Nearly the whole SE community has deemed elementals as unbalanced. However, I never knew why people thought it was unbalanced, there were reasons I read here and there but I don't remember reading why exactly people think this empire is unbalanced. So this thread isn't to oppose the idea, I'd just like it if you posted why you think the empire is unbalanced and maybe what you would like to change. I myself think they need a buff.

it is not about buff and nerf , it is about the flaws of every single unit
I myself played elemental since the first week it was released. And I still think it is not completely balanced

Let me list out the unbalanced parts

1) Earth , low dps, it works fine in EvO. But in EvC, the animation cancel of cats can completely dodge all the attacks of earth, making earths unable to deal with cat and bomber pressure. Ele players are open to bomber pressure.

2) Water, 3 heal/cure + freeze, the only function for the water is working as a step to get cycloid/tree/blast. But looking at the single unit, it is almost useless. 350gold for stopping a unit without the ability to attack. The heal side is ridiculous, 350gold for each 1 bar heal, and one poison spray /venom flux = you need to waste 350 gold on one spell

3) Fire, fair enough when comparing with archer, shorter range but higher power and slightly higher cost. But cannot deal with wings/albows.

4) Air, cannot deal with 1 single archer with perfect kiting, low attack rate. The biggest problem : Long queue time, almost same queue time as wing, but the effectiveness is much lower.

5) Cycloid, higher cost than albow/wing. But it is a melee unit, long cool down and queue time for the tornado spell. The protection spell is almost useless as it disappears in seconds. Unable to deal with wing mass / albow mass with wall support.

6) Inferno, good spell unit with comparable cost to medusa/magikill. But the dragon spell is super slow which is impossible to hit target without support of fire rain.

7) V, most underrated and ineffective unit , comparable cost to giant, but low health/no armor, extremely micro dependent, and slower spell rate and range than medusa stone/marrow reap. And one hit killed by ninja.

8) Blast, this is fair

9) Blind gate, a choice for you to waste resources.

In general, when I play as elemental, I always try to end the game as soon as possible, like within 6 mins. Otherwise I stand no chance, and I never consider the heal option due to water nerf.
Furthermore, it is quite absurd for elemental to lack options to deal with certain build , eg ninja mass , wing mass, albow mass, order deathball, triple CA.
An empire should not face the situation that it is impossible to counter a certain build in my mind.

The biggest problem, I don't know why everytime ele only has the choice to give out tower and spam miners (elemental player has no option to deal with archer start / 2C chaos start)

People think ele need a nerf simply because they don't play it, don't understand it, and lack of experience to deal with it.
Tbh, I think all the recent change of elemental just made the elemental more unbalanced (cycloid nerf= no method dealing with CA, water nerf = no method to deal with poison)
ele did not get the buff that it should have , and got the nerf on the wrong units that should not happen

If you honestly want to talk about ele balance, a serious discussion in irc is the best way to answer, also our TZ podcast episode #1.

Another thing is gameplay wise, a lot of elementals shuts down rather than ramps up. Earths? Stun. Waters? Freeze. It's a boolean empire + it shuts down interaction rather than encouraging it through additional dmg + gameplay effects.

Lets talk about it here...

The units are too dependant on gold which comes from the high prices for units when you combine them.

Earths are fine CvE for not OvE. Earth need a attack speed buff then maybe we could see some interesting tatics with stun lock

Waters. Dont perform well they freeze a unit but die quickly with out enough support and lets face it are earth good support
And this is another problem the units dont gel. Swords and archers work well together. Crawlers and bombers do. Earths and waters how do they work well together?

Also the majority of combinations are casters that ridclous and a massive design flaw. A good combination that resulted in a unit with solid DPS would help Ele a lot. Fires and airs struggle mid game

Quote from lewislewis

Lets talk about it here...

The units are too dependant on gold which comes from the high prices for units when you combine them.

Earths are fine CvE for not OvE. Earth need a attack speed buff then maybe we could see some interesting tatics with stun lock

Waters. Dont perform well they freeze a unit but die quickly with out enough support and lets face it are earth good support
And this is another problem the units dont gel. Swords and archers work well together. Crawlers and bombers do. Earths and waters how do they work well together?

Also the majority of combinations are casters that ridclous and a massive design flaw. A good combination that resulted in a unit with solid DPS would help Ele a lot. Fires and airs struggle mid game

"A good combination that resulted in a unit with solid DPS would help Ele a lot."
^
originally charrog can be a good choice. But due to nerf of water heal, it is quite useless because trees are just obviously better option.

Charhogs can't win games on their own they need good dps support how good would speartons be with out archers?

Quote from lewislewis

Charhogs can't win games on their own they need good dps support how good would speartons be with out archers?

spear with magikill and meric support can still be powerful build. Spear can also combine with albows. Or a tool for turtle and tech up to giants

but for charrogs, without water, they are almost useless

Charhog and Cycloid?
Charog and Tree?
Charog and Infernos

How would these compete with spear archer? Not well

Well charrog and cycloid with airs/fires support was quite good before the "patch"..

Ele works great for me but some flaws. Spam fires and airs and do massive amounts of damage. Waters need to have increased healing.... And the fact that the water upgrade makes them heal LESS is a big problem. Also in addition to curing poison waters should make units immune to poison for a short amount of time. Blind gate is a waste. Increase range and speed at which Cycloids tornados travel so they can have a chance against flying ranged units also should have an ability that does a self protect with (E). It's too hard and can't do protection to multiple cycloids when getting charged or charging. Units are too fast and the fact that they fly makes them very difficult to cast the protection spell on themselves.

Quote from DragonArcherZ

Another thing is gameplay wise, a lot of elementals shuts down rather than ramps up. Earths? Stun. Waters? Freeze. It's a boolean empire + it shuts down interaction rather than encouraging it through additional dmg + gameplay effects.

I think this is honestly ele's main fault, not it's strength or weaknesses. For as long as ele relies on shutting down the opposition rather than, metaphorically, standing on its own two feet, the gameplay is going to be binary, boring, and unresponsive.

I will make a thread eventually on this but I need time.

Quote from Skeletonxf

I think this is honestly ele's main fault, not it's strength or weaknesses. For as long as ele relies on shutting down the opposition rather than, metaphorically, standing on its own two feet, the gameplay is going to be binary, boring, and unresponsive.

I will make a thread eventually on this but I need time.

"boring " "unresonposive"

somehow I think these terms also apply to other two empires , when I only meet spear with tons of archers everytime, or dead mass , eventually nothing interesting exists

Quote from mysterybat

"boring " "unresonposive"

somehow I think these terms also apply to other two empires , when I only meet spear with tons of archers everytime, or dead mass , eventually nothing interesting exists

Replace boring with a forced meta then. I'll grant OvO and CvO and pretty much all matchups can get boring, but there's almost always a wide pool of viable and usable units that can force the game to go in different directions if you want to.

Ele matchups don't have that right now. Ele shuts down opposing unit purchases instead of trying to kill them.

Quote from mysterybat

"boring " "unresonposive"

somehow I think these terms also apply to other two empires , when I only meet spear with tons of archers everytime, or dead mass , eventually nothing interesting exists

No but I mean, a lot of the skills are adding additional damage or trying to engage, especially Chaos, while a lot of ele is either all in or all out (infernos, scorches, etc.) or going for shut down rather than pump up (freezes, slows, stuns)

Quote from DragonArcherZ

No but I mean, a lot of the skills are adding additional damage or trying to engage, especially Chaos, while a lot of ele is either all in or all out (infernos, scorches, etc.) or going for shut down rather than pump up (freezes, slows, stuns)

if every empire works the same , it is actually even more boring in my mind
just like spear arch , what I can see is just archer mass, spear wall, then meric wall to regenerate and repeat again and again
same for dead jug, the deads just simply eliminates the health bit by bit

ele inferno/scorch actually provides another options for you to take a risky approach, you either get everything/lose everything due to high cost.

I don't see any problem in shut down . Magikill E-wall, medusa venom flux, they just work the same AoE.

the only boring part of ele is the tanker part, I don't see any problem else in a serious note. Especially order is the empire that I spent the longest time to play with, I feel more bored for the archer dominance .