Elementalist Improvements

I’m not going to be proving above point. It has been done enough times and I don’t feel like typing same stuff over again, so I'll just post some of my ideas on how to fix it.

DOT AoE spells
Ok, I can not disagree that they used to bee too powerful, but what has been done might have as well be accomplished by throwing them out completely.
Spells like Eruption, Maelstrom, Searing Heat were meant (I just assume so) to be so costly because of secondary effects (blinding/burning/interrupt) they cause. With new scattering AI those effects became useless. It doesn’t mean monsters should not run from them, it means that those spells should become somewhat useful.
I say if those spell meant to make enemies run, then they should make them _run_ and not take a step outside AoE range and get back on top of you. To address this in my opinion recharge time should be halved. I mean 25 energy, 3-4 seconds cast time and 30 seconds recharge for 2-3 seconds of damage is gotta be some kind of odd joke.
Maelstrom should have its range increased, because even when snared it takes just two steps get out of its range - I know that, I've been in receiving end of it many times.
Eruption and Searing heat should be changed to cause secondary effects in smaller portions _during_ those 5 seconds and not after they end... otherwise they are just insanely overpriced firestorms.

Defensive spells
Should have casting time decreased to 1/4-3/4 seconds. Reason behind this is that they last too little to cast them before battle and easily interrupted.
Both Magnetic Aura and Swirling Aura should have their recharge time halved to become even remotely usable (compare to similar warrior or ranger skills which also happen to be stances).

Glyphs
Elementalist damage is already greatly reduced by casting times. There is no reason glyphs should be adding to this problem, especially glyph of concentration. All glyphs should be 1/4 casting time down from 1 second.

Elemental damage types
We all know how badly they suck... mostly because in later part of the game pretty much everything will take less than half of declared damage on ele spells, and those damn rangers will simply laugh at your "nukes". Steps in the right direction would be to make Stone daggers and Ice spear to deal piercing damage. Meteor and Stoning - blunt damage. No reason why above spells shouldn’t be classified as skills either.
Some minor armor penetration for various spells would be nice to... There is no reason some wammo should be out damaging elementalist because his skills ignore armor, recharge and cast many times faster.

Multiline elementalists
From what I've seen Factions are not going to fix this.
Spells like Stoning, Lightning touch and Iron mist are horribly broken due to the fact that they require two different eles to work very tight on the same target to make them useful. So I say conditional part of those spell should be really uber to make it worth the troubles of using them... and I’m talking Mark of pain kind of uber (in case you disagree that MoP is uber I can only guess you haven’t seen it in action)

Enchantments
First of all attunements should either be changed to stances or have their recharge time greatly reduced. Problem is that eles have only have Aura of restoration to cover up attunement and both are being almost instantly stripped once you get in casting range of group with more than one mesmer.
Conjure <element> spells should be castable on allies.
Ether renewal... err... this spell in its current state has to be some kind of joke from devs.

Hexes
There is absolutely no good reason why damage dealing water spells should be classified as hexes. Thats just dumb and creates problems when dealing with Nature's renewal spirits. I think that "slow" should be condition and work similar to burning on fire spells.
Mark of rodgort and Thunderclap need something to fix the fact that they require caster to keep whacking enemy with his wand... Also for elite spell that deals no damage Thunderclap eats way too much energy.

Energy management
I’m just mentioning this because I don’t want to give impression that I missed it. Really it has been said enough about it by other people.

Edit:
Things that make no sense
The delay after casting melee range AoE spell makes no sense, nor adds to ele survivability... remove plz.
Bunch of spells with low energy cost and huge recharge time make no sense. Meteor for instance... It should be 25 energy (up from 5) and no exhaustion and 5 seconds recharge (down from 30). Same goes for Grasping earth, Inferno, Rust...

Not really gonna bother with tearing apart your article. What I will say is that Attunements to my personal usage and knowledge suck. Either fix them and make them better or just tear them out altogether. I have seen Battery Necros do more good at rejuicing spellcasters than the Attunements ever will. Also I capped Ether Renewal and was severly disappointed. Worthless piece of crap gives more Health than Energy.

I've said much of the same myself. The max amount of damage alot of AoE spells and DoT spells can do doesn't add up to the cost considering how little they "may" do. The Small AoE damage spells should do significantly more damage, and just about every DoT spell should have a much wider range, considering the ability to escape them. DoT spells that don't do alot of damage per tick should last alot longer, creating a kind of Ward in that area which basicly turns the advantage of that area in your favor, just like a ward, instead of only lasting long enough for the enemy to escape it then charge right back in.

The whole idea to elementist DoT spells is the same as a Ward, it is ment to turn the tide on that location, if it doesn't last long enough to keep favor in that area, or has such a long recast that it can't be reused regularly, then it is just a quick failure spell. Firestorm is a perfect example, you should be able to cast it continously like a ward, allowing you to secure a location with an advantage, Just like a ward would. Some spells like Meteor don't merit continous use, but with a recast time like 60, it should do more damage, or last longer, even if it only drops the same amount of meteors, it could spread them appart causing the enemy to avoid that area for a longer period of time.

Another thing they could do to greatly improve the effectiveness of DoT and certain AoE spells is make them targetable on allies and self. This way you could place your spells in more tactical locations, honestly if you cast it on a group of enemies they will just run away from your attacks, but if you cast it on an allie who is being attacked they will either have to give up their attack, or suffer a significant tactical disadvanage. Elementist spells are designed with long cast times, and easy interrupts, you should be able to set up damage obstercals and place spells in strategic locations allowing you to avoid close up combat with nearly every job in the game which can shut you down.

I also agree with the bit about Eruption and Seering Heat, Eruption should blind for 2 or 3 seconds for each cycle it hits the enemy, which would cause a maximum of 8 seconds of blindness only if they stayed in the Area, Searing heat should cause burning for 1 second per cycle, if they stay in it it will keep burning them wile it damages, instead of setting a warning flare for the enemy to run before the crippling status comes. All of the AoE spells and DoT spells should be scaled up in damage, length, or cover a larger area.

And the bit about how much elemental damage is resisted.... I was going for a bonus in the desert, and a lvl 20 enemy tolk 42 damage from a 90 damage Ice spell, tell me that 25 energy should do that, slow effect noted, it was still retarded, it might as well just be a 40 damage spell so I know what kind of damage I'm realy getting like a smiting skill, except I have to pay more for it because I have more energy, that's balance for you.

I never thought about it, but it would make more sense if Being Frozen was a condition, some elementist spells are ment to be hexes, but Freezing slow status should be a condition. Although, certain Air magic skill is linked to the ability to retain water hexes on enemies, so either all of them would have to be switch to conditions, or left as hexes. I don't think this is a weakness though.

And I also agree that Glyphs shouldn't take a second to cast, 1/4th of a second is good, but instant would be acceptable too, most glyphs only boost the power or reduce energy of the next spell, leaving them wide open for shutdown when the spell itself is cast, with the exception of glyph of concentration and glyph of sacrifice, which are ment to prevent interuption.

I think instead of making certain spells other damage types, elemental damage should not be reduced by armor. There is elemental armor and resistance skills in the game, they can add reasonable amounts of elemental resistance to many armor types, wile certain armor types should take more damage from certain elements, in this way players would actually have to seek out and recognize armor with elemental armor stats as well as physical armor, Elemental damage shouldn't face modifiers from normal AR rating, either that or the recognition for armor blocking elemental damage should be reduced to 33%.

Now if they improved the effectiveness of elemental damage altogether by changing armor reductions or simply increasing the damage overall, then there wouldn't be as much need to improve many spells effectiveness, but even if they did, AoE spells should be expanded and redesigned accordingly.

What needs to be fixed is the whole multiple armor crap. I read somewhere on the GW Wiki that it is cheap to buy 4 sets of armor. Sorry but um not so true. Materials cost so much that having 4 sets of armor for 4 different element types is well worthless. If you want the measly +15 protection that you get from all 4 then go with FoW if your that damned rich and you have the materials. I am using Desert Collectors with my Ele because I am not going to waste my time buying the armor. Until A-Net adds a armor set that adds at least +30 Versus ALL ELEMENTS I will stick to collectors.

At the moment, elemental resistance means next to dick. Unless your using a spirit with the intention of changing much of the damage to a certain type, or your particularly aware of a certain PvP build you may cross, what elemental defense your armor has doesn't mean jack, the normal AL reduces the damage so much that having anything that resist elemental damage is a waste of space, and also why Elementist armor is the most useless in the game.

Now if they removed normal AL from the elemental damage equation, and made it so comprehensive elemental resistance was added to all armors, elemental armor would make a difference. If typical armors had +10 to all elemental resistances, wile certain Warrior armors or Monk armors had +20, which would equal almost half of the damage reduction they currently have, it would scale elemental damage to a fair amount. Players who didn't use armor with a legitimate amount of elemental resistance would fear elementist the way someone without normal armor would fear a warrior. It would also create a system of tradeoff for more comprehensive armor selection, allowing players to lean more toward armor with physical AL, or heavier elemental resistance to overcome spells.

The alternative is to retain the normal AL modifier for elemental damage, but reduce the normal AL on all armors by half, and replace that half with only phisical AL. This way your AL wouldn't be composed of mainly normal armor which reduces elemental damage by too much, but still retain the same amount of armor Vs physical attacks as it currently does. For example, end game monk armor AL 30, Physical AL 30, All elements AL 5, or it could simply have 35 AL and 25 P.AL. For an elementist armor 30 AL, 30 P.AL, and 15 (X)elemental AL. In this way the actual modifiers for elemental damage wouldn't have to be changed, the armor would simply lack the high overall AL to block out too much elemental damage. And in this way elemental armor would also become way more effective and important, because with only 30 universal AL and 15 for (X) element AL, you just boosted your elemental armor by 50%.

All "imbalance" rants can face the fact that it is already imbalanced, if they don't fix elemental damage then elementist will just become the disused class as new useful classes get introduced and welcomed into parties. It would take a more complicated scope of balancing modifications to make elemental damage or armor ajustments work, but it really "needs" to be done.

You can Evade and Maneuver around AoE spells, you can escape Dot, you can interupt elementist spells more easily then any other class, save maybe the upcoming ritualist, and now with additions like Union, along with protective spirit, it will be easier then ever to blockade spike damage by reducing it to a maximum effect on even an entire team. Elemental damage shouldn't suffer such unbalanced Armor Reductions. Elementist should be able to spike an enemy to death without relying on 4+ coordianted elementist to overcome 1 or 2 healing monks. To balance this out they can make spells like protective spirit on a faster recast and longer duration, causing elementist protection to become a neccessity, and making elementist spiking reliant on enchantment removal. In all honesty, if it takes more then 3 Elementist to match the defensive output of a character and 1 monk healing him, excluding protective spirit, then it is broken.

(Element) Attunement, Elemental Attunement. Gives me plenty of energy... But only until Elemental runs out.

Elemetalist/Mesmer distortion.

*chuckle*

Frozen Burst - a high damage PBAoE + snare that is awesome apart from the part where you're totally unable to move or act for about a second afterwards

That's really annoying because instead of being able to point blank snare bomb and run away, you point blank snare bomb and get beaten up while paralysed.

I hope they change that

Useful, yes... that'll still activate ok

ether prodigy = win

And yes, elementalists suck in pve.

The reason elementalists suck is because you can take a warrior, give it no skills, and it will outdamage an ele who is spamming away.

You can get better of everything they can do from a different class...except for a select few skills. (pretty much leaving you with a gale-ward-water snare ele)

I completely agree that ele armor needs to be better. I still don't understand how a Ranger can have armor that's +30 against all elements and if they choose, an additional +15 against a certain element. Yet an ELEMENTALIST can only get +15 against a particular element. That really needs to be changed.

To Ira the OP. Good points I agree with you on many. I have an ele/n and always find myself relying more on the necro skills than I do on my poor ele skills.

Ele armour is utterly pathetic indeed. The 1 thing i just don't get is this:

Virtuoso's (mesmer) armour
60AL
+15AL (while casting spells)

Now correct me if im wrong but don't mesmer have FAST CAST, thus making this useless anyway been as the most time you spend casting is 2seconds.

Why the hell not give ele's somet like that to at least give them a decent amount of armour while casting those useless AoE spells.

For too long now have i started casting Meteor Shower against a group of Skeleton Berserkers and by the time the 5s cast time is up, they have ran off somewhere, attacked another team member then decided to run straight out of the AoE and kill me in 5 attacks. Or simply just walked over and killed me before i could even finish casting the damn thing.

The only reason Meteor Shower is of any use at all is the knockdown ability against AI monks.

Also i can see how turning freeze into a condition would make more sense than it been a hex, but it then stops different levels of it. Mind Freeze is much more effective than Deep Freeze at slowing a single target.

It would also mean that Deep Freeze + Martyr = The most useless 25 energy spell known to man.

I too was very dissapointed with Ether Renewal when i first got it, the only use that spell has is for an Earth ele using Kinetic Armour, almost identical to the build that you cap it from

AL seems to be way too effective against eles. A warrior or Ranger can deal a decent amount by spamming +xx damage skills. Meteor Shower from lvl16 fire magic, aimed at Willia The Unpleasant (mursaat monk/superboss) doing an absolutely pathetic 21 damage each 3 seconds. Perhaps i should've gone Earth ele at this point. Obsidian Flame/Crystal Wave = 100ish damage for much less energy.

I'm all for the fact that the Ritualist is gonna be the most unbalanced character ever soon. Its spirits are beyond lame imo. Union makes ele's completely useless. Wanderlust makes ele's the biggest target because they're stood still casting for so damn long. Disenchant will simply remove AoR and Attunements making them a wasted slot.

thats a very good point I forgot to mention. The only reason for eles still being accepted into pve groups is knockdowns from meteor shover, which are usefull for killing monks and other casters.

I hate to say it but Ele is quite weak if you are not doing spike damage in 8v8. Even in 4v4, a team of Ele just don't scare me. They are as soft as cottons and after a few spikes, they need time to recover from the exhaustions (if they can survive that long). Ele is not doing enough damage IMO. Without spike damage, their dps is quite pathetic considering they can get interrupted easily.

I think Ele needs more Exhaustion managements.

agreed...seriously, noone in the right mind in pvp will sit in these things until the effect rolls around, and now, nor do monsters...why doenst anet do us all a favor and just remove them form the game so PuG morons wont use them and cause unneccisary aggro.

agreed, the caste time should be reduced...as for making them stances, that could potentially backfire.

i think they should just remove glyphs completly, and just lower the energy cost/caste time of some of the ridiculously underpowered skills...what other class in the game requires a skill that does nothing but make their primary ability suck just that much less?
warriors dont need a glyph with a 1 seccond caste time in order to actually swing their weapons...so why should eles need one to counter the overexaggerated effects induced by underpowered skills.


half agreed, half not.
i do not think they need to be made into physical damage, primarily because you're not taking into account an unseen consequence. if you do this, eles will be EVEN MORE vulnerable to warriors; which i cant stress enough they are horibly, horribly incompitent against as a whole.
on the other hand, i think the amount of armor-piercing ele damage skills do should go up in level ex. ele skill XXX does XXX damage and pierces 10-25% armor. this would increase the rather misleading skills (an ele skill may say its doing 100...but it will actually only hit for 30-50).


this would actually be a BAD thing, as only 1 stance can be used at a time.
what they could do though is lower their effectiveness, and in turn make them a shout, to where they cant be removed, but would keep the balance.

agree/disagree.
while natures renweal owns the hex-based skills...condition removal is used far more universally...you may unintentionally make them worse.

let me just say that the elementalist is the only class in the game where anet pretty much tried to make their unique ability (energy storage) as totally useless as possible. energy storage would be (IMO) the best unique ability in the game if not for the following:
a large amount of even halfway decent ele spells requiring 15-25 energy and having insane caste times/recharge...
exhaustion, yeah, its in there to keep eles from being overpowered...but some of the skills that have it, arent really all that great, and the addition of exhaustion just makes them wasted space...meanwhile a few others should probably have it...and the effects of exhaustion (imo) are way too overpowered.
i think eles need some type of skill that does the following:
"enchantment spell; increases energy regeneration by 1 point for X amount of time. This effect ends if any non-elementalist-class skill is used."
this would partially make up for eles having a ridiculous energy cost (the average eles energy bar is usually not that much higher than that of other casters...at least not preportionally for the average skill-cost), but the addition of "this effect ends if any non-elementalist-class skill is used" keeps it from being used by eles who are acting as mana-well healers.
if monks have peace&harmony (which is far from overpowered), why shouldnt eles have an equivilant?

i couldnt agree more. not since diablo2 have we seen a class with riggedness of these preportions.
all i can say is 8 ritualistteams in gvg all spamming wanderlust/earthbind/shelter/union (and ONE person with 'grasping was kurrong') is potentially one of the most retarded skill cominations in the game. (we're talking pretty much the entire opposing party being on the floor CONSTANTLY)
oh, and ancestors rage=GG warrior-damage-based teams.

I agree, I think this is a great idea. Energy storage needs a tweak and I've always thought that an Ele primary should have 5 pips of regen anyway. If it needs to be in the form of a spell then so be it. I would rather see this be a spell or skill rather than an easily striped enchantment, but I'd take what i can get.

Is A-Net looking at these ele threads? It seems to me, that there needs to be some serious tweaking done with this class.

the sole reason i didnt suggest +5 always energy regen is there would be hoards of people calling imbalance (probably with reason) and anet could never realistically be expected to do so.
but i see no problem in making that skill an enchantment/elite enchantment (its really not that great tow arrant an elite slot imo), or a spell that cant be removed once used.
i think its a rather balanced skill (especially since you couldnt effectivly stack it with P&H), and eles CERTAINLY need SOMETHING, at least this would require a skill-slot, rather than just rigging them up entirely.
oh, and i thought of the mods:
Elite Enchantment spell: energy storage 10 energy 1/2 seccond cast time, 45 seccond cooldown.
for 30-45 secconds target gains +1-2 (maybee +2 is too much?) energy regeneration. This skill ends if any non-elementalist-skills are used.

thats the prposed skill i have in mind.

how is this fundamentaly different from Ether prodigy?

ether prodigy adds more energy, lasts for a shorter time, causes exhaustion, and takes away HP afterwards.
ether prodigy can also be used to fuel eles spamming heal-party.
so while this is significantly better than ether prodigy due to EPs massive downsides, it can only be used on elementalist skills...and the lack of exhaustion is a ig plus if you;re using some with energy costs of 15-25.

I havn't had a serious issue on Elle power.....Granted I agree the Defensive spells need a boost that just comes from being tired of using the same old builds...or having all the Specality Defences (Swirling-Magnetic) with 20 second Length and 60 second Recharge.....Or skills like ~Myst Form~ Where they only block melee damage but your still Conditioned/Intrupted/Knocked Down from it...

It takes alot more finess to play with each Nerf because it is harder to use some skills effectivly but thats what makes it fun at least for me...

I agree about not having every Water attack being hexes...Natures Renewal shuts them down almost totally...I am intrested to see what new skills come in factions...

BTW Magnetic Aura is already 1/4 casting time....You can't cut it but Swirling is 1 second...Magnetic also cost 5 less mana and Blocks 75% melee where swilring blocks arrows but cost 5 mana more?...I'd say cut swirling to 5 mana and 1/4 casting and i'd be set..There Essentially the same thing but block diffrent attacks.....(Both auras....similar time same recharge..both have 75%.....)

I love multi-Line elle's so I can't say those skills bother me 2 much....I think alot of multi-elle class's combine really well....At least they worked well for me..

Tho I would like to see more/better elites in Factions that are offensive and don't contain the word "Mind" :P (Shockwave was fun)