Guild Wars 2

Ok so I have played the elementalist for a very long time now and have noticed a few things where the elementalist gets a disadvantage compared to other classes.

Underwater:

- The elementalist gets no elementals underwater while all the other classes can have there: pets, minion, turrets, spirit weapons,warbanners, and phantoms underwater. I know currently some elementals wouldn’t have a good day underwater(fire elemental) but why not turn it into a steam elemental when it goes underwater.

- the attunements fire and water are mismatched in underwater combat in my opinion for what you would want to do with them. For example water is used for damage and not for support while fire is used for the blind and cripple and not damage as it does very little compared to water. Is this on purpose because water should be more powerful underwater and fire should be weaker?

- The elementalist currently only has one elite skill for underwater which is whirlpool (a downgraded version of tornado) This elite skill has no strategy or skill attached to it except that you turn into a whirlpool with no skills and you just sit there and suck things into you and do damage to them. Now you could add some skill to this elite and make it require some skill and right now i figure its a place holder as Arena net comes up with some new ideas for underwater elites. Here’s my suggestion for an elite that would require skill, teamwork, and timing. It would be called elemental chain or something like that and you would select 3 teamates or enemies and a link would appear between you and those targets just like a connect the dots game. You would then get 4 skills one for each element. Depending on which one you choose to channel the link would do a different effect for allies and enemies attached to it. For example if you chose to use fire allies attached to the chain would gain like might and enemies would be burned and take damage for each pulse you channel that skill. In addition enemies or teammates who stand in the chain between you and the enemies could gain the positive or negative effects. This would let teams for advance formations to decimate enemies or to buff allies. Water could grant regeneration to allies and chill enemies passing through the beams. Earth could cripple enemies and grant allies stability(or protection) and improved toughness. Air could grant fury and swiftness while blinding foes and causing weakness.

Downed state:

-All elementalists know that are downstate is by far the worst in the game currently. I will go over each bad skill we have and a good alternative for it.

-Your first skill in downstate is a flash of lightning that puts 1 vulnerability on an enemy and doing minimal damage. I would suggest changing this to the skill blinding flash which is an instant lightning strike that deals minimal damage but blinds a foe. This would allow the ele to assist there teammates if they saw a warrior powering up an eviscerate they could blind them to help there alive ally.

-Your second skill is grasping earth which immobilizes a foe. The idea is that you could stop an enemy long enough in order for your third skill vaporform to be ready. The only problem is that 90% of the time they are already right next to you before you can even use grasping earth and the other 5% of the time use do immobilize them but then they just run up and stomp you and your vaporform is still not ready even though you successfully immobilized them. Now compare this number 2 skill to other classes such as the guardian who gets an AoE push back and the necromancer who gets an AoE fear and last but not least the thief who can just teleport away and then wait for people to come over to him and then stealth at the last second to make there stomp not work, but by that time he can use his number 2 again and get away once more and repeat the cycle. My suggestion for this skill would be an earth spike that hits one foe and has a small blowout that would launch that one foe away from you.

- Your third skill is vapor form which lets you turn into mist and try to run away as your enemy follows casually follows you, and waits for the skill to end. My suggestion would be to change it into the cantrip flash which lets you teleport away. If done correctly you could possibly evade your attacker by teleporting away and he couldn’t find you again, instead of him being able to just follow you while your in vaporform.

land combat:

- The skill lightning storm which is made from the glyph of storms while in air attunement and while using the lightning hammer is not effective. The hit box for the lightning is very small and thus will either hit the enemy only one time for low damage or miss them entirely, compared to the the ice storm which might hit a foe 8 times and 15 times if they are large. Simply increasing the hit box would make that skill useful.

I totally agree with you on the downed state of the elementalist. Currently it is the worst of any class, and offers almost no chance or survival, whether it is PvE or PvP.

I’d rather see the downed system dropped from the game altogether but yeah Ele’s downed skills are very bad.

fefner.5729:

I’d rather see the downed system dropped from the game altogether but yeah Ele’s downed skills are very bad.

Agreed. I don’t think it’s really needed.

I’d like to point out that the Elementalist is a very difficult class to master but it is playable in PvE and PVP. In fact my Main is an Elementalist.

My main is also an ele, and honestly the only things that bug me are like… Ride The Lightning sometimes sending me backwards. Or nowhere.

By the way, Whirlpool is pretty beast. Nothing like aggroing all sorts of stuff underwater and popping that elite to watch their hp tick away. Even in SPvP.

I understand how the fire elemental doesn’t fit very well underwater, but at least they should have underwater versions, and turn into underwater versions when you go underwater and have the skills also selected underwater.
- Fire: Flowstone elemental.
- Water: This one could perfectly be the same one. Or just rename it to “Iceberg elemental”.
- Air: The same one, or another newly “Seafoam elemental”.
- Earth: The same, or a version of the same with corals instead roots, named “Seabed elemental”.

It’s actually true what you say about downed state, but, the elementalist is the only class that has 20 skills to use at a time, you have 10 more of other classes has at a time, so you have much more skills to survive, for example… if you use almost all of your skills (strange thing to happen, but anyways) and go down, and have some kind of stun, or something that can buy you time to use the 3rd ability or time to get an ally to revive you, and you get up again you will have most of your skills ready wich is a bit… not right i think. I believe if you have the most versatile class if makes sense that is rly dificult to master, if you go down with an ele you are dead that’s for sure, but if you have a good reaction and are familiar with the ele skills i can assure you, you won’t die so easily

ALL skills (and weapons) should have an underwater alternative. There’s so much water combat it’s shocking that it’s so overlooked.

When I first heard about underwater combat I didn’t expect Trident, harpoon and spear to be the only weapons , I thought they’d be the replacement for torch/rifle/pistol (stuff that doesn’t really work underwater)

I don’t mind the bad downed state really since it’s pretty hard to get taken down with all our escapes and maneuverability.
Mist form really really needs to not increase the downed penalty though.