Why Let Ele's Be Broken?

So I'm coming back after playing through Proph when it first came out, and was all excited to get into the HM/Endgame content to fill my HoM for GW2.

So you can imagine my dismay when I come to find my main char who I love, an Elementalist, is one of if the not THE worst class for all HM/Endgame content.

So my question is, why would Anet let a class be broken?
I understand that when they buff a class they buff mobs too,
but still, por que Anet?

Anet didn't nerf Ele's. It's just that high armor levels make Ele damage crap and (as partially as a consequence) armor ignoring damage is more powerful. It has nothing to do with foes. If you want to deal damage, an Ele is not the way to go, unfortunately.

I know they didn't nerf them, I just don't understand why they let them suck so bad. Why not change their skills to have more armor ignoring damage?

Why not change the way armor scales with elemental based damage?

I know the game is older and has problems that will never get fixed,
but letting a class be terrible at the ONLY thing it can do makes zero sense.

If they were capable of doing something else I wouldn't see it as a problem, but damage is your option when playing an ele.

Its not so much Ele are bad, its just that everything else is (got) better. Why spend all that time casting a stationary AoE vortex of elemental damage when you can just hop on a mes and fast cast billions of armor ignoring damage.

If you like ele youc an easily find a way to make them useful and fun and should have no problem blasting through anything pve.

But to answer your question, Anet just doesnt have the staff or care for GW1 anymore. Took them more than half a year to churn out the semi-meh dervish update. They just dont have the will or way to keep buffing every lost profession when it slips through the cracks

*The main reason is that the live team is small and so take a very long time on updates.
*Many suggestions have already been made about how to fix ele damage (read the threads in the ele forum if you like) so it's not a lack of ideas. Coming up on the live team schedule is Embark Beach, 7 heroes, a para update, and a smite monk update, so you can forget about a major overhaul anytime soon. Perhaps a small but meaningful change to EStorage or something will occur. I think Anet tried to help with the recent Intensity change, but it was a complete failure and it's still useless.
*Damage isn't the only thing Ele's were supposed to do. They were meant for support as well. They can run Ether Renewal bars and spam Infuse Health and big prots all day, but that's not really why people make Ele's. Other Ele support options like wards are generally meh though.

Yeah I understand I suppose. Its just a pain to think of starting over another char at this point when I'm so far in with my Ele. Suppose thats just me being lazy though.

Thanks for the input guys, I do appreciate it and what you all say makes sense.

Welcome to news from 3 years ago.

Eles suck in hard mode because HM casters oftentimes have 100+ armor, so even with cracked armor they do only 70% listed damage. Even when you do full damage every other caster got buffed (ROJ is strong but since it's elite you can't Glyph of renewal it, although you can arcane echo it) and have AOE.

Also skills have not been split for PVE, save for the odd Ether Renewal, Lightning Orb and energy cost on Savannah's Heat.

The bright side (if you want to call it that...) is that a person who plays PVE ele will be already accustomed to cast/recharge/attunement strips so it makes it easier to transition to PVP.

I started playing in October and created an elementalist as my first toon. I've taken her through all three campaigns now, plus EotN. In normal mode, she's been great... I only had one quest that I was completely baffled by for any length of time, and instead found that many of the warnings on Wiki about how tough certain missions and such were, didn't end up applying to me. I rolled through them with little effort. Heck, I took out the Great Destroyer in a matter of seconds.

Then I started playing in HM, and I could have cried... the entire time I was limiting myself to NM, or to the very easy/early areas in HM, I was thinking, "why does everyone say ele's don't deal damage? I'm having no problem..."

Now I understand.

So, I've learned to use a spirit spammer build on my elementalist toon. Not much of a learning curve... cast the spirits & let them do their thing. It's easy.

I have not completely abandoned running around using my elementalist skills. For one thing, I've built up some powerful heroes. There are still a lot of areas I can do with my H/H team running a fire, cold or air build on myself. And I suspect that with the 7-hero update coming in the very near future, it'll be even more effective... and I hope to be able to play my elementalist AS an elementalist with much greater frequency again.

I think to some extent, I had to give up the idea of being the primary damage dealer in my H/H party. You know... "I'm the human, so I have to be the strongest." It is still me making it through the tough areas, vanquishing them... because I choose the builds for my team, I make sure they've got good mods on their armor, I choose their weapons, and I create a team that functions well together. I've learned to view the H/H team as another weapon in my arsenal, rather than as something separate from myself. It's perfectly ok for me to run a support role within a team I've built from the ground up.

The Grizzy, might want to drop the Ele spirit spammer build. Ele's best use is a ER infuse in HM.

If Ele's get damage increase/armor ignoring damage so will the foes in HM. Making HM way to hard.
If the foes in HM get reduced armor, well, it's not much of HM.

Ele's were put into a bind by the games own mechanics. They have always been broken and you can't fix it without breaking something else that affects all professions.

I find that AI tends to work better (in full AI teams) when you're running something that targets foes. When I play my monk/ER ele the henchies sometimes just run around and/or struggle to achieve things until I call a target. That said, I haven't played either of those in quite a long time.

I disagree with the first statement. Overpowered skills on heroes + preprotting negates most of the threat of big damage foes.

Regarding the latter statement, isn't that already the case?

Just think of an ele as a spellcaster with a huge energy reserve.

Nothing wrong with continuing to use your ele just start using more secondary class skills.

Spiritspam isn't a problem and monk mesmer or even Necro skills are not out of the question.
You don't have quite the power of the classes your emulating but you do have good energy management so can usually spam away.

If you like the character use your secondary skills more in hard mode, or at least some of the armour ignoring ones.

I know its not the same as fixing Ele but if it keeps a favourite character in play why not.

I know what you mean. Back when Discordway was all the rage, I got Legendary Vanquisher and Legendary Guardian on my ele using an E/A Assassin's Promise caller build (AP, YMLAD, PI/Sin, FH, Meteor, Glyph of Immolation, Glowing Gaze, Optional).