Curse

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 10, 2007, 10:30 PM // 22:30

I don't really agree with the notion that ele primary e-management needs a lot of buffs because ele skills are largely terrible. That just leads to another design trainwreck like the ranger, where classes go ele primarily exclusively for the e-management so they can spam the crap out of skills on their secondary. After Ether Prodigy, do we really want to see more of that?

If you want ele primaries to see more play, you have to seriously look at the bars that are currently played and understand why they're used over other things. What is a Searing Flames ele? He's a single spammable elite and a crapload of energy management to support the spam. What is a Blinding Surge ele? He's a single spammable elite that's ultra-efficent - the only other useful skills he carries are Gale and whatever he brings from his secondary. The common theme is that the only non-elite air skill you care about is Gale, and your elite has to define your character because all the non-elite options are so bad.

The reason people run Me/Es over E/xs has very little to do with lack of energy and everything to do with the skills themselves. The simple fact is, people want to be casting Spiritual Pains and Diversions and Energy Surges, and they really don't care at all about being able to spam out more Lightning Orbs. They run /E for Gale, and because that's the only way left to actually get more than 4 pips of regen consistently. Stopping me from running Me/Es isn't going to make me run more elementalists, it's going to make me drop my casters for more physicals, who have all kinds of inherent advantages over casters and don't need to waste skillslots on energy management to power it all out.

One thing I've learned in the years I've played various competitive games is that buffing something by nerfing all the alternatives rarely works out. Ele primaries will be used when they can acutally bring something good besides a single spammable elite or a powerful energy engine. Making GoLE underpowered on secondaries and overpowered on primaries isn't going to solve the problems facing the Elementalist. If anything, it will just create more issues down the line if the non-elite elementalist skills are ever brought to a playable level.

If you want elementalist primaries to be more than one-skill wonders or Heal Party spammers, the change you should be calling for is a long line of buffs and modifications to their non-elite skills. When the elementalist has as much depth and versatility as the mesmer, I'll run an elementalist as frequently as I run a mesmer. Changing GoLE is tangential at best when it comes to fixing the multitude of problems in the profession.

Ensign · Jan 11, 2007, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Problem with that is that the 10e change is more useful to non-elementalists

As long as that is the case, Elementalists won't be useful.

Think about it.

Peace,
-CxE

Phades · Jan 11, 2007, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Meh, its been long argued that the entire elementalist profession, begining with the e-storage attribute its self, needs an entire overhaul. ANET has shown little signs for the changes required and merely created skill compression in some areas that are potentially viable for all caster based professions instead of just improving the elementalist profession as a whole. Then later we have complaints about those skill compressions. Its almost as if it would be easier to simply start over from scratch rather than make the existing setup work at comparable levels to the other professions. Either that or enforce more strict guidlines on what skills each profession can bring. That would be moving away from the original intent i believe though. At the same time, eles cant have the scaling they would require to be more distinct past 12 skill and not be overpowered in a spike setup given the current options.

The GoLE change, just seemed like a easy way for ANET to enable searing flames for elementalists and allow it to be sustained since the eliete slot was taken. Yet still restrict it from secondary professsions to a extent. The fact that it happened in tandem with the inspiration line change was a little troubling as i can't fully see their point of veiw on it, unless it was only to force people to change how they play a little. The net result just ended up being a rotation for some combinations, like the me/e setup.

I mean you did say it before how it would seem that ANET designed themselves into a corner with the profession ages ago. I do not think that anyone would try to argue against that. GoLE is just highlighting that issue.