and the elementalist has systematically received ‘improvement’ after ‘improvement’ over the last year removing any and all play value it once had, stay away.
You are aware that elementalist is currently one of the top two classes for PvE and one of the most wanted classes for WvW, right?
Do you have anything at all to back that up? I know they are played, the last ANet infograph showed that they are the second most played class, my main is an Ele and I am on it for over 90% of my playtime, but that does not in any way equate to being sought after in any content. Because I not only do not see that in game I don’t even know a single solitary person other than you who believes that. However the above is admittedly nothing more than my opinion on the current state of the elementalist, so if you have statistics I would love to see them. If not, well then you’re wasting your time correcting an opinion with nothing but a differing opinion to offer as evidence.
I do have explanations.
First of all, elementalist in PvE. Read this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1o3l2q/playing_with_a_larger_5_group_of_friends_need/ccol9eb
To restate what’s in that, elementalists have the second highest PvE DPS in the game, ranking right under thieves. They outdamage warriors by 3k due to damage multipliers in their traitlines and skills. On top of that, they can stack 16-25 stacks of might and maintain permanent group fury.
You will see mostly warriors in PUGs, but this is not because warriors are a better class, but because they are, simply put, harder to screw up on than thieves and eles. They are easier to reach optimal DPS on, while reaching optimal DPS on an ele requires people to coordinate to stack vulnerability and buff each other. In organized min/max play, however, people will prefer to mix classes, often with eles. In semi-organized runs where conditions aren’t 100% optimal, but the players understand class synergy and play competently, the group will still always benefit from having a competent ele who can stack might, drop conjures, and buff party members. Even if an ele has somewhat lower DPS than a warrior due to suboptimal conditions, the ele brings a perpetual partywide 16+ (often 25) stacks of might and permafury (which a warrior cannot) and thus contributes more to the entire group than stacking another warrior.
(Also, I’ve played a mightstacking ele in semi-organized and casual dungeon groups. Despite being glassy, I usually don’t have issues if I pay attention and if the rest of the group plays well and doesn’t go down constantly, since rezzing other people is the primary reason I get downed or close to downed. If I decide to run as a tougher build, usually 10/0/0/30/30, I can usually serve as an anchor or bring down bosses solo if everyone else wipes.)
You can see this same effect with rangers- though their max-DPS-if-all-conditions-are-met is lower than a warrior’s, they provide a partywide precision boost and a partywide raw damage boost of 7%, making it more desirable to run a ranger instead of another warrior. Like with eles, though, the skill floor for ranger is higher than that of warriors.
That’s only looking at dungeons. In open-world stuff, elementalists are a major backbone of Tequatl frontline squads. Conjure Ice Bow’s fourth skill does massive AoE damage, especially to large structural objects. (It should also be noted that eles are wanted for this same reason in AC exp runs.) I also have no issue soloing any group events or champions I come across as an elementalist.
Now, WvW-wise, you’re not going to make up the bulk of a zerg out of elementalists, in the same way you wouldn’t make a zerg out of mesmers or necros. However, practically every zerg will have a number of staff elementalists on hand, especially organized guild groups. This is due to the fact that staff eles provide:
-Very high AoE DPS (look up the Meteor Shower + Tornado trick)
-Water fields (a major source of healing for zergs) and wind fields (usually saved for battles, but a source of swiftness outside of battles). No other class can provide wind fields, and the only other classes capable of making water fields are rangers and engineers (both of which sacrifice their dedicated self-heals in order to do so, and both of which contribute less than an ele does in other categories).
-AoE CC- see Static Field, Frozen Ground, and Unsteady Ground.
I had a fairly recent (about 3 months old) reddit thread asking what the most useful WvW profession was. Almost every post in it mentioned staff elementalist. I’m trying to find it again (keep getting stuff that’s a year old), but I’ll post it here if I can find it.
The one field elementalists are currently weak in is sPvP, but in WvW and PvE they’re in a pretty good spot.
Falunel – Sylvari Elementalist | Falche Graysong – Human Mesmer |
Tarnished Coast
Ember Solace [SOL] – A guild welcoming of newbies and those at the margins.
New Player Outreach Thread 
