elementals.

have several problem areas that i tried my best to cover up but have failed to do so consistently
Problem Number 1:
inability to combat ranged units early game.
reason:
Earth- not the tankiest of units. can take a few archer arrows before needing to retreat. tends to miss a target if its moving in a direction. if it does it is because the opponent made a mistake.
against chaos. rarely viable for anything.
Water- useful for healing
freeze doesnt last long with the inability to survive
air- useful. nothing really needs to happen
fire- basically unarmored units can tank more than armored for some odd reason. 2 volleys from 4 fires before a crawler died
air + fire susceptible to bombs.
fires more so.
problem 2:
passive damage is devastating to ele.
poison and burn do severe damage to ele lacking defensive blockade and a passive healing unit.
this causes cycloids to have problems when facing a mix of marrow/wing/dead
not only does the shield time wear off after two seconds. its ability to soak more than 2 volleys from 4 wings is pathetic
to add to the micro it takes to effectively chase the unit that can kite fowards and backwards. the only way to save from poison is to attempt to get a water close enough to heal them
i guess that categorizes cycloids
Trees: doesnt fare well in most situations the poison is nice but kiting nullifies them severely with the scorps re spawning awfully slow.
against chaos wings and deads shred through them.
inferno: support unit. needs other units to be of use. vs chaos can attempt to hit wings with vastolis but will hardly ever connect.
scorch: walls and archers snipes.
prob 3
chaos in general
ele has little that can deal with a tanky mass or flying mass other than cyloid on wings
a mass of a mix of both is deadly
ele has little opputunity to spread eco due to bombs flying in repeatedly early game.
when ele fights out the chaos has already teched,obtained second row and pretty much gained field advantage.

to sum up:
sadly i hate to agree with those that have said it before.
chaos has advantage over ele.
ele has no early game after first units begin to die if not 3 earth start.
scorps are barely effective at holding deads for a bit meanwhile chaos replaces the scorps actually respawn 2 seconds too late before the dead they killed is replaced and another is being qued.
ive been trying several times against chaos. playing ranked matches and non ranked.
using several configurations of ele units.
thinking as hard as i could to counter but no such luck.

Plz fix something for ele.
enough with the nerfs.
rebuff something if need be but they desperately need something just for evc games.
evo is ok i can live with somethings. challenging at times but ok. even if i lose i know exactly why it was
eve is ok.
but having 8 fires a charrog and a water for scorch and losing to 4 wings and a turret is ridiculous.

I AGREE Ele needs needs needs more power on them they need something like
Walls or a way to counter OvE giant massing

V Unit ^.^ cost 1400 gold and you get a free giant xD by controling the massers :P

Quote from ImpossiblePIE

I AGREE Ele needs needs needs more power on them they need something like
Walls or a way to counter OvE giant massing

You are joking right? 2 V's>Giant massing.

But yes, Ele does need help in Classic. In deathmatch Ele is pretty op though. Eclipsors and marrows give a middle finger to all Elemental users. But seriously, Ele starrt on short map fucks order pretty hard. It's just hard to nerf or buff them without disbalancing.

get 4 water then

Yah but they escape when they use shinobi :/

lol just watch CJ end up unintentionally overbuffing a unit in the next balance update. XD

Btw pie how about using airs and waters, and use any stun moves available to you. Charrog or Cycloid sounds favorable for that job, if used right.

the most sad fact that I figured out for elemental is that.... elemental has nearly no chance to beat a top chaos player

it is too easy for chaos to defeat elemental in classic match up.

Consider the cost of cycloids and wings, wing can queue up much faster, and cycloid without upgrade is impossible to win against a couple of wings.

I have tried tons of times to use elemental facing chaos , but then I lose 8/10 of my matches in EvC in classic.
Though I may not be the best elemental player, but I don't think there are many elemental players that can have better performance than me.

I agree with all pumu suggested , and up till now I still don't understand why meteor strike of inferno cannot hit air units while medusa venom flux can hit air units.

I have a few suggestions.
►Cycloid protect removes debuffs on selected unit (to give ele slightly better ways to deal with magikill/dead poison or such late game)
►An upgrade for fires introduced like the rage one for swords now that has a long research time but costs very little so mid game fires can have better range or damage (whichever works out better for making them relevant) without buffing them for the early game whne they are extremely good on short maps already
►Make blind gate do something useful
►Adjust cycloid AI so that they don't auto target the first thing they see (this kills them far too often currently much like it did old Merics because you're trying to spell cast with them and suddenly they're running into the front line taking damage from the units you wanted to tornado first)
►Adjust V AI so that a possessed unit isn't unpossessed when clicking the attack button

Yeah i make thT mistake im winning and i say gg then i click attack and lose hold of the giant tyen he has a tank and boom i lose

Quote from ImpossiblePIE

Yeah i make thT mistake im winning and i say gg then i click attack and lose hold of the giant tyen he has a tank and boom i lose

Yup, you end up fighting the game constantly with ele just to make units work well.
My waters and cycloids try to kill themselves, and making then fall back constantly makes me have to deselect the other units I wanted to be controlling, and losing a giant or something because you were trying to attack with it is incredibly annoying.

you forgot the AI crashes and also when you have too many cycloids, microing each becomes hard, and since it is a spellcaster, you need to use those spells

Elementals... Can't even begin with the number of issues.

1. Lag (will probs be fixed with new update)
2. The imbalance between Classic Order/chaos as well as Deathmatch
3. The issues that you are stating only occur in classic. In Deathmatch, it's quite the opposite. Chaos has no way to defend against a large cycloid mass.

Quote from BenTZ

Elementals... Can't even begin with the number of issues.

1. Lag (will probs be fixed with new update)
2. The imbalance between Classic Order/chaos as well as Deathmatch
3. The issues that you are stating only occur in classic. In Deathmatch, it's quite the opposite. Chaos has no way to defend against a large cycloid mass.

not really.
first, in classic, even though I can win with elemental, but in contrast, when I use order or chaos, not even one single elemental player (except FF2) can win me once in ranked matches . I am not bragging how good myself is, but I somehow figure out builds that is impossible for elemental to win. And it is also common knowledge that elemental cannot survive in late game.

Second, in DM, I also figure out the way to counter elemental as well after the tree nerf. For OvE, miner wall, CA support, ninja ,spear wall, with meric support is enough to deal with anything.
For CvE, turret, castle dead, with all wings and maybe a jugger, is also enough to counter elemental.

So elemental is just an empire that obviously has great weakness. It is very hard to play and win with elemental indeed.