#Elementalist Needs Rebalancing

31 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

swift basin
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Currently, the early- to mid-game Spellblade can nuke enemy units harder and with more flexibility than the Elementalist, whose entire theme is supposed to be nuking units harder than any other class. What's worse, it pops off right at the first skill point and just gets worse from there.

At first upgrade, the Spellblade gains access to their nuke skill, whereas the Elementalist gains an unimpressive attack modifier.

At second upgrade, Spellblade doubles the damage of their nuke skill, whereas Elementalist finally gains access to their base skill.

At this point, this is what the stats looks like:

Spellblade: 1 Action, Range 4, Cooldown 2, 24 - 27 damage

Elementalist: 3 Actions, Range 6, Cooldown 2, 20 damage

It isn't until the 5th skill point that the Elementalist even has a chance to catch up. The +50% evocation damage brings their nuke damage to... 30. An extra 3 to 6 damage at +2 range, in exchange for having to stay still in order to use it.

Elementalist either needs buffs to their evocations, or Spellblade needs a nerf to that Devastating Evocation upgrade.

EDIT: I was barely awake when I originally wrote this. Yeah, the Elementalist 100% needs a buff, rather than Spellblade needing a nerf.

velvet stump
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I believe elementalist needs a buff, spellblade is fine as is.

Even with the +50% damage on evocation skill active the damage is lackluster.

swift basin
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Whoops, that's what I get for typing this up at 1am. Yeah, Spellblade is most likely fine as-is, given Ranger and other classes with similar nukes. This is 100% a, "Please make Elementalist at least competitive", for sure.

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Spellblade Elementalist Needs Rebalancing

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Elementalist Needs Rebalancing

warped ingot
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yea, Elementalist right now feels like it is being carried hard by the frost evocations freeze.

grave lake
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It looks like devs have problem to balance all classes not only elementalist and some get much more love and considerstion than the others. I personally dislike especially this mindset that you first need to spend SP to unlock "poor man" skill that is so weak that is shameful only to spend another SP to finally buy a proper skill. Stupid design choice IMO.

gleaming badge
grave lake
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Do not get me wrong, the concept of elementalist is quite nice.
It is more about some particular skills.
And 2 points is fine as long as a basic skill is OK and upgraded is really good. I am in oposition to basic skill be poor and upgraded to be just OK.

gleaming badge
plush pulsar
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My issue is that if its damage scales too well, it needs to be a glass cannon. And, like, yeah. Okay. It kind of is? But that can be fixed via itemization to some degree. And, also, the hero tree itself has access to a teleport. Not only a teleport, but a teleport that damages whatever unit/s dared to endanger the elementalist in the first place. The signature skill affinities also have several sources of further teleports.

So we might end up with a glass cannon that doesn't care because you'll never actually get to it in order to do damage anyway.

sick maple
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I absolutely love the ice elementalist..the fire and lightning feel less damaging than before but they all do their debuff on base attacks which is nice..they could probably use higher damage on the damage focused abilities

stone acorn
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These things need to change:

  1. Empowered evocation doesn't affect elemental gateway and even more important the ultimate skill. So their beginner evocation is better than their ultimate.
  2. Elemental gateway being 3 turn cooldown is effectively once per battle.
  3. The ultimate skill lightning bolt is by far worst of the bunch. Being 1 hex wide it's hard to aim and I can't catch more than 2 units in its path, and most of the time those units are more than 2 tiles apart so the lightning chain effect don't occur.
inland cave
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Honestly I think elementalist is fine. Sure spellblade has a strong start but it stagnates somewhat in mid to late game whereas elementalist becomes a power house.

I went the earth elementalist route and my oh my doing 100 damage and applying a guaranteed stun at 6+ range with all those other effects and doing 20% damage to adjacent units.... kinda slaps lol.

neon sequoia
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I don't get why the Focus skills can't just be passive like with the ranger. Having to spend a point to activate them is awkward.

swift basin
# gleaming badge I consider it to be kinda elegant conceptually. First you choose the element, th...

My problem with the current implementation of the Elementalist is that we can achieve this same exact 'elegance' by tying the later choices to the actual invocations themselves as a root tier choice, rather than the awful attack modifiers currently required. On top of that, even if we make that change, Elementalist is still strictly worse than Spellblade. Or any other class, really.

Ranger and Spellblade get powerful nuke options at 1st level-up. Ritualist gets either a heal or an AoE terrain ability. Even Warlock gets an incredibly powerful buff / debuff.

Elementalist gets no such option for first skill point. And for second skill point, the end result is strictly worse than all other classes. Even by 8th or 10th skill point, Elementalist is only almost as good as other classes. Tried using them alongside others to test performance, and they just don't fill a role that another class doesn't already do better.

inland cave
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That is very much your opinion my friend lol. Spellblade offers a strong start, but doesn't have much room for growth. Elementalists start a bit weaker, but become heavy artillery pieces in mid-end game. Like my Elementalists hit ridiculously hard.

Maybe that's due to the fact they scale really well with equipment that helps boost their damage and anything that helps em shred resistances and defenses helps too.

swift basin
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Spellblade doesn't need room for growth because it already surpasses Elementalist right from the start. It takes just 2 skill points for Spellblade to do 24dmg AoE nuke that only costs a single action, allowing them to move full speed before using it. That means a much longer effective range.

Elementalist needs 5 skill points to do a 30dmg AoE nuke that it has to stay still for. The 6 damage difference is basically nothing, since both classes can equip the same kind of damage amplifying equipment. On top of that, Spellblade can get a perk to cast spells while in melee.

Numerically, Spellblade is just better than Elementalist in nearly every way right now. I know this because I've tested it, building a Spellblade as I would an Elementalist.

inland cave
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Your argument on Spellblade having more effective range isn't really true. This just means your spellblade has to get closer to actually do its damage, and thus have greater risk of retaliation.

You're comparing 2 classes that have different roles. Furthermore, Spellblades are restricted to 2 elements. Fire, and electricity. Elementalists have a broader range of elemental damage they can inflict, and they actually garner a greater benefit from inflicting status effects in the form of increased damage.

Also the fact that you think the percentages dont make a difference... I mean, let's say we have 5x stacks of strengthened on our artillery elementalist vs our Skirmishing spellblade.

So... we have essentially 36 damage AOE vs a 45 damage AOE. But wait, with Inexorable Cast... it would let an elementalist ignore 3 Status resistance. Meaning that 45 damage goes a whole lot further in one hit than th 36 damage Fireball you just dropped. But maybe this elementalist also has Unrestrained magic which applies an additional 20% damage to adjacent enemies to their initial target.

Maybe they're benefitting from all the other increased damage effects their class can get.

Like I said, I went into earth, Focused Evocation and had a ranged single target nuke that slapped for 100 Damage in the mid-late game that could ignore 3 resistance and scaled insanely well with damage percentage modifiers.

Elementalists and Spellblades should not be compared, they fulfill two different roles, and if you cannot perform well with an elementalist and think its weak... you 100% are not using them correctly. Let's not even get into all the effects they can apply to their base attacks to become even stronger ranged nukes. I dont think spellblades can equip staves or orbs after all..

stone acorn
# inland cave Your argument on Spellblade having more effective range isn't really true. This ...

You compared elementalist and spellblade, while the elementalist have Inexorable Cast, Unrestrained magic and other skills, what is the spellblade doing? Did you forget spellblade has a skill that ignores 1 resistance and status resistance for all attacks? Unlike elementalist's once per battle ability.

Spellblade has a much higher magic damage ceiling than elementalist due to critical skirmisher, and gets fortune and critical strike chance from passive skills.

If you want to play your elementalist as a earth single target nuke, then you can easily replace that by a magelock ranger that can do that job better. Besides elementalist should be viable with all elements, and should do respectable AoE damage.

Elementalist is the weakest class in game right now.

inland cave
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I've just used earth elementalist as my most recent example, plus I dont think a magelock archer is going to be able to apply a +120% chance stun on their shot which is baked into that particular ability. Hits hard, basically guarantees stun.

Idk what to say, I've been rocking the elementalist in all of its elements and I think its pretty strong. This is coming from someone who was primarily using spellblades and Death Knights before elementalist was a thing.

Don't wanna be toxic but I think its genuinely a skill issue. Spellblades gave the option for a more mobile mage dps that can cast spells, but they're still a skirmisher. Spellblade pops their spell, then it goes on CD, most of the time, spellblade is going to have to go in for the melee afterward unless you're specifically stacking on wands. Meanwhile, the dedicated Elementalist can stay at ranged and basically get two nukes they can cast back to back. Also their spell CD ability does not steal their turn from them like the Spellblade's weaver does. This is why I also use a staff with my elementalists instead of orbs, powerful ranged magic dps. Because it gives me the option of having multiple magic damage types on hand while keeping... at ranged, whereas again, you will have to burn accessory slots to make wands for a spellblade to keep them at ranged if you want to play them as a ranged caster.

This is like comparing an Arcanist to a Harrier, its not a valid comparison because they perform different roles and have different ways of augmenting their playstyles.

zealous star
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It would give you a skill point back but then restrict your skill tree to only areas accessible from the chosen element.

swift basin
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The comment of "skill issue" is either disingenuous, or just completely missing the point. In single player, nearly anything can work. But, just because you can make something work in SP doesn't mean that it's balanced against other options, or even particularly good overall. It just means that you're able to make it work against bots.

The reason Elementalist is objectively worse than Spellblade is because, for the same skill point investment, Spellblade can accomplish a whole lot more in combat. It takes 5 skill points for an Elementalist just to catch up to a Spellblade's primary invocation damage. Meanwhile, the Spellblade with those same 5 skill points gets TWO powerful nukes, a free action teleport, and the ability to cast spell abilities while engaged in melee. Conversely, the Elementalist gets... a worse teleport (higher CD, leaves the caster with 1 AP left).

Spellblade just does a lot of what Elementalist does, but better. The fact that you happen to like the one singular Elementalist invocation that is actually on an even playing field doesn't magically make the rest of Elementalist's kit okay. It makes them pointless. Seriously, try a few games with a Fire or Storm Elementalist and a Spellblade in the same game. It becomes very clear very quickly that the Spellblade outperforms by a large margin.

inland cave
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Ahhh yes... my teleport that does the same damage as the spellblade nuke means nothing...

image.png
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The entire arguments here presented are disingenuous, Spellblade does not do what Elementalist does 'but better' because they fulfill two completely different roles....

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Also I should mention I play elementalist in multiplayer games and it works perfectly fine. I think you further prove that you dont know how elementalist really works to capitalize on how strong it actually is. This conversation is not worth continuing

swift basin
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Before item, status, or trait buffs, Elemental Gateway does 20dmg, not 28dmg. Your image is disingenuous.

Furthermore, no. I know exactly how to use the Elementalist. Spellblade is literally just better at the same role. Since you're looking at the teleport nuke damage, Spellblade can literally do almost exactly the same thing (using its own Free Action teleport), but for 30dmg total base (15 Lightning, 15 Fire) and with a 2-hex AoE instead of a 1-hex AoE. On top of that, the skills required to pull it off have a 2 turn cooldown, rather than a 3 turn cooldown.

It does almost all of the same things, but better. That's why Spellblades kill more enemy units in fewer turns than Elementalists do.

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neon sequoia
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Yeah if you're using Elemental Gateway for damage, something went wrong

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Even at 28 (40% more damage), that's not a very big hit

plush pulsar