Does any one else feel that Elementalist skills are kind of... lacking?

I have been PvPing in tombs for quite some time, and although I'm not a top-rated player by any means, (just earned rank 6 a day ago, if that means anything anymore with IWAY builds running around.), while trying to make a build of my own I noticed something- It's kind of hard to stick in an Elementalist running something other than wards into a build.

When I'm looking for solid damage or damage spiking I usually turn to either axe warriors or the dps ranger builds out there, which kind of pre-empts most of the air line and all of the fire line. A pair of axe warriors or a pair of rangers just seems to be more effective than a pair of fire or air eles. Having some spell damage is nice for getting around wards and aegis, but it just seems awkward devoting a slot in a build just for "emergency damage" when I can have a solid mesmer or necro build in their instead.

In the earth line, wards really shine, but nearly everything else either has some clunky cast time, awful recharge or exhaustion inducing. Armor of Earth is a very nice armor spell and is something I tag onto a warder if there isn't anything else to fill in from the secondary class, and along with the wards and possibly Obisdian flame, thats all I really have. Wave and Aftershock can be admittedly very useful, but the situations that you can use them in can be rather limited. Iron Mist is a very useful snare, but is really high on the priority list for being removed, and as an elementalist you kind of lack in cover hexes.

In the water line, ward vs harm looks pretty nice, as does water trident. Malestrom and shard storm, kind of shine above the rest, and everything else just seems overpriced.

About the attunements - Elemental attunement by itself leaves you with 15 seconds of down time + 2 seconds of casting, which means it has a bad habit of running out when you need it the most. And if you pair it with one of the elemental attunes (fire,air,earth,water) that means you are sacraficing 2 skill slots (and you usually bring res along) and one is an elite to boot.

So from looking everything over, Earth really shines above the other 4 elements in terms of PvP capability and utility while fire and air is outclassed by warriors and rangers and water just seems pricey.


Maybe I'm going about this all wrong - any suggestions? Maybe I'm missing something vital?

Water is seriously lacking in all aspects. The others I guess serve one purpose or another. Earth is good, since it provides defense as well as offense.

Water lacks in the Tombs. It definitely shines in GvG, however. In fact, all the elements shine in GvG. Earth and Water just aren't very popular choices due to how their defensive properties don't flow well with the average Elementalist "I do high damage" mindset. Explore the unexplored, people.

Anything water can do, earth and/or air can do better, pretty much. That makes the entire skillset kind of useless from my perspective. Aside from slowing people down (which doesn't have too much practical use to base an attribute setup off of), what's water got going for it?

Blurred vision? Blinding Flash
Any defensive spells? Armor of earth and/or obsidian flesh (a combination of both makes and elementalist very strong)
Maelstrom? Only useful for disruption--you don't need any skill at all for it to be any more effective.

The only thing water's got going for it is Ward Against Harm, but I definitely wouldn't make a hydromancer just for that. If I want damage, I'll go fire or air. If I want defense (and a decent offense) I'll go earth. So what's water for? Most of the skills I see are pretty useless, other than to keep the elementalist alive :|

The thing that all of the elementalist lines are lacking is depth. There are only a certain number of skills that you actually have to work with; this is ofcourse due to the fact that the rest are complete and utter trash.

Most skills are garbage effect and overpriced.

Really only earth for defensive measures (wards, AoE/Kinetic in rare cares) and snares (iron mist/grasping earth) and water for snares are the uses for eles besides ether renewal.

when you scan through the entire elementalist skills... there will only be 1 or 2 skills that is interesting... everything else are high price luxury or ineffective toy that is all too straight foward...

water is good... in its own way...
-it make excellent blanket hex
-mobility/field control
-decent recharge
-decent on energy
-work better with other classes in specialize build
and bad in its own way
-not the greatest in anything

you have to admit water was shinning too bright back in BWE before the water nerf.

I agree for most parts with the OP. Earth is VERY useful in PvP, the other skillsets don't really cut it. I love playing my ele. But everytime I took her into PvP my afterthoughts were "my ranger could have done that just as good if not better". Some Fire spells deal really good damage, but given the energy costs and/or recharge times, I think the damage output per second is higher with my ranger. Rangers don't get interrupted while shooting, most nice ele damage spells have awful long casting times. Also my ranger usually doesn't get ganked by the enemy and has superb survival capabilities in comparison to an ele. How is a Fire ele supposed to defend herselves? Not at all, unless she takes the Earth line as well. A ranger can slap Whirling Defense on and happily continue firing arrows while the warriors ganking her hit thin air trying to whack her. Air Spikes are nice, but if they got a competent prot monk, this won't get you very far, too. Also the exhaustion thing is awful...

I would prefer my ranger over the ele every day of the week unless the group build is specifically designed around eles.

water skills that cost 25 energy does 20 dmg .....

Eles are definitely lacking in their skills. They're almost always either A) a smiter, B) a prot, C) a warder. Their DPS isn't even close to what a Ranger or Warrior can do.

...AND interrupts spellcasting in an area for ten seconds. Maelstrom's damage is an afterthought, not the reason for casting it.

If you measure everything's utility by DPS alone, you're not going to get very far in this game.

The problems with the Elementalist lines become obvious with a few simple comparisons. Not to other classes' skills mind you.. but to their own.

Let's start with an easy one. Fire Storm vs. Searing Heat:

Fire Storm
Damage: 5-24 per second for 10 seconds in an area (Maximum: 240)
Energy : 15
Cast : 4
Recast : 30

Searing Heat
Damage: 5-24 per second for 5 seconds in an area, +3 seconds of ignition at the end (Maximum: 162)
Energy : 25 + Exhaustion
Cast : 3
Recast : 30

Anyone want to make an argument for why you'd ever use Searing Heat? Keep in mind that even if Armor is reducing the hit damage to 25% normal amounts, it's still 60 from FS vs. 72 from Searing Heat.


Let's try another pair: Shard Storm vs. Mind Freeze

Shard Storm
Damage: 10-54
Snare : 66% slower for 2-5 seconds
Energy : 10
Cast : 1
Recast : 10

Mind Freeze (Elite)
Damage: 10-34, plus 10-34 if you have more Energy
Snare : 66% slower for 2-5 seconds
Energy : 10 + Exhaustion
Cast : 1
Recast : 10

Wee! Let's Exhaust ourselves to increase our damage potential by around 20% and then make half of it conditional! YES! What?! It costs us our Elite too? Well.. okay, it's still awesome! (not)


But finally, my favorite one: Lightning Strike vs. Lightning Javelin

Lightning Strike
Damage: 5-41 (25% Penetration)
Energy : 5
Cast : 1
Recast : 5

Lightning Javelin
Damage: 15-43 (25% Penetraton), interrupts target if they're attacking
Energy : 10
Cast : 1
Recast : 5

Yep! You're paying 5 Energy for a conditional (and a condition that makes it almost useless at that) interrupt. Oh, and you need LoS and a projectile hit too now. "But it has higher minimum damage you noob!" Actually, that higher minimum damage is a penalty.. it means the rate of damage increase per skill point is less (since both have similar maximums), so at 16 Air, they probably do equal damage, or possibly, Strike does more. :x

The only argument in favor of the losers in any of these pairs is if you want a similar effect without waiting for the recast so much. But that's a pretty lame argument if you ask me, especially given how much worse the losers are. I'd rather use Glyph of Renewal + the good version for just about all of these.

These are only the surface of Elementalist problems: if you compare them to the skills/capabilities of other classes (something I'm unwilling to do here since my experience is almost entirely with my E/Me, thus I would have even less of a clue what I'm talking about :P), you could probably find even more issues.

You can come up with some pretty devastating combos with an Elementalist, especially adding in an appropriate skill or two from a secondary profession. They also have the easiest time causing knockdowns, which can really help out when used properly.

The problem is, as mentioned, those good combos use up about 25% of the Elementalist skills... because the rest are worthless. All the damage over time AoE's (except Meteor Shower) don't do enough, water magic in general is overpriced and the bonus effect of slowdown doesn't stack well, all three Mind spells barely beat the effects of non-elite, non-conditional, non-Exhaustion causing counterparts, there are too many overlapping self protection spells between Earth and Water (I mean honestly, how many armor bonuses do you need?!), and some spells aren't even balanced with others in the same line, let alone other attributes or classes (like the mentioned Strike/Javelin, or the hilariously bad Lightning Touch).

Well, I was thinking about deep freeze, and moveing out of a mealstorm is not hard as you can spot the storm fairly fast.

I love all the water spells, but it does not feel balanced compared to air/fire (& other classes that can do what water ele does better). Some lower recharge rates would be nice.

smart people ignore TheFerret because he has no clue about conditions.

Intelligent people ignore Ollj because he has no clue about the rest of the game.
Ollj, if you disagree with what TheFerret wrote, I'd love to see you actually address it.

Please enlighten me, how do you see Searing Heat as effective?
How do you plan builds around Lightning Javelin?
What is your argument for taking Mind Freeze over Shard Storm?

Okay, then, as "20 damage" seemed like a blatant reference to Maelstrom. Deep Freeze does more like 50-60 damage with decent levels in Water _and_ causes AoE slowdown for 10 seconds. It's not the greatest 25-point spell around, but then again, that's what Glyph of Energy is for.

At different times, my PvE Ele has played around with Fire, Fire/Air, Earth, Earth/Air, Earth/Fire, Air/Earth, Earth/Water and Water/Earth builds. All of them have been useful for certain play styles and circumstances, and that's just taking into account primary attributes; plugging in skills from a secondary profession can complement an Ele's spells.

Are there some real clunkers among the Ele's skillset? Sure. Now name a class that doesn't have some useless or redundant skills.

You know, the one thing I always wondered about Meteor Shower is what takes the first "hit" of the shower SO FREAKING long, and how despite the good ten or so actual, graphic meteors strike, only 3 of them actually hit and cause damage...

Oh, and Lightning Touch's redeeming factor is that it's not a spell, and thus penetrates spellbreaker and obsidian flesh, oh and it has the conditional damage, and a fast recast.

Of course it's always been painfully obvious that elementalist skills are sorely overpriced for how little effect they seem to have, when juxtaposed to skills of the same cost for other classes, this is why so many elementalist builds have resorted to using other class spells, with energy storage abuse to fuel it.

As for using Searing Heat, uh...uhm...maybe you could have a E/W ViM build to use the fire with, erm, yeah.

For Lightning Javelin, uhm, I guess if you're like one hell of a psychic, you could interrupt like an Eviscerate, or a distracting shot or something like that, booyeah!

And using mind freeze over shard storm, it's that uh....you...don't need a projectile to hit? *shrug* Therefore, it's ftw.

I'm curious too. What did I write that so effectively proved I have no clue about conditions? The only condition mentioned at all is the Ignition Searing Heat causes. 14 damage per second for 3 seconds, ignores armor. Anything else I need to know?

I accounted for this in my comparison of the skills versus extreme armor too. But just for you Ollj, I'll lay out the math on my Fire Storm vs. Searing Heat comparison when working against high armor.

Fire Storm vs. Searing Heat, assumptions:
- Target is standing in both for the full duration of each.
- Target's armor is reducing damage by 75%.
- Target does not have the Ignition removed before it runs its course.
- Caster of both spells has 12 in Fire.

Fire Storm: (6x10) = 60
Searing Heat: (6x5)+(14x3) = 72

60 vs. 72. Exactly what I said in my post above. Notice how, since I actually DO know how conditions work, I did not reduce the 14 per second from Ignition, since that is unaffected by armor. :P

Since that's the only part of my post where I needed to know how conditions work, I'm assuming this is what you had a problem with Ollj. If not, please tell me what I was wrong about and I will be happy to explain or correct it as needed. Even crude and rude criticisms of the type yours was of have value if the substance is correct and I learn something from it, so I'm all ears.

Including the conditional damage, Lightning Touch still does less damage than Lightning Orb for the same amount of energy. It takes two times as long to recharge as Orb, and requires touch whereas Orb is ranged. Lightning Touch does do AoE, but if you're looking for PBAOE, use Flame Burst which does about the same damage for the same energy, is not conditional, and recharges in 4 seconds.

couldn't "smart people" make their own assumptions being that they are 'smart'.

you could at the very least provide some detail as to why we should ignore him. As far as I can see he went through the effort to put together a post that makes a lot of sense, IMO...are you going to back up your claim that he knows nothing about conditions or are you just going to throw it out there and hope a couple of 'smart people' latch on?

Hehe, I wouldn't worry too much about anything that Ollj says Ferret. The kid's a formula one retard.

Most of the air skills are moot since its spiking ability is exceeded by that of rangers and warriors. Out of the entire line, the only thing really worth bringing is Windborne Speed (helps teamates kite and for altar maps) and Gale (knockdown for altar maps) and maybe blinding flash.

Nearly all of the fire spells are too slow (cast time and recharge) or too costly (high energy and/or exhaustion) or both. The damage is even less than the air line, but is aoe, which can have its advantages, but more often than not the opportunities to use them are too short lived.

Earth spells has wards which are big plus and some nice snares (Grasping Earth and Iron Mist) and armor spells(Armor of Earth). They have a decent finishing spell-Obisidian Flame. The pbaoe spells -crystal wave and aftershock make for good combos if you are willing to take your ele into the thick of things. The other offensive spells however are expensive pieces of crap with stupid long recast times.

Water, like many people noticed, is plagued with stupid expensive spells that have long cast times, recast times or both. Despite those problems, blurred vision is a nice spell, as is Maelstrom. Of the elites, WvH and Water Trident are the only ones that are pvp worthy.

The air line needs a good boost in damage and some more intelligent rebalancing of skills (chain lightning should not have been nerfed), fire needs to ditch either the long cast times or the high cost. Earth is actually pretty solid but probably can use some touching up. Water needs to have both price and cast times toned down.

If i could know with certainty what the AoE is of the skills I use, Id be happy.
Its not that you cant "figure" it. But Id with you could just SEE maybe and indicator on your minimap where your AoEs hit.
Metero Shower needs an update in discription or something.

For 8 seconds 12 exploding meteors strike the area near your target. The meteor explodes, knocking down and striking for 7-112 damage to any standing foe it hits.

I dont know if thats true, but a clearer discription would help.
But yeah, If I could stop guessing AoEs, I could use them more properly.

It looks to me that a number of water skills could use a reduction in either cost or recast time. Outside of that, they seem ok.

Almost every Elemental Magic Elite is crap.

Air Magic:
Thunderclap. A spell that causes mass knock down when someone is hit with Lightning Damage. Usefull if you have a Lightning Weapon, or do a spell like Chain. But other than that, you could just as easily run in and use Whirlwind for the same effect and alot less energy.

Lightning Surge: A spell that does 70 Lightning Damage after 3 seconds. But its also the only Lightning Spell in the game that doesnt have 25% Armor Penetration. Its a Hex, so the damage isnt even guaranteed if the Hex is broken. And it only hits 1 person, and this spell causes Exhaustion. Chain Lightning is such a better use of a skill slot and of energy.

Mindshock: Conditional Dual Damage that may or may not do less damage than Lightning Strike.. and it causes Exhaustion.

Fire Magic:
First off, there's only one elite, Mind Burn. Secondly, its another one that's just a Conditional Dual Damage. And even though the target can be set on fire for 6 seconds, you'll get more damage and hit more people with Rodgort's Invocation. And Rodgort's costs only 10 more, and recharges faster. The only thing Mind Burn really has going for it is the very short cast time.

Earth Magic:
Obsidian Flesh: The % of slowing should be conditioned depending on your rank.

Water Magic:
Mind Freeze: Again, the conditional problem. And this one is worse. Because Water Magic's normal 66% slow down is part of the conditional side of this spell. If you dont have more energy than the enemy, they dont slow down. You are more likely to do more damage with Shard Storm than Mind Freeze.

I find it a bit lacking too, and pretty much the onyl spells I like is Lightning Orb and Armor of Earth.

Energy isn't much of a problem for most elementalists anyway with energy storage, artifacts, and usually at least one attunement skill. I spam Envolate, Lightning Javelin, and Envinerating Charge (which causes weakness, this along with Entrophy really messes up warriors and rangers). It is all about timing so that one skill will have recharged by the time you are done casting another one. Spaming Lightning strike though is pretty useless since it's technically outclassed by Flare since Flare has no recast time and can be spammed faster.

So the consensus is that there are two problems:

1) Elementalist skills cost too much for what they do

2) Elementalist skill lines have no depth (only a few truly worthwhile (offensive) skills per line.

To this I'll add another:

3) Elementalist skills are completely crippled by high armor.

Note that almost every other class has a way around this. The bonus damage from physical attack skills mostly ignore armor and many add an armor penetration % to the base attack. Warriors have strength. Necromancers, monk, and mesmer damage ignore armor altogether. Theoretically you can balance this by making the base damage higher to compensate, and on paper that's what Anet has done, but almost all the big damage skills have horribly long recharges and and/or cast times.

I don't know what can be done about this short of a complete rebalancing of elementalist skills. Since this is unlikely I suggest a quick fix, add armor penetration to elementalist spells for each point above 12 in the related attribute, say 2.5% per point.

Couple problems with this. The first one is the big damage comes in parts and in multiple augmentation sources for the physical attackers, making the upfront versus over time arguement difficult at best. Many forms of attack that ignore AL are conditional, but some of them are not. Another issue with going bigger is that when you face a low AL, is the one shot death scenario which does not promote good gameplay in this format, even though with the cast, cost and recast times suggest that damage up front spells were overbalanced versus over time. Even if the spell damage goes bigger and the cast times stay the same or get longer, they are still hamstringed by things like protective spirit, reversal of fortune, and others much more than every other form of attack.

Either you ramp up the current skill sets to be more chainable to compete with the physical attackers, which as a byproduct makes them more efficient as well; or you create other skills that compliment the elementalist skills that ramp up the damage in the same fashion that their physical counterparts have. Alot of the skills are sub-par within the same class lines, so perhaps a little of both is in order, but its hard to say considering there hasnt been much talk lately of what is going on over at ANET.

I dunno earthquake aftershock is some heafty rape at 16 earth if you can hit it all and obsidion flame isnt bad either. but yeah some ele skills are quite lacking and use 20% enchanting grip with elemental attunement

16 earth eq is 105 aftershock is 105+72 combine with warrior spikes thats some heafty damage

Eles are definitely somewhat weak in PvP. Easy to interrupt for the most part, damage reduced by armor/stances/enhancements and high energy costs/recharge times. On PvP most spells that are used are fastcasting (Obsidian Flame, some lightning spells, Flare, Immolate, Ice Spear, Water Trident) or have some other good things going for them (Meteor with AoE and knockdown, Fireball with AoE and 7 sec recharge). Nobody in their right mind uses Rodgort's Invocation, Searing Heat or equivalents because they are too unwieldy and so easy to interrupt.

Cut recharge and cast times on big nukes and damage eles might be more viable. Spiking does work of course (with multiple eles) but having only couple eles on balanced build for damage doesn't work that well.

Its not hefty if you hit an armored target or a protected target. Then you are looking at sig of judgement with holy strike damage, if not less. Yes aoe vs single target comparison, but you arent dealing with exhaustion or energy costs either.

Well I have this to say. There is a way to combo Obsidian Flesh that if you could actually move with any speed, would be totally unfair, since it causes immunity to spells. So although I'm an earth ele, I'd hate to see a bunch of FotM builds based on Earth.

No, I don't think elementalist skills are lacking.

I do in fact use searing heat... even rodgort invocation... why? like I got any other choice for an all AoE nuker? besides... PvE monster don't run =P

Now PvP? You got to admit smiting will do more than you ever imagine... and maybe just meteor shower for HoH.

I just think of majority of ele skills are for leveling.

I agree that a lot of elementalist skills are lacking (especially water). And the location based AoEs don't do enough damage for their cast/recast/cost.

Lightning strike does more damage than Lightning Javelin at 16 Air Magic, for 5 less energy. Why then, would you *ever* use Lightning Javelin? If you want to be less efficient, go right ahead. Also, I'm not quite sure what the hell "envolate" is, but I'm sure it isn't a skill. Maybe you meant immolate...?

No, it isn't outclassed by flare. Flare is complete trash.

Wait, haven't you seen the flareway video? Dude, thats soooo the next FOTM.

But I'm not lvl 20 so javelin does do more damage where I am in the game. I did mean immolate. It was 3 am when I wrote that and was tired. Also, I haven't gotten to a point in the game yet to unlock lightning strike. Nor do I use Flare. Flare is trash. But it would be better for spammers then using lightning strike (a skill I probably wouldn't use because I see no redeming value in it). I focus mostly on messmer skills, thus any attack inturpts are good for me, thus my use of lightnening javelin, which will probably be replaced by a better skill when I've unlocked one I like (it is also often replaced with backfire or power leak in PvP).

We're talking about pvp.