Elementalist Balance (or why Fire and not Earth?)

As somone who'd like to play a bit of Earth magic next round, I'd like to complain about the lack of quality spells early in the game. For the first

Ascalon City: Armour of Earth, Ward Against Melee
Yak's Bend: Ward Against Foes
Lion's Arch: Eruption
Ascalon Settlement: Earth Attunement

By the time you've reached Ascalon Settlement, there are a grand total of five Earth spells; and all of them have huge casting times. In the same timespan, you've run into almost every Fire spell, and most of the good Wind / Water spells. What I'd rather see...

Ascalon City: Stone Daggers, Ward Against Melee
Yak's Bend: Stoning, Armour of Earth
Lion's Arc: Grasping Earth, Ward Against Foes
Ascalon Settlement: Eruption, Earth Attunement

In other words, perhaps 2 skills for the first 3 trainers, one offensive and one defensive. Also, reduce the number of Fire/Wind so that they are also _2_ skills for the first 3 trainers. As it stands, fire has 4 at Ascalon City: Flare, Inferno, Lava Front, and Firestorm (via starting skill), and it gains a serious skill, conjure fire, at Yak's bend.

Of course, one can be a fire elementalist till Ascalon's Settlement and then switch over to Earth -- but that's a waste of skill purchases that other sorts of elementalists don't have to do, and even then you don't have a low-level 5 energy skill like Stone Daggers.

What do you think? Are Earth skills too rare?

It doesnt really matter, as you can respec so easily in this game. I agree with you, but have accepted my gruesome struggle to qualify as Earthmage.

I understand the problem and think something should be done. There have been many suggestions (on other forums at least) that the Elementalist should get to choose between the elements at the start so that they don't get stuck with fire when they want air, earth, or water. I think this is good and think the warrior should be treated the same way by being given the choice between hammer, axe, and sword.

I may be completly wrong (didn't play elementalist or warrior in pre-searing Ascalon last beta) but I heard that there was some choice now. For warrior there are 3 weapon trainers to choose from and Elementalist has at least 2.

I think that any of the elements should be viable from the very start - Armor of Earth and Stone Daggers should be potential *starting skills*, just as Firestorm and Flare are now. I don't mean that in the sense that they hand you some fire skills and there's a pre-searing trainer who can teach you those two - I mean those two skills need to be a viable option for a new character from the very beginning.

Instead of just handing out a couple skills and saying, 'here are your starter skills!', they need to give people a choice from the get go. Ask them if they want to be a fire, air, earth, or water mage, and make their first 2-3 skills reflect that.

Do the same for the other classes. Ask warriors if they want to learn to use swords or axes or hammers, and hand out skills appropriately. Ask monks if they want healing, protection, or smiting prayers. As it stands all warriors are hammer warriors - all mesmers are illusionists. That's an expedient solution but it shows a new player retraints that aren't real.

Have the first trainer you come to explain the different skill lines and let the player choose. Add secondary trainers for each of the different lines, and let people choose which trainers they want to learn from. Let people choose their path from the very beginning - and, if they feel the need, let them choose all of them. Make choice a fundamental part of the character creation process, not something that's glossed over.

Peace,
-CxE

I'm with Ensign on this one. I've been saying all along that players need to choose their starting skill set for Elementalist (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) and Warrior (Axe, Hammer, Sword) and not have it forced upon them.

Why don't we see more non-fire Ele's? It takes far too long with minimal starting skills in other schools to build up to them. It's a little easier for a Warrior to go for a different preferred weapon early, but it's still the same point.

The other professions have a much easier time due to the vareity of skills available early on. The option to a mesmer, necro, or ranger is just not needed as much, though it would be nice for all.

After seeing the new system in "Eden", I would like to believe that this has just not been completed yet. It seems such a simple concept that I find it hard to imagine it is not going to be that way by Retail.

Charles brings up a good point. It's not just Earth Elementalists who have this problem. All the professions do. Unless you're satisfied with the few skill laid out by the developers at the start of the game you're out of luck. And, generally speaking, the options available in the first few levels are narrow and unrepresentative of the true potential of a profession. Add into all this the fact that some skills are downright impossible to come by and it's rather hard to set up your build if you're looking for a skill that's rare.

I've always been a proponent of the idea that skills need to be easier to find. Just a character's ability to learn them should be restricted. It's skill points that should matter most not knowing where the right boss or skill trainer is. The idea to have a few options at the start of the game or through the tutorial is an interesting idea but I don't think it gets at the heart of the problem. What good is it to start off as an Earth Elementalist if you can't find anymore Earth spells until you get to Lion's Arch or beyond?

But skill availability, the whole skill acquisition system, is a bit of a mess at the moment so it's hardly surprising.

i was wondering, do you guys think that most people dont specialize in earth since it doesnt have a conjure skill? the low amount of skills in the beginning plays a part but i think the whole no conjure skill for earth is a huge turn off for warriors.

Earth is a defensive/team defensive skillset, atleast more-so then the rest it seems. I used a lot of Earth skills on my oldschool W/E for extra defense when getting pounded on by multiple enemies.

Same reason people don't go hammer wars, skills like Sever Artery ect appeal more-so in writing then knock down based skills. A W/E build can tear apart multiple targets at once keeping em knocked down untill death, but, you rarely see people do that.

which is why I'm a huge advocate of weapon variations of warriors... If people could find One Handed Hammers, or Two Handed Swords/Axes... I think you might see some variation on the builds... maybe not a lot, but I think with some tweaking, it would help.

yeah, i recall that there were a couple different trainers for the professions i got to look at, ie an air elementalist and a fire elementalist. obviously, they were still missing a bunch but it seemed that they were on the right track..

I somewhat agree.

The issue here is the true design and focus of pre-seared Ascalon. From what I understood, and from what it played like, it was an area to get familiar with GW. You get familiar with the interface, attacking, using skills and spells, etc. From that standpoint what I understood was that they wanted to have seperate trainers for all of the lines somewhere out in the land. That way you get a chance (if you want to) to try out all of the lines for your primary and secondary, and come up with an idea of where you would like to go.

Now, for the person who is already familiar with GW, that is going to be very repetitive. I have heard suggestions of making a level 3 character with all the starting skills from the trainers to begin seared Ascalon with.

I guess I don't mind doing the missions to get the skills, as long as they are all there, just don't pump up the attributes you don't want. You also have a few refund points when you start.

Matt