Guild Wars 2

As an Ele in full exotics + ascended I have 11.8k health, 1800 armor and no powerful defense mechanics even remotely comparable to what the other 7 classes have. The healing from water attunement is absolutely pathetic and it locks me out of my damage tree for 13 painful seconds (my own class mechanic hurts me).

I would list out all the defensive stuff that other classes have built-in (i.e. they don’t have to trait/slot for it) but there have been like 10 other threads that already did that.

Ele’s have have no room for error and get literally two-shotted by bosses/elite mobs.
In PvP….well, we already know about that.

All I want to know is what Elementalists are supposed to get in compensation for having the lowest health and armor in the game. There are no tanks or healers in GW2, no aggro/threat tables so in theory everyone should have the ability to survive attacks.
But how the hell are Ele’s supposed to stay alive when mobs take off 60% of their health in 1 hit, sometimes 80-90%?? Dodging doesn’t cut it, especially for attacks that you can’t see coming.

What was the design philosophy with Elementalist health+armor, especially in PvE where mobs deal flat damage?

I think they realize this. They plan to make burning speed (dagger fire 3) evade during the animation. This obviously won’t magically fix all of the ele problems but imo a step in the right direction. This will give eles a bit of extra BASELINE defense (as long as u use dagger mainhand). At least they somewhat realize the issue. Maybe new weapon sets that come out in the future will have more defensive skills that also add to overall dps like the new burning speed will.

from this website:
Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

So I suggest you use your single attack that does massive damage. Or be more versatile.

There is your single devastating attack. Too bad it is highly situational and half the player population thinks it is an exploit that should be fixed immediately

ArthurDent.9538:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBUZ3MbjEHg

There is your single devastating attack. Too bad it is highly situational and half the player population thinks it is an exploit that should be fixed immediately

There’s meteor+tornado as well, but people feel the same way about that too.

Apparently having low armor and health isn’t a good reason for us to do high damage.

There is no design philosophy behind the ele. The class lost it during the beta.

Axialbloom.8109:

There is no design philosophy behind the ele. The class lost it during the beta.

I concur. And I feel really sad about this. I fell in love with the class during beta and tournament streams from devs. The original design philisophy was seamless but I agree that it was overpowered although not the case where number crunching might have fixed. Instead they gutted all the essential tools for the ele to survive not only from weapon skills, to utilities, even traits and the class mechanic itself. They’ve done too much to destroy the class and make it what it is now. The awesomeness of the original elementalist is long gone. But I still play ele from time to time just because I like flashy animations and ele is definitely unparalleled in that regard.

As an Ele in full exotics + ascended I have 11.8k health, 1800 armor and no powerful defense mechanics

pff, ele has very powerful defense mechanics
namely, invulnerability, blocking, and disables (daze, death, knockdown)

Death is the ultimate state of negating any incoming damage, and eles are most privileged to it out of all professions.

…that is not dead which can eternal lie…
…and within strange seconds, eles quickly die…

reikken.4961:

As an Ele in full exotics + ascended I have 11.8k health, 1800 armor and no powerful defense mechanics

pff, ele has very powerful defense mechanics
namely, invulnerability, blocking, and disables (daze, death, knockdown)

You’re completely right, we spend the most time dead out of any profession, and while you are dead you are immune to CC, conditions, and damage.

Our in-life damage invulnerability is characterized by having an absurdly high cooldown while not being able to do anything in it, our blocking by having an absurdly high cooldown and blocking at maximum three attacks, and our disables by having very high cooldowns and usually requiring the enemy to inflict it upon themselves.

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

Richo.3081:

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

Equipping all kinds of defensive skills does not equate to a class being sustainable or decently survivable if these defensive skills have such short durations on such atrocious cooldowns.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Richo.3081:

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

Equipping all kinds of defensive skills does not equate to a class being sustainable or decently survivable if these defensive skills have such short durations on such atrocious cooldowns.

Then equip an energy sigil and you have f1-f4 with an internal cd of like.. 5-6s I think. I have no problems staying alive on my glass ele in PVE and the only defensive utility I use is arcane shield, so I don’t actually understand why there is such commotion about the caster class being so squishy…

Richo.3081:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Richo.3081:

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

Equipping all kinds of defensive skills does not equate to a class being sustainable or decently survivable if these defensive skills have such short durations on such atrocious cooldowns.

Then equip an energy sigil and you have f1-f4 with an internal cd of like.. 5-6s I think. I have no problems staying alive on my glass ele in PVE and the only defensive utility I use is arcane shield, so I don’t actually understand why there is such commotion about the caster class being so squishy…

It’s nine seconds CD on energy, and staying alive in normal PvE situations is not something that you can really be proud of. Honestly you could easily drop Arcane Shield and still be fine most of the time.

Richo.3081:

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

1) There are no Invulns on any damage weapons, are you talking about Cantrips?
2) Projectile aborb makes us switch attunements and lock ourselves out of doing damage for 13 seconds
3) “Heaps of dodges” – that’s Vigor, i.e. Renewing Stamina. It’s a misconception that Ele’s have “extra dodges” when they really don’t, they have to trait for it.

None of this is even remotely comparable to Mesmer clones, Thief stealth, Guardian blocks/invuln, Warrior base stats, etc.
A Warrior in my gear will have almost 20K health + higher armor and that is nuts.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Our in-life damage invulnerability is characterized by having an absurdly high cooldown while not being able to do anything in it

reikken.4961:

<snip>

Focus? Hahahaha.

I think this guy forgot that Ele’s can’t switch weapons in combat like Warriors, Guardians, Thieves or Rangers.
Maybe if we could then it would be a different story.

(oops double post)

if you want to do damage while not dying, you use a focus
you can complain that specific builds lack defensive measures, but you can’t complain that ele lacks defense mechanics

If you want to do damage you don t use a focus.

reikken.4961:

if you want to do damage while not dying, you use a focus
you can complain that specific builds lack defensive measures, but you can’t complain that ele lacks defense mechanics

Ugh that’s an entirely different can of worms

Focus is the one set that allows us to have inherent defense. The problem with it is that it has three skills that are horribly overpowered but would have appropriate cooldowns if that kind of power was acceptable (the invuln, magnetic wave, and the AoE destroy enemy projectiles), and five skills that are either horribly underpowered, have far too high cooldowns for what they do, or both.
What this results in is incredibly unreliable defense that runs moderately contrary to how elementalists were designed, in that they have four attunements that each do something different but important, but focus makes half of them marginal.
Focus needs serious work before you can really say that it’s a good defensive weapon.

reikken.4961:

if you want to do damage while not dying, you use a focus
you can complain that specific builds lack defensive measures, but you can’t complain that ele lacks defense mechanics

Yeah, eles have enough defensive stuff for a single build…it is just spread over every single weapon and utility…

Oh fun time

Wintel.4873:

Richo.3081:

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

1) There are no Invulns on any damage weapons, are you talking about Cantrips?
2) Projectile aborb makes us switch attunements and lock ourselves out of doing damage for 13 seconds
3) “Heaps of dodges” – that’s Vigor, i.e. Renewing Stamina. It’s a misconception that Ele’s have “extra dodges” when they really don’t, they have to trait for it.

None of this is even remotely comparable to Mesmer clones, Thief stealth, Guardian blocks/invuln, Warrior base stats, etc.
A Warrior in my gear will have almost 20K health + higher armor and that is nuts.

1) Focus 5 in earth is an invuln
2) If you rely on switching to attunements from damage while using a focus you’re not playing ele properly, unless youre talking about the 20% dmg loss from not being attuned to water
3) Apart from anet now giving burning speed an evade frame, you should note that undraft provides a 1 second evade (which is very very big), phoenix provides vigor and burning retreat provides a 1 second evade (if youre a staff camper)

Honestly, its no where near as bad as you are trying to make it out to be

LordByron.8369:

If you want to do damage you don t use a focus.

This is incredibly incorrect

Scepter focus can provide you with pretty incredible DPS if you can do your might rotations and follow up with a lightning hammer

That is the HAMMER is donig the damage but at that point you can t use your defensive skills and thus anuthing you have is useless.

An ele shouldn t be forced into use conjured weapons (UTILITIES) in order to be viable.

Exactly as i said…a full zerker MELEE (D/D) ele with 25 might does low DPS…

You share the base health with Guardians and Thieves btw, and the base armour with Mesmers and Necromancers.

While you are indeed the squishiest profession as you combine low-tier HP with light armour, the concepts aren’t unique.

As such, if one were to buff, say, the low HP tier, that’d make Guardians more durable.

LordByron.8369:

That is the HAMMER is donig the damage but at that point you can t use your defensive skills and thus anuthing you have is useless.

An ele shouldn t be forced into use conjured weapons (UTILITIES) in order to be viable.

Exactly as i said…a full zerker MELEE (D/D) ele with 25 might does low DPS…

Yes its the ‘hammer doing the damage’, but the scepter focus can give you 21 stacks of might on your own… And please remember when you drop your LH, you get 2, you can always drop one to get your defensive skills up, however, in party play, your team might also be able to HELP YOU (funny that).

If you’re having a hard time dps’ing with an ele then I fear your build sucks or your play style is not working at all

It may pay off to look into a solid conjured weapon build

btw, conjured weapons arent the ‘only viable way’, they are just a better way.

LordByron.8369:

If you want to do damage you don t use a focus.

dagger/focus can do huge dps
dagger off hand doesn’t add that much to damage

especially when you’re running fresh air (which should be always, for a (non-LH+PvE) damage build), since any time d/d would be using some kind of damage spell that d/f doesn’t have, d/f can just be spamming lightning whip
and focus has damage too. notably magnetic wave with its instant cast. ie free dps

Carighan.6758:

You share the base health with Guardians and Thieves btw, and the base armour with Mesmers and Necromancers.

While you are indeed the squishiest profession as you combine low-tier HP with light armour, the concepts aren’t unique.

As such, if one were to buff, say, the low HP tier, that’d make Guardians more durable.

This isn’t about buffing tiers, it’s about buffing specifically Ele’s (mainly survivability).

Thieves have stealth and a metric ton of evades/mobility, Guardians have blocks/invuln + heavy armor and some of the best group support in the game.

Mesmer and Necros…I think we all know what compensates for their lack of armor. Mesmer survivability in PvE is one of the best in the game simply due to class mechanics.

I really love people saying that a weapons deals damage when they are doing everything with an “UTILITY” (not to mention it disables weapon skills).

Discussions are becoming so silly recently

This is one of the many gems….

Richo.3081:

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

Richo.3081:

This is incredibly incorrect

Scepter focus can provide you with pretty incredible DPS if you can do your might rotations and follow up with a lightning hammer

I Always thought how fun and deep is to roll an ele, use his weaponskills to get might OOC and then running into battle with 5 warrior skills and only 2 utilities……

XD

Not to mention how well it works in fotms

LordByron.8369:

I really love people saying that a weapons deals damage when they are doing everything with an “UTILITY” (not to mention it disables weapon skills).

Discussions are becoming so silly recently

This is one of the many gems….

Richo.3081:

I disagree with this… you get invulns, projectile absorb, heaps of dodges, arcane shield (3 blocks + can proc more damage)

Its a high risk high reward class, I think its fantastic

Richo.3081:

This is incredibly incorrect

Scepter focus can provide you with pretty incredible DPS if you can do your might rotations and follow up with a lightning hammer

I Always thought how fun and deep is to roll an ele, use his weaponskills to get might OOC and then running into battle with 5 warrior skills and only 2 utilities……

XD

Not to mention how well it works in fotms

Bottom line is, ele’s dont need more health or armour and they can deal damage. Your weapons still help you, and your utilities still end up being weapons

I know all about your 0 30 0 20 30 build or what ever crap it was and I know exactly why you are having problems putting out dps

Once again you either use your defensive skills from focus OR your dps from hammer.

You can t have both.

Make up your mind…ele can t have dps AND survivability…
Reason why they struggle whenever stacking on a wall doesn t work.

The time you put an end to stacking, the ele starts struggling again in PvE.

If I were you, I’d look at your 0/20/0/20/30 dps build first. No wonder you do so low amount of damage with that build. I’d check Zelyhn’s build (stickied on elementalist’s forum), not only it doesn’t use your hated conjures but it does similar amount of damage to LH builds.

@Richo

You sound like a pure PVE Elementalist. Record in Arah? Who cares about that? LH as a DPS weapon? That’s either PVE or for-fun builds only.

You’re locking the comparison to Scepter/Focus then you claim that elementalists have enough defensive skills. Do you even play WvW or PvP? Do you realize how many people use Focus in contents aside PVE? Simply because 1 weapon set has enough defensive capabilities doesn’t mean that elementalist as a whole has enough defensive capabilities. What kind of player watches his opponent stack might in front of him and wait to get bursted?

PVE is not equal to PVP/WVW. Play some WVW/PVP so you realize how much elementalists lack in the defensive department.

Kyon.9735:

@Richo

You sound like a pure PVE Elementalist. Record in Arah? Who cares about that? LH as a DPS weapon? That’s either PVE or for-fun builds only.

You’re locking the comparison to Scepter/Focus then you claim that elementalists have enough defensive skills. Do you even play WvW or PvP? Do you realize how many people use Focus in contents aside PVE? Simply because 1 weapon set has enough defensive capabilities means that elementalist as a whole has enough defensive capabilities.

PVE is not equal to PVP/WVW. Play some WVW/PVP so you realize how much elementalists lack in the defensive department.

Well my argument did start off in PVE, and it appears to have continued on in this sense, and I do believe that PVP should be entirely seperate from PVE in order not to break the mechanics of classes in both instances, however, fresh air builds are still reasonably viable in PVP anyway. Besides, staff also has crowd control and an evade which is useful in WvW.

ps. The arah statement was in regards to being criticized about not playing ‘high end content’.

Richo.3081:

Kyon.9735:

@Richo

You sound like a pure PVE Elementalist. Record in Arah? Who cares about that? LH as a DPS weapon? That’s either PVE or for-fun builds only.

You’re locking the comparison to Scepter/Focus then you claim that elementalists have enough defensive skills. Do you even play WvW or PvP? Do you realize how many people use Focus in contents aside PVE? Simply because 1 weapon set has enough defensive capabilities means that elementalist as a whole has enough defensive capabilities.

PVE is not equal to PVP/WVW. Play some WVW/PVP so you realize how much elementalists lack in the defensive department.

Well my argument did start off in PVE, and it appears to have continued on in this sense, and I do believe that PVP should be entirely seperate from PVE in order not to break the mechanics of classes in both instances, however, fresh air builds are still reasonably viable in PVP anyway. Besides, staff also has crowd control and an evade which is useful in WvW.

Ok, so Elementalist has CCs and evade. So does every other single class. Mesmers and thief have invisibility to compensate for low armor/low HP. Warriors have High HP, Armor, mobility, and blocks. Guardians have great sustain and defensive capabilites to compensate for the low HP. Do I need to state every advantage of every single class?

If elementalist staff is so great, why is it that most people consider staff elementalists a free kill outside of a zerg? Why are elementalists considered the bottom of the food chain along with rangers? Honestly speaking, elementalists and rangers need the most attention from Anet in regards to buffs.

Why are you locking the argument to a single weapon set anyway? If elementalists are fine as they are now, how come you only mentioned Fresh Air builds as the only viable build in PVP?

Kyon.9735:

Richo.3081:

Kyon.9735:

@Richo

You sound like a pure PVE Elementalist. Record in Arah? Who cares about that? LH as a DPS weapon? That’s either PVE or for-fun builds only.

You’re locking the comparison to Scepter/Focus then you claim that elementalists have enough defensive skills. Do you even play WvW or PvP? Do you realize how many people use Focus in contents aside PVE? Simply because 1 weapon set has enough defensive capabilities means that elementalist as a whole has enough defensive capabilities.

PVE is not equal to PVP/WVW. Play some WVW/PVP so you realize how much elementalists lack in the defensive department.

Well my argument did start off in PVE, and it appears to have continued on in this sense, and I do believe that PVP should be entirely seperate from PVE in order not to break the mechanics of classes in both instances, however, fresh air builds are still reasonably viable in PVP anyway. Besides, staff also has crowd control and an evade which is useful in WvW.

Ok, so Elementalist has CCs and evade. So does every other single class. Mesmers and thief have invisibility to compensate for low armor/low HP. Warriors have High HP, Armor, mobility, and blocks. Guardians have great sustain and defensive capabilites to compensate for the low HP. Do I need to state every advantage of every single class?

If elementalist staff is so great, why is it that most people consider staff elementalists a free kill outside of a zerg? Why are elementalists considered the bottom of the food chain along with rangers? Honestly speaking, elementalists and rangers need the most attention from Anet in regards to buffs.

Why are you locking the argument to a single weapon set anyway? If elementalists are fine as they are now, how come you only mentioned Fresh Air builds as the only viable build in PVP?

I wouldnt try to 1v1 in pvp with an ele, but that doesnt necessarily mean you should make it a 1v1 class. This is a team game, afterall and is far from focused on people 1v1ing all the time.

Besides, my arguments prior are regarding PVE and if they are going to change ele’s for pvp/wvw I would prefer they dont ruin PVE in the process.

Lets keep this PvE-centric please.

Elementalist in PvP is a whole other can of worms where stuff like roles, cooldowns, telegraphs, and cast times starts getting coming into play. I don’t remember the last time I actually hit someone with Dragon’s Tooth or Lava Font in PvP.

Suddenly a Thief opened on me! I proceeded to push buttons but found myself in Vapor Form…huh? Why am I in Vapor Form? Oh, I’m using downed abilities…which means I already died.
But that’s another story for another time :P

Axialbloom.8109:

There is no design philosophy behind the ele. The class lost it during the beta.

The problem is that players want sPvP – or more extreme, 1v1 – to be balanced.
This automatically removes a lot of potential balance options from the table.

For example in DAoC, there was a set of casters which had spells with a longer range than anyone else, and they hit really really hard, too. If these casters would catch you unprepared from range, they would drop you. This was balanced because the bolts didn’t work in most situations and the casters were very frail.
They could alpha-strike you. And they’d win. The second person behind you would effortlessly kill them.

Wintel.4873:

Lets keep this PvE-centric please.

Elementalist in PvP is a whole other can of worms where stuff like roles, cooldowns, telegraphs, and cast times starts getting coming into play. I don’t remember the last time I actually hit someone with Dragon’s Tooth or Lava Font in PvP.

Suddenly a Thief opened on me! I proceeded to push buttons but found myself in Vapor Form…huh? Why am I in Vapor Form? Oh, I’m using downed abilities…which means I already died.
But that’s another story for another time :P

With all due respect, I believe this is an issue in both PVP and PVE content of the game. Eles and rangers need more love.

Kyon.9735:

With all due respect, I believe this is an issue in both PVP and PVE content of the game. Eles and rangers need more love.

The problem is not whether Eles or Rangers need love in PvP, the problem is that PvP-balance is – due to it’s small scale – ~diametrically opposed to balance outside of PvP.

Even a balance split would barely make a dent because the very underlying design ideas of the classes need to be different.

As such, the problem really comes down to what you want to balance. “Interesting concepts and powerful design” (PvE/WvW-zerg) vs “Low complexity, high depth skill-based fight win” (sPvP/WvW 1v1)

Carighan.6758:

Kyon.9735:

With all due respect, I believe this is an issue in both PVP and PVE content of the game. Eles and rangers need more love.

The problem is not whether Eles or Rangers need love in PvP, the problem is that PvP-balance is – due to it’s small scale – ~diametrically opposed to balance outside of PvP.

Even a balance split would barely make a dent because the very underlying design ideas of the classes need to be different.

As such, the problem really comes down to what you want to balance. “Interesting concepts and powerful design” (PvE/WvW-zerg) vs “Low complexity, high depth skill-based fight win” (sPvP/WvW 1v1)

I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that eles and rangers only need help in PVP. I said that in general.

Kyon.9735:

Carighan.6758:

Kyon.9735:

With all due respect, I believe this is an issue in both PVP and PVE content of the game. Eles and rangers need more love.

The problem is not whether Eles or Rangers need love in PvP, the problem is that PvP-balance is – due to it’s small scale – ~diametrically opposed to balance outside of PvP.

Even a balance split would barely make a dent because the very underlying design ideas of the classes need to be different.

As such, the problem really comes down to what you want to balance. “Interesting concepts and powerful design” (PvE/WvW-zerg) vs “Low complexity, high depth skill-based fight win” (sPvP/WvW 1v1)

I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that eles and rangers only need help in PVP. I said that in general.

Ele’s do not need help in PVE… Honestly, Ele’s are basically the current meta… Ranger’s I would agree might, however, I have still seen some decent rangers in PVE, but the skill level required is more significant.

I think the statement made captures the problem nicely, that is, given PVP and PVE are linked, changing one alters the other thus resulting in balances and imbalances.

Richo.3081:

Ele’s do not need help in PVE… Honestly, Ele’s are basically the current meta…

Ha, correct use of the word “meta”!
But hrm, I’d say Eles need a lot of help, it’s just that two skills, namely Bow and GS, carry them along. That’s not a healthy situations at all.

Carighan.6758:

Richo.3081:

Ele’s do not need help in PVE… Honestly, Ele’s are basically the current meta…

Ha, correct use of the word “meta”!
But hrm, I’d say Eles need a lot of help, it’s just that two skills, namely Bow and GS, carry them along. That’s not a healthy situations at all.

Lightning hammer is also incredible powerful O:)

So basically, conjured weapons… ahahaha, but that isnt necessarily a bad thing…

haviz.1340:

If I were you, I’d look at your 0/20/0/20/30 dps build first. No wonder you do so low amount of damage with that build. I’d check Zelyhn’s build (stickied on elementalist’s forum), not only it doesn’t use your hated conjures but it does similar amount of damage to LH builds.

No i use that build because i don t want to play the dumbed down version of the ele i consider being the conjured elementalist…..

The issue is infact a build spamming the same attack being more efficient compared with one with way more combos, reaction and tactic.
(consider that build was called BURST ELE in pvp….and mine uses 2 more offensive traits)

As i answered to richo’s “learn to play” post, there are too many factors that people ignores…

Reaction window
Cast+aftercast
Limited evasions

The usual fantasy world where players have unlimited evades and skills are istant cast and effect doesn t apply.

But its easier to post stuff likes this and aovid any constructive discussion it seems.

, I don’t have problems surviving, none of my friends or guildies do and nor do a lot of other people in the game. If you think that HP and armor is the only way to survive I suggest sticking to warrior before posting in a thread regarding ele.

JUST SAYING… GW1 ele is how it should have been done and this attunement swapping thing was as gigantic a mistake as the rangers being forced to drag around that horrid pet… the GW1 ele design would have been JUST FINE.

And yes, eles have loads of extra heals and defence measures, but go play one… your ONLY REAL defense is to either troll it to death over the course of 60 seconds or more (ele in defense gear, defense weapons etc do less damage than my ranger using axe main hand)… or…
ZERK ZERK ZERK. KILL IT WITH FIRE BEFORE IT KILLS YOU

Just saying, the incoming changes to crit damage are REALLY going to twist the screws on the elementalist class who’s only real defense IS to kill or be killed. Questioning why the ele was made as such is perfectly legit imo.

Should say, I run ele and do OK..but that’s it. Other than frost bow or abusing mechanics like the burning rush/retreat abilities, the Ele is stuck with making some really messy choices between defense/offense. Yes, you can have high defense on an ele, but your damage is shrunk so low that you are likely to get burnt down before the bad guy… and yes, you can have high damage except that you will have to be in melee range with ZERO defense to speak of…And Yes, you can have the saftey of range and fairly average dps at the cost of everything being an easily avoided aoe field…

Compare with warriors cause those are the dev’s baby or something but: Highest raw single target spikes bar none, high sustainable dps, easy access to ranged AND melee aoe attacks, very high health pool, very strong self heals, personal invulnerability skills do NOT hamper all other actions, stability utilities, aoe rez and the warrior doesn’t need to get OOC to have all these things available… Maybe some dev met my GW1 Ele in FA poorly or something, but all the ele’s are asking for is a little more love and leeway with builds/gear

Ele has to make extreme risk/reward choices in terms of dps/survivability, something other classes don’t have to do (Dire/Carrion stats in WvW).

Instead of buffing ele, just make every other class have the same risk/reward system eles do. Though tbh, our trait lines need a huge rework. They’re just not synergised.

LordByron.8369:

No i use that build because i don t want to play the dumbed down version of the ele i consider being the conjured elementalist…..

The issue is infact a build spamming the same attack being more efficient compared with one with way more combos, reaction and tactic.
(consider that build was called BURST ELE in pvp….and mine uses 2 more offensive traits)

As i answered to richo’s “learn to play” post, there are too many factors that people ignores…

Reaction window
Cast+aftercast
Limited evasions

The usual fantasy world where players have unlimited evades and skills are istant cast and effect doesn t apply.

But its easier to post stuff likes this and aovid any constructive discussion it seems.

Could you read further than first sentence next time? It will lessen the confusion you might be under. I’ve said I would have advised you to check Zelyhn’s build which doesn’t use conjures yet deals very similar amount of damage.

He changed quite a lot of builds then… i tried some and quit due to being extremely boring as i said.

p.S. and imho traits are almost fine….weaponskills needs work.