a target, by the time my spell goes off the target is already dead. Cooperative gaming is not possible under those conditions, I just let the warrior kill for me.

The Elementalist is viewed as so powerful that it is nearly nerfed.

1) Very slow casting speed.
2) Easily interrupted.
3) One of two casting classes whose skills are specifically resisted by a large segment of armors and mods. (Monks - Holy Damage, Necros - Shadow Damage, Mesmers - Chaos Damage) Rits have a mix I think.
4) AoE largely ineffective, and skill chaining is useless here as the slow skills are over by the time a new spell can be cast.

Fitz

The problem is that over half of the Elementalist's spells deal damage and the majority added in Factions are also damage (however poor many of them are). Therefore, we can conclude that Arenanet thinks the Elementalist have a significant damage component. So I'm sure you can see why no one takes your "they're working as intended, get over it and stop whining" seriously.

NO MORE IMPROVEMENTS, its all good as it is!

The following is my opinion only. Don't get mad if others think different than you Elementalists should be able to deal the most damage out of any class in the least amount of time. Once they have done their main offensive, they should be vulnurable. Exaustion, slow recharge, energy management problems, poor armor, these are all good things. I just think that cast times and damage output should be improved a bit to counter the AoE nurf (which i thought was a good idea. Players will often leave a Meteor shower, why not cpu crits?)

mages should be feared as chractors. Even conan was of afraid of the mages. :P