More class talent trees

[sls]

Doesn’t really address what I was saying. As long as there are this few FUN classes, balance should not even be on the devs’ minds, as far as I’m concerned. ‘Back to the drawing board until we have 10 classes that are fun to play’. Talent tree reworks could help, but ultimately it’s the traits that make or break the fun aspect of a class.

Design for fun first, raw balance pass second, fine-tune much later.

@Wow I think you’re playing because it’s fun for you to grind as efficiently as possible, but please understand that for many (probably most) people ‘efficiency’ and ‘fun’ are two wildly different things. I’d happily play a less efficient (‘worse’) class in E12 if it’s more FUN than Slayer.

@Asmodous Fair enough, but what’s driving you away from PvP then? Do you lose more? Do you win more slowly than before? If you look at the evolution of GW points since the introduction of Elementalist, then I believe the class has had exactly zero impact on the upper 10 brackets in GW.

Anyway, I’ve said it before. More content is their priority, not better content. Ideally, content that makes money, either by being just that good or just that bad. 33/36 classes fall into the latter category; Monk, Elementalist and Slayer into the first.

I believe talent, trait, and balance reworks aren’t any more likely than they were five years ago.

[Wow]

Some are also annoyed that they need to use it over and over like my guildmate today. I don’t have the same issue as I still use a variety of classes. So elementalist can be fun or annoying. I’d say it is very balance.

@sls it will be so sad for me if I’ll be just using elementalist or slayer. Not fun at all.

[Tibo]

Weak classes need a rework and buff. Elementalist need a nerf, a big one!
Late classes are stronger than the old ones and yet geomancer can not hold the candle for elementalist. Better at stunning enemies than warpriest or any other class, better at entagling than any other, better at freezing than frostmage lol. Poor frostmage should have a 100% chance to freeze all enemies when matching 4 or 5 and should conjure a Ice storm every turn just to get close to elementalist.

I do not play pvp cause it is boring, it was boring before elementalist as well but nowadays it is only elementalist.
GW is the same, I faced at least 25 elementalist teams in last GW, so much fun lol.

[Asmodous]

Sorry for the delay in response, I contacted guild members for opinions for this response and it took a couple of days for me to be back at my laptop.

For PvP - 60%~ of the matches are running Elementalist. This means that if I’m testing a team for fun, using a meme team, or using any team that doesn’t have cleanse or FTK options; I need to either reroll or swap to a more powerful team… 60% of the time… This is simply because the very presence of Elementalist completely dismantles teams that could work against literally any other class. It means that 60+% of my time in PvP is spent using the exact same, boring and powerful team because I don’t want to spend the gems on rerolls (because I’m poor XD)

As for GW since the introduction of Elementalist, here’s how my experience of it went:-

1. First week, no changes
2. Second week double the losses of the last week but some bad boards so maybe that was it?
3. Third week, record losses - I’ve not lost that many fights since I joined this guild years ago
4. Fourth week, similar losses - keep a note of the results of my losses this week and realise that every single loss has something in common
5. Fifth week I change all but one team over to Elementalist and my win-loss ratio goes back to normal

My guild is in the 10th bracket so I decided to get some opinions in case it was just me that had issues, everyone who responded had negative opinions of Elementalist however I’ve included the two most important responses below.

Our second highest ranking player who is our GM and has played the game for donkey’s years’ reaction was;

Perhaps if there were more decent options to cleanse color wise for GW, but some colors just don’t have a cleanse troop that’s not an anchor…
I just assumed everyone knew it was broken from the start and it would be nerfed at some point

The player who has been paragon the longest period of time said;

For the default attack teams, I have 5 of 6 as Elementalist, although I’m experimenting with Archmagus on Purple days.
For its actual impact, it’s not made GW easier because a lot of enemy teams have it on defence too, but it is really safe. Paired with converters, you can stop enemy extra turn, stun enemy with Stealth and book, and maybe entangle first.
Overall it has made GW more… I am not sure if frustrating is the correct word, but once the enemy gets rolling you are likely done for.

All this is from members of a guild in the top ten brackets of GW. If it’s like this for end game, top ten bracket players; imagine how godawful it must be for lower players - in my experience OP stuff tends to impact them even more.

Again, I would not want Elementalist to be as bad as Oracle, just brought in line with classes like Monk, Frostmage, and Slayer.

[Wow]

I still think elementalist is just fine. I have watched players in B1 doing great in GW vs elementalist class. They strategize very well solving the puzzle.

[sls]

I can’t speak for PvP, but I do track Guild Wars (on PC/Mob).

Here’s a chart. Every line represents a bracket and the average points earned in that bracket.
The X-axis is guild wars from oldest (24 GWs ago) to most recent Guild War.

In other words, how points per bracket have evolved over time. For the top 10 brackets this looks like:

My reading of this is that Elementalist has not had any impact on the top 10 brackets. Average points keep going up, ever so slowly. The big dips are guilds disbanding. The recentish crater where all brackets dropped is the defence bug.

[gow]

Very nice chart. I always appreciate work like this

[Asmodous]

I think you’re missing my point, I’m not saying that Elementalist has impacted our point totals. I’m saying that we, a top 100 and B10 guild, have had to change most of our teams to Elementalist because it completely overshadows almost every other class in the game. Everyone that commented on our discord was gobsmacked anyone was saying Elementalist was remotely balanced.

Before Elementalist I had 7/8 different classes across 11~ different GW teams. Now I have Elementalist on 10~ teams and sunspear on 1 (which I’m debating changing to Elementalist). My points now are similar to before Elementalist was introduced, but that blatantly has no correlation to whether this class is ridiculous or not. The guild members I’ve spoken to about this have similar set ups.

[Asmodous]

First it was B10 and after a B10 guild argued against that it’s now B1? Can’t defend my point against logic like that

As a point, you showed a guild member of yours asking if every high end pvp team HAD to run Elementalist - can you think of any time anyone asked that about any other class ever?

Genuinely interested, because the only complaint I’ve ever seen about classes before this was to do with summoning mechanics which was more to do with frustration and length of matches than any sort of power difficulties.

[Wow]

Who mentioned B10? I just told my experience watching B1 GW. They were amazing trying to solve the puzzle. I didn’t see them whining about the elementalist class.

Re:PVP. I just leveled my geomancer class to 100 in PVP. I didn’t have the same issue as my guildmate. I did not need to pick right, right, right. Open your eyes. Playing PVP has a lot of options, you do not need to suffer playing elementalist over and over again. I set my goal. I need the new pets which I now completed and upgraded to mythic and I need to level the class. Goal completed. No fuss.

It is also about the choices you made. The strategy/method helps too.

[Asmodous]

I’ve just looked back up, was someone else that mentioned B10, my apologies.

Ah yes, the old “just get good” argument. I won’t bother trying to continue this debate with you as you’re obviously not going to give the other side even half a second of thought.

[sylverscale]

You also don’t give the other side even half a second of thought - pot, meet kettle.

As for me personally, I had my best GW ever last time. Only one loss and that was my own fault because I eliminated the wrong troop first.

We’re in bracket 9 and made 1st place so will be moving up again to where we were before the defense score bug.

Now you’re probably right in that people in lower brackets and those with less experience are likely more affected.

As for my gw I used Monk more often than Elementalist but many teams I use don’t even have a hero (so those don’t count).

The major crux of GW is that you can never lose your turn, at least not if the enemy will have an extra turn after that. Otherwise you’re often screwed.

Elementalist didn’t change much in that regard.

It’s the books and looping goblins that are the most troublesome - which can be countered by using Elementalist (not exclusively but it’s a good way).

Now I’m not saying your personal opinion is wrong. No one can say that.

What I’m saying is that not everyone sees things the same way.

I’m happy that there is a surefire way to counter those infinite loop teams so I have a chance to beat the enemy.

But the fact that you will have a hard time if you lose your turn (or have a bad starting board) still remains.

[Asmodous]

They ignored literally everything I wrote and avoided my question, I do my best to answer everyone’s point so I feel like your comment is unwarrented.

I’m not sure why you’re so anti-small-nerf if the class has barely had an impact for you and is ruining the game for others, but then I’m probably not going to understand because I am one of the people that this class has ruined a section of GoW (PvP) for. But you and I have gone round the houses many times without changing each other’s minds so I’ll just leave it there.

[sylverscale]

Answering questions doesn’t mean you’re trying to understand anyone’s point of view, case and point this right here.

I literally said that the class helps me counter annoying loop teams that I had problems with before while going against it hasn’t had as great of an impact.

You’re also not asking for a small nerf, are you?

I agree that it’s unlikely that we’re going to change each other’s minds which is okay.

Everyone has different ways to play the game and different things they like or dislike.

[Wow]

That is how I take it too. I am just here to air my opinion so Devs can decide better. Nothing wrong with healthy discussions.