Guild Wars 2

I’m playing an elementalist.. CONSTANTLY, I mean CONSTANTLY dying. I’ve geared out the best I can be given how little coin drops and how absurd the trader prices are.. I do EVERY SINGLE TASK, EVENT, VIEWPOINT.. EVERYTHING. I even do each event 2 or 3 times but why does it constantly seem like I’m under geared or to weak for the content at my same level? Im doing a story quest 2 levels below be (instance) and I am not even remotely close to being able to do it. Not even in the same order of magnitude of being capable. Not even remotely close.

But just constantly dying. I mean getting friggin one shotted by stuff 2 levels below me.

Are all classes like this? Im having ZERO fun as an elementatlist.. should I try another class or is this game just not for me?

I’ve played every MMO since Meridian 59 and MUDs for years before that and never ever had this must frustration and lack of fun as this game right now. Just seems like I’m missing something here.

Try another class. The elementalist isn’t as straight forward as other classes and it has quite a few balance issues to sort out.

In fact, the only mage class I’ve yet to see anyone complain about being too weak is the mesmer.

that’s funny considering all the servivabulity the necro has.

I should point out that no matter what class you play your going to be squishier than other MMO’s

I should also point out that the best Bunker build in this game has one of the lowest health pools

It all come’s down to how well you play your class and that you made a build that suits you.

and DODGE!

I’ve found the same with a warrior in regards to the story mode. Normal content is fine, but story mode bosses seems to make you go splat very easily. I get fed up, leveled my character to the top level of that zone and then completed the story mode stuff. Even then, I died on some of the bosses and had to rush back to finish them off.

I don’t see it as unbalanced, GW2 has classes with very different playstyles. Part of the game is discovering which class suits you best, and how to play it. I have an ele, warrior, and engineer. The warrior has the best land combat of the 3. He can take and dish out quite a beating. The engineer has the best underwater combat of the 3. He is also great for the defensive DEs, just cast all turrets, shoot the rifle, and pick up the loot. But, for mobile land encounters, my turret build just isn’t very mobile (what a surpize). The ele needs vitality and toughness boosts. For me, the ele is the most difficult to play well. Of the classes I have played, I would suggest you try a Warrior. Of course there is also the guardian. who looks fairly robust. A ranger with a pet bear also seems to survive very well. I have seen each of the classes played well by others so I can’t say any particular class is good or bad.

I agree ele is weak. I do fine on necro and with mesmer I can take champions down safely all 3 i have around lvl 60. Thief I had to play with to get a good spec but now i do better than fine with it. Warrior had to go defensive spec any weapon will do on him. Guardian is fine any weapon any spec . Ranger if very good with 2 tank pets i have no problems with ranged weapons.
I just cant get through some areas with ele solo so i pretty much dont play him just my opinion but i did give it a good effort with searching for builds/tactics and trying them out.

Yes, the ele is weak and squishy compared to other characters, but I’ve found so far (level 20-ish), that no class beats the ele when it comes to mob control and support. Blinds, knockdowns, heals and slows – the ele has all that and more. And what’s more important – it can annoy larger groups of mobs than other characters.

So yes, it’s harder to play, but it definitely has its advantages.

But then, what do I know, my ele is only level 20.

All classes are somewhat squishy, especially at low levels (the game actually seems to get easier as you get higher level). You have to learn to play them tactically and dodge and move around a lot.

However, the elementalist is certainly due for a few buffs because they are currently even squishier than other classes with inadequate compensatory mechanics. They are still a good class, especially when supporting others, but they are probably the most difficult class to solo with.

Ele is incredibly unforgiving.

the classes have indeed some balance issues, but how can you claim it is “horribly unbalanced” while having only played one class? Maybe it is just not your class or you just have some room for improvement in your playing (not that elementalists are the epitomy of powerhorses).

i have a character for each class and play each one depending on my mood,
of all of them, only my warrior, thief and elementalist are over level 40.

my elementalist is fun to play, but was squishy until i started to switch attunement depending on the situation, keeping to a single element will get you killed.

try focusing on using a staff and switching attunement lots, summoning an elemental helps buffer you slightly, keep your distance from all foes, keep dodging and moving.

also, the traited air speed buffs will save your life.

Ele needs so balance work.

They are a glass cannon with no cannon

Judging by your other thread, you’re like what, level 20 by now?
Are you repairing your armor?
Are you moving in combat? (ie: not just sitting there and taking blows)
Are you getting out of the red ring?
Are you switching between elements rapidly?
Have you spent your skill points/ trait points/purchased the trait book?
Are you dodging?
When you die, are you out of endurance (dodge) with all/almost all of your skills on cooldown?
Have you unlocked all of your weapon skills for each attunement?
Do you have a general idea of what each skill does?

Especially at earlier levels, the story mode can be a bit wonky as far as difficulty. If you can answer yes to all of the above questions, I’d say try another class. Ele is a bit tricky for a new player, as you have to juggle 20 weapon skills as well as attempt to learn the game.
Or you can grit your teeth, and get a few levels above the story quest, and then stomp it. Most classes really don’t “come into their own” until about level 30. This gives you the ultimate, which is a good panic button, and it gives you enough trait points to actually get some useful abilities.

Playing Elementalist right after release is not so bad. Dynamic Events are always flooded with players so you hardly need to solo. But now, elementalist is probably the last profession you want to play since you are ought to solo most of the events and skill points challenges. Elementalist works fine in a group, but is terrible at soloing, i.e. you are going to have a lot of problems in those warrior-orientated story quests.

You should start a warrior or ranger as your first character. Make things much easier if you already know what is waiting ahead. If you prefer caster, mesmer is much easier with a dps build because you have your illusion tanking for you constantly and it is as tricky as playing an elementalist.

maybe you are bad. maybe its YOU, not the thing you are doing.

people really should take these possibilities into considering instead of immediately saying “ITS X’s FAULT”

a lot of the times its you. srsly.

a more reasonable question would be “is the game unbalanced or is it me?”

Perhaps it just that the playstyle doesn’t fit you? Try a different class, they do all play quite differently and Ele is not the best class to learn the game with.

I may change my mind latter but I’m currently lvl 40 with my Ele and have had little issue so far. In fact I’m doing better than I did with my Thief and Mes at this level and can take out fairly large groups of enemies that are a few levels higher than me. They don’t have a lot of HP but with how mobile they are and Arcane Shield I’m surviving just fine.

Im going with, learn how to play. Im leveling an ele myself currently lvl 72 in orr with zero problems at all.

The problem many players tend to have is not moving and using dodge skills. This isnt wow or crappy games like it with auto mated features.

On my ele i never stand in one spot for more then a second or two. Im allways in motion to aviod melee range all i can and swaping attunes for off/def purposes.

My main is a warrior. Super easy to plow down pve stuff with all that damage. Personaly i find the ele more fun with the 4 attunements you get for 20 skills to use in all verse 5 lol. Keeps it fun.

Go hit some youtube videos and then the mists to try out different builds..IMO seems like you are just sticking to 1 attunement. Works fine at low levels but as you get higher up you will need to bounce around attunments to keep that damage going becuase auto attack damage just doesnt cut it.

Up until lvl 70 i was pure power/tough,condition damage and was alot of fun too. I could round up everything in range and burn them all while i kite around. But thats not the case in orr since those monsters tend to move faster then you can run lol. Now im going with the concept of bunker build but more dps side. Gives me more life regeneration vs pure dps so i dont have to rely on the super lousy heal skill we get for hp.

Reciprocity.8021:

I’m playing an elementalist… (etc)

Sorry to put it such stark terms but the short answer is you’re doing it wrong.

The medium answer is some combination of:
(a) you haven’t played past about level 25 and/or
(b) you don’t understand some core mechanic of the class.

Elementalists certainly can be fragile but there’s no reason they have to be. If you find yourself dying too often try moving your traits into earth, take skills like arcane shield, and remember to use and understand all of your four elements and not just the one you’re most comfortable with.

I had a hard time keeping my elementalist upright levels 1-15 but as soon as I got my first five point trait bonus he’s been doing on average as well as my engineer if not better.

My experience with my elementalist used to be similar, it ranged from average at best to awful at worst. I just couldn’t “dig” it and gave up at level 65, demoting my ele to a banking character. A couple of weeks later, I saw few videos of skilled elementalists in action and decided to give it another go. I changed weapons and trait build*, and went with a different playstyle. Suddenly, my elementalist transformed from an unspired class with average damage to a searing juggernaut of destruction. At level 80, they are not worse then thieves, warrirors and guardians (these are professions I have experience with at level cap). When played right, they are more than capable. OP, don’t give up, maybe you only need to change your playstyle. They do require a different mindset then a mage/wizard from traditional MMOs.

*I went with dual daggers and put 30 points in Arcane.

I played a couple class to about lv60 or above, warrior is my main, then comes mesmer, guardian and elementalist.

The way i played my warrior is strafe around always, no matter what weapon i am using, no matter how good i can endure the damage i won’t ever stand still and toe to toe combat, it is stupid if you can avoid damage why take it. Then i used the same tactics on my mesmer. The damage is very low but she is able to solo kite and kill 3 lv higher elite mob. I read players said elementalist is underpowered, so i decided to give it a try. I still use the same tactics like my warrior and mesmer and it is amazingly less dying then my warrior at pal level. I could say elementalist is not a entry level class, but it is not hard either, just throw away the traditional MMO where mages can kill everything before things get toe to toe(if this happens then it is the mages class is broken imo). Once I played a double ele team exploring a lv 25-40 map, we are both lv40, we fought a world boss, my partner got defeated becoz 2 elites spawned and overwhelmed him. I survived kitting the boss killed the 2 elites while my partner spawn at WP and fought his way back. The fight lasted about 20 mins and we killed the boss along with over 10 spawned elites…

Every class got to dodge and block in different ways and elementalist got quite a lot of skill to do so. I won’t say learn to play but rather you need to adapt the way of elementalist than the broken mages you used to play in other MMO.

The real culprit is wonky respawn timer/aggro retaining.
I have had some enemies that crossed the map straight back to my Engy to try to maw my face off, despite me not even being in the area.

The game does some really weird thing with spawning entities, and how they retain aggro from before they die. If you kill things very quickly on the way in (I assume that Ele has really awesome AoEs—I could be wrong), chances are they will suddenly all spawn at the same time, and somehow retain the knowledge of their past lives (hence the vengeance). They will suddenly make a beeline, aggoring everything else along the way (I call it the Gnomeragan syndrome) for you, then promptly corner and kill you.

It’s not Eles. It’s the spawning mechanics bugging.

Reciprocity.8021:

I’ve played every MMO since Meridian 59 and MUDs for years before that and never ever had this must frustration and lack of fun as this game right now. Just seems like I’m missing something here.

I know the feeling a little and in part i think it is from being too experienced.
Played eq eq2 Aion Rift even a bit of the game that shall not be named hey i know how things work.

I didnt, a lot of how i used to play just wasnt of any use i couldnt as a mage root and nuke i couldnt as a warrior tank and spank, things hit me hard, trash had cc. I had to learn if im not moving im dead. Some classes make this even tougher than others..

Try a few classes they play very differently ele wasnt for me but im having a blast as a thief once you do get the hang of it, it is a beautiful system.

cargan.5689:

Reciprocity.8021:

I’ve played every MMO since Meridian 59 and MUDs for years before that and never ever had this must frustration and lack of fun as this game right now. Just seems like I’m missing something here.

I know the feeling a little and in part i think it is from being too experienced.
Played eq eq2 Aion Rift even a bit of the game that shall not be named hey i know how things work.

Seconded. If you keep thinking of GW2 as an MMORPG of the traditional sort, you’ll be easily frustrated with this game. If you think of this game as an action game instead, you’d already have improved just by switching your mindset. I currently play an elementalist as well and whether I roll dagger/dagger or staff, survivability was never a huge problem.

Hold down the right mouse button and actively use WASD to sidestep. Disable double-tap to dodge and bind the dodge key to your Left Shift button. Dodge when necessary. If you’re playing Staff, when aiming your AoE spells, anticipate where enemies will travel rather than where they currently are standing at (if you’re being chased).

Be aware of your surroundings. The last thing you’d want to happen while kiting mobs is to get cornered against a wall or worse, by a cliff. The goal is to mitigate damage by avoiding yourself from being hit, not to stand still and rely solely on your Water attunement to heal 24/7. Sometimes dodging forward (and right past the mob you’re facing) is a wise move.

If you haven’t played a whole lot of action games, you’ll have to readjust your mindset (and reflexes too), especially for a class like elementalist, where the learning curve is somewhat high.

But..but…. I’ve never had probs with my ele..

I don’t think this is imbalance. My guardian dies more than my elementalist. Both classes play very differently – eles should not be standing still when killing mobs.

xeroslash.1032:

Seconded. If you keep thinking of GW2 as an MMORPG of the traditional sort, you’ll be easily frustrated with this game. If you think of this game as an action game instead, you’d already have improved just by switching your mindset.

This.

In GW2, you need to be constantly on the move, unlike many MMO out there. You can’t just stand still and dish out DPS. Move around, use dodge (a lot), use line of sight if there are barriers around. and while moving, constantly switch attunement to maximize you dps. I am playing a Secpter-Dagger elementalist and currently now level 45. I have survived a four-mob group that are 2 levels above me, with the help of summoning elementals to help tanking while I run around nuking.

I have an elementalist, and I have leveled him up nicely, yes there were some of the Quest line that were difficult but it was more along the issue of figuring out the best weapon and traits to use. Kiting is not impossible for an Elementalist as well, taking advantage of the less directional spells etc…. This game is one of the easiest to play of all the MMO’s There are a few challenges here and there and yes you die, through I don’t often get one shotted.

Eles are pretty squishy (only my Mesmer seems to be squishier), but it gets easier once you hit level 30 and can learn Glyph of Elementals. Switch to either Earth or Water before starting combat and summon it; the Earth Elemental is a sturdy tank, and the Ice Elemental’s AoE heals is usually enough to tip battles in your favour, especially since enemies seem to like attacking summons before you.

It’s probably the way you play that make it difficult, i’ve played for 500 hours on my Ele and i never… never had problem, i run a full mf set all the time and i always go wander in solo and i have never found myself being weak, i actually think that my ele is OP. Why? Because i can solo group of level 80 monster even with veteran joining in the fight. You said you had a lot of difficulty doing quest 2 level under yours. I always did story quest over my level and yes i had a hard time but still manage to do the quest. Maybe elementalist is just not the class for you :/. You should just try another class.

Remember to keep switching elements, dodging, and basically spamming all of your skills. I think ele’s might be a little unbalanced, because they did cut our damage a lot from the first betas but nothing else really changed. However, if you just look out for some gear with toughness/stamina/healing then you can have a little bit more leeway with mobs and not die so quickly if things don’t go your way.

Play Bunker Ele if you can’t kite.

Bunker ele is really good. I was with my thief friend. He’s a thief, I’m a warrior, both fully geared in exotic. Somehow this ele trashed us at the jumping puzzle place in his borlderlands. I think he was dagger/dagger, but he was just tossing me left and right, and that rock shield let him soak up all our damage.

Key to elementalist survivability is boons from switching attunements and the heal/regen/passive heal from going to water (and then you can add in water combo finishers etc).

This means 10 in arcane and 15 in water early. You’ll probably want more in them later.

ZombiesTT.3619:

I don’t think this is imbalance. My guardian dies more than my elementalist. Both classes play very differently – eles should not be standing still when killing mobs.

Well because a guardian has the same HP pool. Only his heavy armor and healing skills safe him. Its really strange how a soldier class has so little HP.

Don’t think there is much of a imbalance really, each class has a weakness. The elementalist seems to go down a lot though. But they hit really hard. Perhaps check your stats and put some more toughness and vit.

1/ ele’s have the lowest hp and lowest armor which makes them extremely squishy. On the other hand they’re the most versatile class by default due to attunements. Such is called balanced.

2/ dodge. Learn it, love it. It will make your life considerably more happy. This is not a stand still and nuke type of game, you really should be moving at all times. That goes for an ele just as much as the most tanky warrior.

3/ check what stats you’ve geared/traited into. If you feel you die too easy, try to move some stats around to toughness or vitality. Try to slot some defensive traits and utilities.

The above marnick suggestions are quite correct.

Especially point 3 where you find your build is not good at survivability, then trait for it. Glass cannon is a high skill cap build, require good dodge reflexes, good time control, good combat reading…. If you can’t survive in glass cannon build, then don’t.

I’ve logged over 900 hours since headstart my main character is my elementalist. The biggest thing I had to realize was that glass cannon is not the optimal way to play in gw2. You have to really look at your traits and see what would better help with survivability. Also you have to learn to kite and move. Lose the mindset you’ve held while playing other games and you will see a difference.

@OP

Well you would have to explain yourself first on what stats/traits you’re using. I am leveling an ele standing at 54 now going D/D glass.

You can´t really get any more glass than that. No tough no vitality nothing.

I think genuinely you haven´t got the grasp of the combat mechanics yet (and I’m not trying to be offensive just for the record).

Yes sometimes I die but overall I feel if I pick the right fights I don’t have any major problems while leveling and doing Story quests. And the times I die it’s cause I tend to get a little berzerk and charge into a fray of a 4-5 mob group.

I do agree that the ele is squishy but it should be at least the spec I’m using cause going melee with light armor isn’t exactly a bunker :P

Don’t think it’s even remotely one of the better classes to tackle champions outside SQ on your own but hey in every mmo there are classes better suited for that than others.

My advice is study well your options with the Ele and see if it fits your gameplay . If you want to hack and dlash in your opponent face without having to worry about taking loads of dmg you’re better off with the guard or the warrior as the thief tends to be a little squishy as well unless you turn him into a boring LDB spammer (and no I don’t think venoms are worth it in pve).

The biggest thing I had to realize was that glass cannon is not the optimal way to play in gw2.

Depends on the class , depends on the player but for the average Joe I agree with you.

Elementalist is a hard class to master and basicly has the lowest HP pool but it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t survive even harder encounters like 1v3 mobs. I have played elementalist as my main over 450 hours and practised my combos and stuff and finally realising that it all comes down to dodging and changing attunments often. Even as dagger/dagger ele you have pretty nice survival skills, just have to learn them first.

So if you feel it’s too hard, try taking more points in water and earth traits and use dodge often.

Ive seen D/D eles in wvw take down 6 peeps solo

Ele isnt all that weak if you build correctly, Check the FA/DH/HoD thread in the wvw sub and look at all the people claiming eles for hacking when they are just beast lol

daphoenix.4283:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzBn32Fqm9w

Sorry for this OP but it seems to be a simple L2P issue.
Build link on vid.

Rellow.7364:

Try another class. The elementalist isn’t as straight forward as other classes and it has quite a few balance issues to sort out.

In fact, the only mage class I’ve yet to see anyone complain about being too weak is the mesmer.

In PvE you can very quickly struggle with the Mesmer.

I feel the Diminishing Returns affects higher level players hitting the lower level areas more so than a proper level player in the same area. No, I haven’t actually checked into this but wearing the same gear and leveling to 20 say, Hitting a 1-15 area appears to be a bit more of a challenge than someone in the same gear at 15.

Running a 40-44 warrior in a 1-15 zone with gear around 35+ level. I can say sometimes its tough and a challenge and even to where you need assistance. The more stats you have on your gear, the easier it is. (precision, Crit, Vital, etc..)

Just about every 5 levels or so, You can upgrade. The task is that you may not want the stats available for that level of gear. Therefore you have to wait until those stats become available. Check out the crafted Vitality and Toughness gear. The prices have escalated at least 5x if not more and going up!

paelen.3821:

I feel the Diminishing Returns affects higher level players hitting the lower level areas more so than a proper level player in the same area. No, I haven’t actually checked into this but wearing the same gear and leveling to 20 say, Hitting a 1-15 area appears to be a bit more of a challenge than someone in the same gear at 15.

Running a 40-44 warrior in a 1-15 zone with gear around 35+ level. I can say sometimes its tough and a challenge and even to where you need assistance. The more stats you have on your gear, the easier it is. (precision, Crit, Vital, etc..)

Just about every 5 levels or so, You can upgrade. The task is that you may not want the stats available for that level of gear. Therefore you have to wait until those stats become available. Check out the crafted Vitality and Toughness gear. The prices have escalated at least 5x if not more and going up!

While levelling the story mode and dropped gear should suffice for most players (apart for maybe the weapons). Make a balanced choice between surviving and damaging and you’ll be fine. Min-max is not the optimal way to play in this game. I find having a balanced range of stats with a focus on your main stat to be far better.

The problem with the elementalist class is there is only 1 or 2 viable builds. Most people who did well in this class are running the current most powerful elementalist build, that’s the dual-daggers + evasive arcana build. The other weapons/traits are weak in DPS or survivability. The other problem is that you can’t switch weapon during a combat, this is a huge disadvantage to the class, IMHO. Luckily, you can still simulate weapon switching by sacrificing your utility slot for those conjured weapons.

Fix these 2 problems, and the class will shine.

I’m not making this up, Arena-net did scale down some of the PVE stories for this class. For example, when I was doing the “Defend the Claw Island” or the “Retake Claw Island” stories with my elementalist last time, the story was way too easy than my other classes, I didn’t even die once during that story. Where the same stories, my warrior died at least 8 times before completing it LOL.

If you’re not too attached to elementalist you might want to try another class.

My main is an ele and one of my alts is a warrior. When I play ele, I die pretty frequently, especially in some of the more challenging dungeons when a champion or legendary boss focuses on me.

But when I play my warrior… well, yesterday I was fighting a pair of enemies and I thought wow, it’s taking a really long time to kill these guys. Turns out that the reason was because they were five levels higher than me, I was using gear five to ten levels below me, and I didn’t have any accessories equipped at all. But I still beat them handily, it just took a bit of time.

And then I went back to my elementalist and many sighs were sighed.