ClickToKill.8473

This skill used to do a lot of damage before it got nerfed. Probably because it was over-performing on what is to be a support weapon. Its still very good for utility, its just not the complete package anymore.

As I said in another thread, the attunement recharge should be removed from Elemental Enchantment and just be added to the class as a buff. As for the boons from elemental attunement, they should be added to each attunement activation instead, but when taking elemental attunement,. it spreads them to allies. So naturally attuning to fire will give you might, water... regen, etc.

I think maybe they should work on tweaking core ele, and that could make both specs stronger. I personally think the need to always rely the Arcane spec hurts the ele class when it comes to building because its too good not to take.

I personally think that the reduced attunement recharge on Elemental Enchantment should be removed, but added as a buff to ele class, because that trait is seems too necessary, and it might open up more dual-elemental builds instead of the usual Arcane + 1 building.

Right now in spvp Catalyst is the team fighter, Weaver the Duelist, and Tempest has been Support/+1. And fire is in most builds, because Smothering auras is really good.

I think one of the obstacles when getting into raiding is the idea that "you have to play profession X in order to raid". To some people, Firebrand or Scourge isn't fun to play. But it does seem that these builds are very necessary for raiding, according to the raiding community. In the end, if you are not going to have fun doing something, why would you do it?

Perhaps in a WvW zerg situation Virtuoso is terrible because of all the projectile kill. But in much smaller fights, if you play around those defenses, Virtuoso still has a big spike in PvP. The spec isn't really that bad, its just not out of the gate OP. (like the PoF e-specs were)

It still plays very different from the norm, since you are swapping your weapons via utility skills and not the weapon toggle. It might be the easiest engi build to learn though. Let's not forget new players might not know that weapon swapping occurs when your weapon skills change, and could wrongfully assume engi weak because they can only have "1 weapon" in combat.

Engi's being the least played is more of a playstyle choice than a power choice. Engi is one of the more complex classes in the game, IMO. The classes that are at the top of the most played don't have much of a learning curve.

Not to diverge off topic, but if Anet made it so you couldn't have 100% quickness uptime on Guardian, that would really shake things up in high level PvE. That seems to be the real problem, as Guardians can pull so much more weight than the other professions. Of course, the dps should stay around the same(perhaps buffing certain skill damage), so that Guardian doesn't fall off a cliff.

Auras would be too strong if they were on enemy hit. They would have to be reworked, especially the ele auras, which punish attackers for targeting them. This is especially true for shocking aura.

"I've seen" because I'm not really a WvW player, but I did work with the spec in the other facets of the game. And the spec's weapon doesn't need to be good to make the spec viable. When it was the king of arena, Mirage was strongest . when it used scepter/Torch, not the axe. You don't need to run Warhorn with tempest and Staff Weaver is a strong build. Hammer has synergy with the aura spam catalysts can do. Maybe that is not enough, but it doesn't make the entire e-spec unviable. The only thing bad about catalyst before this last patch was the reliability of Hammer 3 skills. Agreed its still not in the best spot. But I do believe a lot of people just despise the class because its not what they wanted from day 1, and it can never be good because of that.

Catalyst has actually been performing quite well in PvP... just not with hammer. I've seen some people have success as a D/D roamer in WvW as well. These forums don't give an accurate analysis of the current state of catalyst. That said, is the catalyst on par with Mech golem nerf? Or how about the Rev Dodge healing output nerf? They made adjustments all over this patch.

I never had an issue getting in fractal groups running Tempest. In fact, there really isn't much need for elitism in fractals considering they nerfed the rewards prior to EoD launch. I will say Healing staff tempest isn't as good as the condi build though, because the Anet nerfed the traits that made it worth running a few years ago(a la when Geyser could bring people back up. You still might be able to get it to work, its just not as impressive as it used to be.

Just commenting on this. Anet never stated E-Specs were supposed to be "better" than core spec. E-Specs were supposed to be an alternative with a trade off to playing the core specs, like you give up power in one area to gain power in another. Of course after 7-8 years of e-specs, that hasn't always been the case and either e-specs overperform or underperform when compared to the core spec of a class, but that falls upon balance. That said, Anet has probably reserved the power in some of the new e-specs after the madness that happened with PoF launch, where pretty much every e-spec was overperforming.