Why Elf Is Useless

Elf is the newest CTF class that aligns itself with Mid-Range, with multiple elemental bows at its disposal to act as a Swiss Army Knife version of Archer. The class has been out for a while and is considered "okay" by many people in many regards. To me and many others, Elf just doesn't live up to expectations because of this "okay" feeling. This is not a buff thread, but a thesis to explain the reasons for Elf being so inferior. Elf lacks in many aspects as a CTF class because it has no zoning, is too slow for a mid range class, and far outclassed by mage.

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Elf is mainly a mid range class, but it lacks the basic essentials to be a good mid range class, spacing. Spacing or Zoning is the ability to keep an enemy out of distance. For a mid range class, this is an staple that was set with Mage with its plethora of zoning tools that can knock people away, freeze people in place, slow them down, and overall keep most enemies from melee range. Elf, with its 4 elements have no good method of zoning. The pure element is decent at stopping the enemy for a moment, but it cannot take the enemy out of melee range which makes its zoning capabilities useless. The Earth element needs a full charge to slow the enemy down for a slightly brief moment, making it too useless to work as a zoning method. The wind spell was prospected as the zoning spell during speculation, but was ultimately made into an out of place flight gimmick that doesn't aid in zoning at all and only gives elf a getaway that can still end up in the Elfs death. Besides this issue with Zoning, Elf's usefulness is set back greatly by how slow it is for a mid ranged class.

Zoning is a major issue with Elf, but besides that Elfs major gimmicks are too slow and unreliable to be put to use. Elf's spells all suffer from large sums of lag to use its spells effectively. The pure element is supposed to be the Elfs main damager, and it has a special chain ability that can damage a single enemy grearly. The issue with this though, is the fact that it takes 2 full power shots to use this ability. In theory this is a good method of damage but the lag that a full power charge has doesn't give Elf much opportunity to use this ability. By the time a full power shot is landed, you only have a brief window of time to shoot the next whilst the enemy noticed your attack and prepared to attack you back. The Earth Spell suffers from a similar issue, but the drawback is less severe to the point that it is usually an Elfs main method of attack. This method is only good at slowing, as the damage is shboar at best. The Wind and Water spells are just gimmicks, and do very little to diversify gameplay. The Wind spell is decent for perching onto places that Ninjas can easily get to whilst the Water spell is literally useless in any plausible situation. These major hinderances are amplified greatly, as Mages superiority makes Elfs lacking abilities all the more obvious.

Elf is a mid range class gone wrong in most aspects, and this is due to how much it deviated from mage. Mage outshines Elf in most aspects without debate, containing far superior zoning and much faster abilities at its disposal. 3 of Mages 5 spells are zoning spells whilst Elf has none. 3 of Mages spells do damage, and are all instantly activated with cooldown on them all. Even though the cooldowns are longer, Mage has the ability to instantly respond to any situation whilst Elf has to suffer through extensive start up times to be of any use to itself. When compared to Mage, its obvious that Elf needs work.

Elf took Mages multi use aspects, but it took nothing else. Elf needs to be given better zoning and less start up time to be comparable to mage. And before people argue that it should not be compared to Mage, Elf is indeed a mid ranged class. Mages success as a midrange class wasn't a fluke, there are obvious factors that shouldn't be ignored when trying to make a mid range class,and its obvious the moderators took this into account, they just took all the wrong things. If Elf were to be changed, it needs to focus more on zoning and effeciency rather than the bag of gimmicks it currently is.

PS: Essay format is rather bad for impulse posts, I'd recommend doing it if you had more time on your hand.

 

That just changes a gimmick to another gimmick, Elf has the ability to fly currently and is a bad capping class, I doubt situational speed I would change anything.

 

Yes, but it doesn't help Elf overall at all

 

I would much rather see the Wind element have just a punch I or II effect to it, itd make zoning easier for the class.