Guild Wars 2

I think these two videos highlight the evolving meta game quite well using the example of the Elementalist class.

Just three weeks ago, Elementalists weren’t considered a serious threat in PvP. Most considered them underpowered or no much less than average. This video reflects that pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

Yet now, not three weeks later we’re seeing stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r15NcmZoF_M

Now granted, these are two very different videos but they help me make my point. The relative power of Elementalists has changed drastically simply due to the meta-game and all that without any significant balance changes.

This is to all who cry for nerfs/buffs and expect ANet to respond immediately. Some requests are warranted surely, but some imbalanced just find a way of sorting themselves out.

Elementalists need some love with their sustained dps builds, but a lot of the crying about being underpowered is from people who aren’t using the class anywhere near its potential.

Yes the elementalist is much more difficult to play at a “passable” level and not be total cannon fodder compared to other classes, but an elementalist played close to its potential can be extremely effective.

Dee Jay.2460:

I think these two videos highlight the evolving meta game quite well using the example of the Elementalist class.

Just three weeks ago, Elementalists weren’t considered a serious threat in PvP. Most considered them underpowered or no much less than average. This video reflects that pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

Yet now, not three weeks later we’re seeing stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r15NcmZoF_M

Now granted, these are two very different videos but they help me make my point. The relative power of Elementalists has changed drastically simply due to the meta-game and all that without any significant balance changes.

This is to all who cry for nerfs/buffs and expect ANet to respond immediately. Some requests are warranted surely, but some imbalanced just find a way of sorting themselves out.

Dude, you do realized that the second video showing the ele ownage is from world vs world pvp right? There are a lot of bad players who play world vs world and I suspect these are some of them. Not to mention that fact that in wvw, everyone level is different. Sure they raise your level to 80 but you can still using level 10 skills and gears. The ones that lost to the eles is probably undergear and level probably.

Most of the problems from the eles class comes from spvp and tpvp not wvw….make sure you get straight.
So nothing special about this video and it doesn’t prove anything. Eles still in need badly of a buff.

Rofl… that elementalist won because those 3 players sucked. It has nothing to do with “meta game”.

At one hand we have an horrible ele who never does pvp and is in spvp.. At the other hand we have a high lvl guy with pvp build slaughterig some people in wvw who probably never pvped and are like level 20

Players who consistently shift attunements (especially D/D) tend to get good results in PvP. In the long run its not OP, half the fights you have to be baited into chasing and most players get beat by the kiting and Pseudo-invulnerability of Earth/Water. In the long run Ele is going to need a lot more love in a few areas just like engi and the other “hard to play” classes.

Edit:

On another note bleeds rather conditions as a whole and ripping buffs is a decent way to counter the bunker-ness of some ele builds as they will have to run to survive. When a glass cannon loses it should not be a surprise because you cant win them all. If the goal is to get them off point pressure pressure pressure is the best way to do this. 2 hammer players could effectively cc the buffs away and force a flee. In fact anything that disrupts the rotation fears, knockdowns, launches whatever can garner the desired effect getting them to move away. Just play smart. Little rant over.

I can make a video of a melee engenieer and if you have signifigantly better gear than the other 3 people you are fighting … like in WvW then you can trounce them. isnt that WHY we all ran away from games that had gear based pvp?
I can only imagine what a game like wow would have been like 5 years later, when I left 1 person with just half raid weapons who never did any pvp, could come in a battleground and mop up all 5 of me and my friends who did nothing but pvp.

I wont say elementalist is bad and needs MAD BUFFZ YO
and I wont say Thief is overpowered and needs a nurf yo.

Ill just say to think about this game like playing competitive street fighter (which I do)

playing a THief and Mezmer is like playing AKUMA
playing an Ele is like playing DAN

or if you know Tekken, playing a thief and mezmer is like playing as EDDIE

Still, elementalist has very few viable builds, I only have 1 if I want to last longer than a burp. And that’s with all weapons. Can’t spec damage because I die with 2 hits, damage could be good though. I’m shooting my foot if I don’t spec arcane, faster attunement recharge is absolutely necessary. If I play other classes like thief or mesmer, you can notice the different builds across the talents, but with elementalist you cannot.
They still need a lot of buffs, and honestly a complete trait rework as there is no synergy.

As just mentioned the real problem with the class is the traits. There is little to no synergy between the trees and you are basically forced to go 30 arcane which leaves little variance for skill builds.

Eles are among the best classes right now for highlevel tpvp.

Ele played to its max potential will never die in a 1on1 situation. Heck, he wont even die to 3 enemies aslong as he has 1 cooldown left, and will get away easily an shift numbers somewhere else.

Ele has by far the highgest survivability when specced and played right even with a Berserker Amu.

Ele as a roamer can destroy multiple enemies in the blink of a second.

Ele is nearly untouchable (specced right) through conditions and will instagib Caltrops Sins, Nekros and Mesmers (Aoe).

It doesnt matter if Dagger/Dagger Roamer , Scepter/Dagger Roamer /Hybrid , Scepter/Focus (Defender), Staff Hybrid , Staff Bunker , Staff Support.

Ele is 1 of the most viable classes for highlevel tpvp.

If u dont have an ele, you will not be able to play competitive against a team that does !!

We even play from time to time with double damage ELe.

And we have beaten almost every Guild that has a name (scrims)

( Team Paradigm, Supersquad, + the rest in TP’s scrim skype group )

We always have atleast 1 Ele, either support or roamer.

An the toughest fights where against teams that had an Ele.

cool world v world vid of guy in full 80 exotics fight lvl 10s boosted to 80, cool story bro.

Absurd comparison. Dominating in WvW is much much easier than in competitive tPvP matches due to often underskilled, underleveled and undergeared opponents. And I can tell this from a bunch of experience. On top of all that the meta is completely different. :-/

I’m still far from a very competent Elementalist but what bothers me is the required expertise of the class for a decent performance in a match and a very limited amount of viable builds (a super boring bunker ele and a mediocre-dps-roamer). I’ll leave the details to the experts.

Dee Jay.2460:

Yet now, not three weeks later we’re seeing stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r15NcmZoF_M

There’s no way to tell they were wearing full exotics. The two enemy elementalists in this video were also using staff. So they were most likely using an aoe or support spec of some kind, for assaulting keeps and stuff in wvw. And not for 1v1 encounters.

He got orb buff, they play very badly.
The thief comes when the last one of them dies so it is 1v3 and then a 1v1. Not 1v4.
I’ve no idea what the warrior is doing in this video.
The thief just spams hs. Even while chasing him. I.E a very bad thief.

I don’t like how I just flame but the truth is that wvw pvp isn’t “real” pvp. Some people are using pve specs even. Some got bad gear etc.. the list is long.

This guy is obviously a good elementalist though.
But my point is that elementalist isn’t fine. It is still underpowered in my opinion. You shouldn’t need to be a lot better than your enemies to kill them.

As the maker of that video even said;
“Again, not a display of skill and just a bit of fun WvW. None of these guys were remotely good at PvP and I made plenty of mistakes myself (such as summoning my Elite way too late which then turned out to be an Earth one – yeah, I don’t know).”

Now please believe me when I say I am a nice guy.

Evie.1758:

Eles are among the best classes right now for highlevel tpvp.

Ele played to its max potential will never die in a 1on1 situation. Heck, he wont even die to 3 enemies aslong as he has 1 cooldown left, and will get away easily an shift numbers somewhere else.

Ele has by far the highgest survivability when specced and played right even with a Berserker Amu.

Ele as a roamer can destroy multiple enemies in the blink of a second.

Ele is nearly untouchable (specced right) through conditions and will instagib Caltrops Sins, Nekros and Mesmers (Aoe).

It doesnt matter if Dagger/Dagger Roamer , Scepter/Dagger Roamer /Hybrid , Scepter/Focus (Defender), Staff Hybrid , Staff Bunker , Staff Support.

Ele is 1 of the most viable classes for highlevel tpvp.

If u dont have an ele, you will not be able to play competitive against a team that does !!

We even play from time to time with double damage ELe.

And we have beaten almost every Guild that has a name (scrims)

( Team Paradigm, Supersquad, + the rest in TP’s scrim skype group )

We always have atleast 1 Ele, either support or roamer.

An the toughest fights where against teams that had an Ele.

This guy knows what he is talking about, best ele I’ve ever met.

It was losing to these guys that made us switch our lineup so that we had an ele.

Ele played to its max potential will never die in a 1on1 situation. Heck, he wont even die to 3 enemies aslong as he has 1 cooldown left, and will get away easily an shift numbers somewhere else. Until I see some valid proofs, the determine factor is always the team with the most guardian/mesmer/thief wins.

Ele has by far the highgest survivability when specced and played right even with a Berserker Amu.

This is old news. Sure you can survive with support spec but you can’t kill kitten. Try playing anything other than support bunker spec and see if you can survive from 3 enemies.

Ele as a roamer can destroy multiple enemies in the blink of a second.

Really? show me a video of this happening. Unless your enemies all have low health when the ele aoe to finish them off…. But if you’re focus by multiple enemies, you’re pretty much dead in 2 sec as a roamer.

Don’t kid yourself. Even at the highest level of competitiveness, assuming both team are equal in skill level, a team with 2 guardians, 2 thiefs, 1 mesmer will beat any team with an eles in it and with only one guardian. Until I see some valid proofs, as it stands right now its the team with the most guardian/thief/mesmer wins.

Its like this:

Someone made a ownage video, which class was that >>>>> nerf it
I got owned ingame, which class was that? >>>> nerf it

That ele on vid did a great job. Even heartseeker thief got owned…But if it was the other way around than people would call thief OP..

There is a thing called ‘skill’ and it exists. Someone gets 90% of the class other average people just like 50%

OP is flat out wrong

elementalists still have heaps of mechanical issues

WvWvW is not to be used as evidence on actual game balance EVER for any class period

It’s true that we’ve been finding some builds that are effective, also true that much of the QQ stems from the low skill floor/high skill ceiling. I rarely die even in 8v8 on a D/D power/heal build, and I tend to rack up kills.

Doesn’t change that most of our powerful traits fall into Water/Arcana, that Fire traits and mostly useless, we’re still paper thin, and our animations/set up requirements make bursting at best unreliable. I can crit Fire Grab for 5k with my current build, but the trouble is landing it.

Bugged traits and skills, and really poor animations (Dragon’s Tooth) really hold the class back. To crit 5k I need to burn the target, then immobilize if I want a chance to land it. Or use Churning Earth which has a 4-second rooted charge up. Super easy to dodge or interrupt. Everything else hits for half this, and we don’t have the luxury of 14k damage 100B type skills, or 4k HS, or 10k Backstabs to at least make the set up and animation time see like it’s worth it.

That said, still the most fun class I’ve played.

Ele roamer is by far better than a thief roamer! Fact!

Elementalist does a great job as both a high burst roamer or a heavy tanking point holder. Mostly because ele requires time between fights to set up optimal burst (you need earthquake and updraft), and tanking through healing is extremely effective.

@Soysauce there is a reason the top teams don’t run 2 guardians 2 thieves 1 mesmer like you said, and it isn’t because they want a challenge.

Please don’t post vids of noob stomps as any indicator of meta or ele effectiveness. It’s really counterproductive for any class.

What prince said.

I like the part of the second video where the Ele was fighting that thief.
That ele just used 20 different skills with permanent attunement swapping, multiple used utilities etc. and was almost killed at the end by a thief, who constantly pressed 2.

So to make a quick recap..if you post a video of you winning as ele…it’s because you’re fightning noobs not because ele is fine, by comparison those who keep insinsting with their UP cries have posted no videos of how they lose on ele despite their godly skills.

In short the majority of ele players blame the class rather than themself for their defeat, seems about right…
Comments like :" I need to press 20 buttons to deal as much dmg as a thief"..makes you wonder why people bother to play ele in the first place.

I really hope Anet never give in the cries of ele community, outside the well known bugged skills, the profession is in no need of drastic changes, few reasonable buffs there and there would be nice but no urgent as many want us to believe.

Right now ele is….

1)best roamer
2)best assaulter
3)best supporter

Who can’t recognize this simply need to …l2p

Elementalist dual dagger power is work to do combos and still is the weakest … ridiculous !!!!!!

Arheundel.6451:

Right now ele is….

1)best roamer
2)best assaulter
3)best supporter

Who can’t recognize this simply need to …l2p

what evidence do you have to show this?

ajjaajjjajaajajjaajjajajajajaajajajaajaa

That video its so funny….

I have duel elementalists, VERY good ones. They simply cant put enough dmg.

Fighting eles always are very longs fights (if they are good) or very fast (if they are bad), if the duel its long the dmg can easyly be countered by my heal.

The damage that they do its very predictible, sorry but i think they need buffs. (never played elementalist)

madatom.5218:

Arheundel.6451:

Right now ele is….

1)best roamer
2)best assaulter
3)best supporter

Who can’t recognize this simply need to …l2p

what evidence do you have to show this?

Experience against high level guilds in tpvp in so called sync events!
Victorious vs every single guild in team paradigms scrim group and always playing with 1-2 Eles.

Lets take my Dagger/Dagger Roamer as an example:

- perma swiftness
- perma vigor (sometimes stacked up to 1-2 mins)
- perma fury
- perma regeneration
- on demand protection
- higher mobility than perma switftness thief/HB warrior
- because of 20 weapon skills and many buffs enough place for 2-3 stunbreakers
- incredible high sustained dmg, single target burst and aoe burst and pressure
- 12 sec aoe burn + bleedings + chill
- Frost Aura + Stun Aura = hardcounter against any meele especially HB/PW/BS
- high aoe damage instagibs Mesmers
- low cooldown burst and pressure skills
- decent self heals (on top of perma regeneration)
- doesnt need extra condition remove skill because water serves perfectly for this
(nearly untouchable through conditions = hardcounter against Necros and
Caltrops Sins and Rangers to some extend/ can be used to cleanse allies)
- provides Mistform stomps and rezzes ( currently the strongest form)
- highest roamer survivabillity of all classes
- can win every single 1on1
- has no hardcounter
- mix of burst/ pressure/dots ( tick quite hard when might stacked up to 80-100 per
bleeding tick)
- the only class that can stack itself in the middle of a fight up to 25 stacks of might
and maintain them for 15-20 seconds ( tho only class to my knowing ably to reach 4k
attack in every single engagement in sPvP)
- switching out Berserker Amulet for clerics or valkyrie turns you in capable node
defender able to hold its ground against 2-4 enemies till reinforcements arrive making
the ele incredible versatile in its role
- can instagib a whole group at a node
- Fire Elemental provides 4-5k Aoe every 10 seonds
- Ice Elemental provides chill fields, gives constantly healing fog to nearby allies for
constant regeneration and provides a single heal that will heal all nearby allies up to
100%
- every time Ele switches attunements he buffs all nearby allies (Regeneration, Might,
Swiftness, Protection)
- Ele wont die to even 4 enemies aslong as he has 1 cooldown left, and will most likely
get away and shift numbers elsewhere
- provides Firefields and Blastfinishers for in combat group Might Stacking
- has great control = 1 aoe knockdown, 1 aoe Knockback, a Stunshield that can be
used to save even allies from focus fire and HB warrios by just getting in to the line of
fire, aoe chill, 12 sec cooldown root+ gapcloser ( together with earthquake you can
lock down a target for 4 seconds and thus setting up burst oppertunities for your
team)
- no damage downtime and not reliant on roots/stuns/quickness/elite skills/ signets
to burst someone
- switch to staff before match starts for Staticfield + Blastfinishers to stack up 1 min of
group switfness
- switch on Khylo to clerics amulet and staff and become an immortal treb destroyer
- less predictable burst and spread out 30-40k burst/pressure potential on 20 skills
making it impossible to effectivly dogde Eles damage
( Thiefs have either HS, Backstab or PW which is one 1 attack per spec you have to
take care off when figthing against, Warriors have HB and Evis, Mesmers have their
Phantasm, i guess you get the point = 1 trick ponys)

Now compare to thiefs….

I would like to see a roamer build, so I can implement it in my ele gameplay.

@Evie

Sure, you say all these really nice things, but I still don’t see any videos, or any builds.

It’s really, REALLY easy to say all those things about a class or a build.

Also, as it stands now, if you get jumped by 4 enemies at once as ANY CLASS, you WILL die. I’m sorry.

Firstly not one of those enemies in this video are under 80. Two of those enemies have world completely stars, so i hope if they have enough time to do everything, they have full exotics. Now they were all terrible players especially the thief. Good job showing how an extremely good player can make a weak class look good. Anychance do you have a necro that you can make a video for? because that class needs a star like you.

I agree, elementalist is one of the classes that I consider top ranking in my skill board. They bring a lot to the table if played correctly and nothing if button smashing like every class should.

Dagger Ele has been said that it’s already in the works of being changed, dagger ele is in a good spot, same with scepter, yeah they have their bugs and they will get fixed, thats whats hindering the class mainly just as the bugs on necros are hindering theirs but you don’t see them crying blue murder.

The two videos are bad comparison, considering one isn’t exactly unbiased and the other one is dagger Wv3, it’s the staffs damage that needs changing most of all and possibly a change in traits, at the moment we have the glass but lack the cannon on staff builds.

Well, those videos were god awful for proving that point.

But yea the staff elementalist bunker/support build is kinda popular. Especially on BoK.

Firstly not one of those enemies in this video are under 80. Two of those enemies have world completely stars, so i hope if they have enough time to do everything, they have full exotics. Now they were all terrible players especially the thief. Good job showing how an extremely good player can make a weak class look good. Anychance do you have a necro that you can make a video for? because that class needs a star like you.

Yes, the people dismissing this because the people he fought are “sub80s” clearly have no clue what they are talking about and should be ignored. HOWEVER, take a look at the orb buffs. Was the elementalist running with a 3 orb advantage?

Those orbs make a big difference. I know from firsthand experience that I can kill 2-3 bad players when I have a 3 orb advantage on my necromancer (since you mentioned it). Keyword… bad.

OP,

You know what I think? It’s not an example of “meta game”, it’s an example of players coming up with a spec that at least sort of works. And you know what? According to the ANet post in the sticky, they’re keeping an eye on it. They were also keeping an eye on Mesmers. And Mesmers got nerfed. Guess what will happen to this Ele spec pretty soon? Yeeeaaaah…

I guess my point is, this isn’t an example of meta-game. It’s an example of people doing the best they can with what they got. And Elementalists got precious little right now, compared to many other classes. EDIT: When I say “precious little”, I’m not arguing the class is underpowered, I’m just saying the number of possible viable spec is a heck of a lot more limited than many other classes.

Oh, and people in the video were awful.

@Evie.1758

I have seen Team Paradigm and some other top level teams elementalists in their twitch.tv.
Sure they are awesome players and could make a frog look overpowered, but even then they are a far cry from the heavenly list you keep posting.

Could you please produce your video showing off all that 4 vs 1 survivability, 5k AoE damage, thief alike insta-burst and so on? Because I have seen none of this, in their actual, existing videos.

@Evie

Did you just imply that.. Elementalist has zero weakness? If so then saying that isn’t nerf worthy is beyond me. I’ve been indifferent with Elems tbh, but they probably are sleeper status. Just that everyone denies it.

@Vaerah.4907

I would have bombed this forum with vids if i didnt have 0.2 mbit up
I gonna find a work arround.

But i can immediately serve with a 5k aoe dmg pic. Just 1 skill no casttime and only 10 mightstacks usually i have quite more.

http://imageshack.us/f/252/eleburst1.jpg/

While we can put out a lot of damage at times, stating that you’re ‘instagibbing’ when you have to land a 6-10part combo is misleading.

If it takes you 4-5 seconds (or more if you’re getting the biggest part of your damage from Churning Earth) to pull off a full combo and drop someone from 100% to 0 that’s not even remotely ‘insta’ anything.

Need more explaining about build and gear.

Yes, but 13k health (so beyond suicidal glass cannon) with somebody else’s buffs as well…

@Vaerah.4907

im sitting at 17k health when 100% and the buffs you see are all selfbuffed

@Evie

Hey in-case you didn’t notice what I asked, are you seriously implying that there is no way to deal with a good elementalist?

Schwahrheit.4203:

@Evie

Hey in-case you didn’t notice what I asked, are you seriously implying that there is no way to deal with a good elementalist?

In a 1on1 situation you will not be able to kill him if it starts some what fair unless you are backstab and he has no mistform to counter or MOA! but only when asura, because you cant tell when asuras are casting MOA ( on every other class a top ele will dodge it)

Not talking about 1v1. I’m talking about in general; team fights, getting ganked, etc.

You’re implying that Elementalist is.. a fail safe class with no weakness? That’s what I’m trying to get out of this.

Schwahrheit.4203:

Not talking about 1v1. I’m talking about in general; team fights, getting ganked, etc.

You’re implying that Elementalist is.. a fail safe class with no weakness? That’s what I’m trying to get out of this.

you will probably kill him if he stays on the node and you keep up an endless stream of pressure and you outnumber him

but he has many ways to escape and troll you

Evie, I think you need to look up what “instagib” means as you use it quite improperly a few times.

Elementalists are definitely a strong class, and people are underrating them, but we don’t have variety. Your D/D build sounds like the one I am running, and I am sure if we lined up traits/sigils/runes it would be pretty much exact. We are basically pidgeon holed into that role, as we can’t really be the big damage.

Elementalist has sustained damage, but nowhere near burst or “instagib” ability, which is no problem with me as I have accepted that I will never be able to press 3 buttons and kill someone as a thief or warrior.

Guys have some respect for Evie and Team Paradigm, what he’s saying is actually true, although to reach that full potential you have to play extremely well. In fact I’d go so far as to say that Team Paradigm and a few others are the reason why we got nerfed so hard in BWE3.

The class isn’t perfect, the class isn’t forgiving, the class has many bugs and terrible synergies, we all know that but we still love it. Everything else bores me to death. Let’s give ArenaNet the time they need to get back on their feet and fix the bugs then look at class balance.