Guild Wars 2

I’m creating this thread to give MORE attention to the current state of the Elementalist downed state. I would like to see Anet’s official response to these blatant imbalances between each of the downed states.

Let me start by saying that I do not want them to homogenize every downed state. I think it’s interesting that each class has their own flavor of downed abilities. However, there is a very clear imbalance among the classes, making certain professions literally a free stomp, while others are a huge pain to kill.

Lets first talk about the 1 ability. The elementalist does pathetic damage with this skill. The frequency that you can cast it is extremely slow compared to the warrior 1 skill. And they do the same amount of damage. Right off the bat this is a clear imbalance. Other classes have extra effects added to their 1 attack.

For example, the engineer adds a random condition to their foes, the ranger can bleed their target, the thief can cripple their target, etc. The elementalist ability does nothing but pure damage, and it does it worse than the warrior’s 1 ability which also does pure damage.

Next, we can talk about the number 2 ability. This is where the elementalist really shows its weakness. I will list each classes 2 ability, and I dare any member of the forum here to dispute this imbalance:

Warrior: Knock down 1 foe, interrupting the stomp
Guardian: Knock down all foes near you, interrupting the stomp
Engineer: Pull and knock down 1 foe, interrupting the stomp
Ranger: Daze 1 foe, interrupting the stomp
Thief: Teleport away, interrupting the stomp
Mesmer: Create a clone and teleport away, interrupting the stomp
Necromancer: Fear 1 foe, interrupting the stomp
Elementalist: Root 1 foe after 1 second, NO INTERRUPT AT ALL

What? Are we being trolled by Anet here? Most foes are literally already in melee range by the time they kill us, or pretty close. And anyone who has played an ele knows that you could spam the 2 button the moment you’re downed and 9 times out of 10 the root will not go off before they reach you. The mindful player will always roll dodge to an ele to prevent this root altogether.

No other class has to deal with this clearly weak skill. What is the justification here? Between my 1 and 2 abilities, I don’t even bother doing anything when someone tries to stomp me, it’s wasted effort. I’ve seen 9 out of 10 eles do the same thing, just sit there and wait for the kill.

Every single time I down another ele, I run right up to them and stomp them because I KNOW its going to be a free stomp. Every other class I have to think twice and rework my strategy around knowing they will knock me back, or teleport, or whatever. This is not the case with the elementalist downed state.

Let’s proceed on to the final ability, the number 3:

Warrior: Get up and kill people as normal for 10 seconds, can be traited to let them stay up after a kill.
Guardian: Heal themselves rapidly to get back up and fight if no one stomps them
Engineer: Explode, launching people back for a second aoe interrupt
Ranger: Heal themselves rapidly to get back up and fight if no one stomps them
Thief: Stealth, giving a second stomp interrupt

Mesmer: Deal damage with a clone, no second interrupt
Necromancer: Drop an aoe , no second interrupt
Elementalist: Move around for 3 seconds, and sit right back down somewhere else

In this category, 3 different professions are at a severe disadvantage. 2 out of 3 of these skills provide 0 stomp prevention or heals, which 5 of the other classes have. Which brings me to Mist form.

Mist form is an effective second interrupt for a stomp. It is on par with the engineer, or thief 3 skill. Nothing is wrong with mist form by itself. However, 99% of the time there is absolutely no chance to even use it, because our number 2 skills is incredibly weak. The only time I have ever been able to use mist form is if the other team is not even paying attention to the fact that I’m downed.

In a 1v1 situation, Mist form is literally NEVER used. Ever. What good is a skill if I can never use it in any serious situation?

Based on the detailed evidence above, Anet needs to rework the elementalist downed state. It is absolutely awful , and my goal with this post is to bring some objective attention to the issue. I hope we can keep this post on the first page until we get at least an acknowledgment from Anet that this is being fixed, or needs to be fixed.

Thanks for reading.

Switch downed 2 & 3. Make the new 2 similar cd’s to mesmers downed 2. Fixed. It will be weaker then mesmer’s and thief’s down states but it will be way better then ours now. Due to the fact we could be followed easily. Even if they don’t want ele’s to have the survivability that thiefs and mes’s have when down I’ll take a knockback/down on 2. Like gale on the focus or gust on the staff.

RIght now I feel terrible when i get downed in a tpvp game because i know im a free stomp. They don’t need to invest in blinds or stability, just push f.

Personally, I think all classes should not have down states that can’t be countered by blinds or stability. I know you can teleport to a thief mid stomp but good thiefs time the tele to just before you land giving you no time. Mesmer’s are impossible because they go stealth when they tele. I think the only way to stomp a thief or mes is quickness stomp right when they drop. But im not sure if its due to the cd you drop or the players are not paying attention. If so, I guess ranger will be common on teams.

I agree with the OP, with one little exception: The reason we almost never use the mist form ability is not primarily because our 1&2 are so weak, but it has such a ridiculously long cooldown (about 8 to 10 seconds?), so against normal players you will NEVER be able to even use it before it comes off cooldown. Solution: Lower the cooldown significantly to allow interrupting a stomp.

Doesn’t 1 put up vulnerability stacks? Not suggesting this offsets the poor #2 but you said’ “The elementalist ability does nothing but pure damage, and it does it worse than the warrior’s 1 ability which also does pure damage.”

I completely agree we are a free stomp outside of a zerg vs zerg death but the AOE while down will probably get you in the 6sec til #3 is up.

Maybe if #2 sunk you into the ground for a second or just simply a knockdown at the start of the cast.

Seeing as this is one of the complaints even the other classes sympathize with I am sure ANet will pay it some attention… eventually.

Rangers and ele’s got a bit of the short end here. The rest seem to have very viable downed states.

I would prefer that the ele keep its weak down state. And then buff the performance of the ele’s regular fighting to compensate. Let’s make the ele a real glass cannon – does massive damage and huge aoe, but if you can get them down then they’re easily finished off.

So yeah, keep the weak down state, but buff everything else

I would prefer that the ele keep its weak down state. And then buff the performance of the ele’s regular fighting to compensate. Let’s make the ele a real glass cannon – does massive damage and huge aoe, but if you can get them down then they’re easily finished off.

So yeah, keep the weak down state, but buff everything else

Edit: it does apply vulnerability. I stand corrected. The 1 ability isn’t really the problem though, it does feel pretty weak regardless.

Secondly, the logic “keep the weak downed state and buff our regular state” is ridiculous. Downed and not downed should be completely seperate. A powerful class should not have a weak downed state, and a weak class should not have a strong downed state. They should be different but (mostly) equal. Right now it isn’t even close.

I woulda quoted you guys but its not working for some reason, sorry.

Also, for the person who mentioned the 8 second cooldown on mist form, every class’s 3 ability starts on an 8 second cooldown, thats perfectly fine.

I believe a good fix would be to move mist form to 2, and give us the ability to use it immediately. It would then be on par with all the other number 2 abilities. Give us a new number 3 ability. Don’t even care what it is, just give us the ability to defend ourselves and not become a free stomp for anyone who sees me down.

“Secondly, the logic “keep the weak downed state and buff our regular state” is ridiculous. Downed and not downed should be completely seperate. A powerful class should not have a weak downed state, and a weak class should not have a strong downed state. They should be different but (mostly) equal. Right now it isn’t even close.”

Sorry, that’s pretty dumb. There’s no reason why they should be seperate.

You take the class as a whole when deciding balance. Some classes are stronger 1v1, some are better in a team. GW2 is balanced for team play.

It’s more interesting if different classes have strengths and weaknessess. Preferences may differ, but personally I would find it cool if Ele was very powerful in direct and AOE damage, but have weaknessess to compensate – such as a poor down state.

Rieselle.5079:

“Secondly, the logic “keep the weak downed state and buff our regular state” is ridiculous. Downed and not downed should be completely seperate. A powerful class should not have a weak downed state, and a weak class should not have a strong downed state. They should be different but (mostly) equal. Right now it isn’t even close.”

Sorry, that’s pretty dumb. There’s no reason why they should be seperate.

You take the class as a whole when deciding balance. Some classes are stronger 1v1, some are better in a team. GW2 is balanced for team play.

It’s more interesting if different classes have strengths and weaknessess. Preferences may differ, but personally I would find it cool if Ele was very powerful in direct and AOE damage, but have weaknessess to compensate – such as a poor down state.

Ok, well in this case the Elementalist downed state should be the strongest OP garbage in the game since any competent pvper would rank ele as the bottom 3 every single time. And yes, balanced downed states are important. I shouldn’t be penalized for being a powerful class by having a garbage downed state.

Downed state abilities should be different – that’s what is cool about them, but they all need to perform a similar function.

imo, ele NEEDS a 2-skill interrupt. Disguise it with whatever fluff animation or skill name, but it really needs to happen.

Upon consideration for tournament line-up’s, downed state skills are equally as important. In this sense, ele’s are far less likely to be played. They might perform well in x or y roll, but when downed, they have zero defense, unlike every other class in the game.

i think they should buff their downed state rest of their skills is fine, comparing the warrior downed state with an elementalist the warrior is just crazy much better. as long as it wont take longer to finish them off i fully support this.

Not letting this thread fall from the first page until we get a response on this. Getting sick and tired of being a free kill 5+ times a match.

More attention to ele downed state? Lol. I get picked out of groups of 5 and then zerged by 5 enemies BECAUSE everyone knows we dont have a downed state.

Forget just having lowest hp and armor, you’re also putting a hugekitten bulls eye on yourself because you just DIE when downed.

Anyway im not too scared about our downed. I just dont see Arenanet keeping it like it is. No way.

Papyrus.5276:

I agree with the OP, with one little exception: The reason we almost never use the mist form ability is not primarily because our 1&2 are so weak, but it has such a ridiculously long cooldown (about 8 to 10 seconds?), so against normal players you will NEVER be able to even use it before it comes off cooldown. Solution: Lower the cooldown significantly to allow interrupting a stomp.

I vividly remember dying next to another ele, while there was an enemy right at our corpses. We where both immobilizing him, shooting little flashes at his knees as he just leasurely kills my ally. And then he did the animation again…i could see the cooldown on my mist form starting to get lower. I was like, hell yes i can actually waste somebody elses time when downed for once. But nope he killed me too, just as my mist form reached 0.1 sec cooldown. It felt absolutely horrible.

So it aint just bad, its kitten double bad. You can tell a joke to your friends (about ele downed state) and still have time to kill that downed ele before he can waste 3 seconds of your precious time. Our downed is so bad people basically have the time to kill you twice while a thief or mesmer or pretty much everyone has an option for immediate interruption, and then some. (smokebomb, damage from illusions and phantasm, etc)

Our 2 and 3 dont even have synergy because even if we COULD mist form more than once every blue moon, they’d just follow us and still render our immobilize useless. fix plz. Preferably by changing our kitten kitteny crap poo 2, since you can basically compare mist form to smoke bomb. Then again i love mist form so i dont mind being able to actually use that, so whatever. Just do something.

I do disagree that ele’s downed is terrible 1v1. If you get eachother both in the downed state, ele will win every down vs down fight because their mist form heals them. that’s the only advantage there, though, and that assumes you down your opponent as well. in any situation where there are more than 1v1, ele downstate is absolutely horrible. An instant-cast root for ele 2 would make it way better, you’d actually get close to using 3 as every other class does. it still might be slightly weaker, but because their 3 is so strong it compensates.

100% agree

Ele’s downed state is clearly the worst: team mates can naver ressurrect us because of the lack of interrupts.

Switch mist form to 2 and give us a decent 3 please

Note, Mesmer 2 doesn’t always interrupts stomps, sometimes you port so close to your original location that the first stomp still gets you. It’s why I always finish my stomps on Mesmers, I got em that way quite often and was killed because of that quite often as well (and no it’s not because they forgot to use the ability).

On to the topic at hand, Ele down state is indeed pretty horrible. I also disagree about outlasting somebody, since the double down happens so rarely I don’t need an ability that’s specific for that situation. Oh and beat all other classes? Warrior can rally and just stomp you, Mesmer phantasm hits prettykittenhard and he can port out of your LoS (while his phantasms can still get you) and heal up, Rangers can let their pets heal them and Thieves can port out of your LoS as well and heal up at the same rate you can heal. Mist Form at the same time also has the disadvantage it counts as a new down, thus adding to the counter and your HP getting reset isn’t that great when somebody is ressing you. An AoE pushback like Guardian/Engi is far more useful to interrupt people while you’re getting ressed.

I disagree about making Mist Form your standard 2, due to resetting the down state. I’d think a knockdown or a pushback would be far more fitting.

Yes Elementalist has the worst downed state of any class.

Kill an Ele and its a free stomp, they can do nothing to stop you.

I kill eles first and mesmers last entirely because of the downed states. If I kill the mesmer first hell still be alive in downed state by the time I kill the ele. If I outskill the players I can win 1v2 1v3 vs alot of class combinations, but 1 mesmer even a terrible one plus anything else I can’t win mesmer will take to long to die. The difference among downed states is a real problem and ele’s definitely have it the worst, but are not the only class that needs to be fixed. Necro 3 is garbage total garbage and the 2 is single target so it’s only okay. Theif, guardian, mesmers and hunters can interrupt multiple people. The warrior and the engi 2 is also inferior as it is a single target projectile and is can be blocked by rock dogs and hunter pets making you just as dead as a ele.

I think its ok to have imbalanced downed states if the classes are balanced otherwise. But they aren’t, and normalizing downed state strength would make it much easier to balance.

Hey at least your downed 1 doesn’t base 69 damage and your downed 3 isn’t the most useless skill in the game.

Eles have it pretty bad but Necros really aren’t too far behind. Downed skill balance is all over the place atm. But hey, they have to fix server issues first. Then bugs, then PvE issues, then implement competitive PvP (slowly of course). So we’ll probably see some class balance around December

totally agree!!! Elementalists downed state skill are SOO UNDERPOWERED. Its just ridiculous!

For an elementalist to stop the finisher he has mist form, he just has to wait it out, however you get to use that mist form quite often if you get the first one off most likely. Also, it will heal you if you were almost fully out.

While I fully acknowledge that Elementalists have a weak downed state, and I do play one as an alt, I feel I should chime in that Warrior #2 is also pretty weak. In a group battle, I’m essentially dead as I can only knock down one of the 2+ people finishing me off. In a one on one scenario the enemy is generally in melee range when I’m downed anyway, so they can immediately start the finisher. Even if I time #2 perfectly and knock them down during the jumping part of the animation just before the flag finish, it doesn’t knock them away, they just get back up and press f again, and most players do it fast enough that even with spamming #3 it may just start the cast time before I’m finished anyway. #2 also misses a lot if my target happens to be ranged as the hammer is so slow.

If I can also manage to down the enemy then it’s an automatic (Kinda) win for me, if I can’t #1 them down first then it’s one of the rare times I can Vengeance and finish them. The only other time I can vengeance is if my enemy is slow on the finish.

R E F L H E X.8413:

For an elementalist to stop the finisher he has mist form, he just has to wait it out, however you get to use that mist form quite often if you get the first one off most likely. Also, it will heal you if you were almost fully out.

It may “heal” you, but in reality it counts as another down. Using the ability once puts you at 50% life (2nd down), if you can manage to get it off again you will have 25% life (3rd down). At this point it’s suicide the great majority of the time if you can manage to use it again, as you die instantly.

Agreed, Elementalists need an interrupt for their 2, or their 2 and 3 need to be swapped.

When I’m downed on my Ele I simply go for a biobreak or get something to drink because it’s no use to do anything until I respawn. On all the other classes I have a fighting chance to rally.

Downed state is the #1 problem Eles have I think. It needs fixing fast.

yeah i agree, the ele downed state is pretty weak, when i kill one is like no down stat at all.

I agree as well. This should be changed.

Totally agree. I always purposely go after elementalists before anyone else because I know they are a free kill.