Guild Wars 2

With the shift in the meta, having an Elementalist on your team flat out gimps you in competitive play. How can we fix this?

Are we going to see a thread like this for every class??

/thread

are you high???

Its actually true…

deff ele has been nerfed hard about two or tree month ago, most eles switched on a dmg build. to go for true dmg you need 2 arcanes or at least one… flash is another must have skill on dmg ele. this means that they run w/o stunbreak on a bers or valk amulet. since the flash gets wasted with the first spike they cant do anything against perma immobilizing thiefs…

-> true dmg no longer viable

our ele even tried soldier, its pretty awesome for 1v1 but doesnt help that much in teamffight. phantaram actually said it quiet nice. xeph had so switch on thief cuz they werent able to babysit a mesmer anymore. the roles shifted, xeph taking care of phatnaram but even on the thief you cant do much against perma teleporting thiefs + the condi spam… so phant switched on nec.

So we see dmg ele is very very hard to play atm. Now deff ele was viable pre patch BUT (the following can be applied to mesmers aswell):

1. Some classes got buffed hard (dmg wise) while ele and mesmer kept untouched. With this dmg overload yiu cant handle such glassy classes which cant just port out of fight immediatley or fear the kitten out of anyone attacking them. With this dmg-buff deff eles became unviable due to the pre patch nerf (which was right at this point)…

2. For some classes builds were found to match perfectly in the meta. Why should you bring a Mesmer when you can get a ranger. Atm the ranger brings the better rezz, and so many team utilities while still being a decent 1v1 class. Mesmer is just shining with his portal but you can only use it offensive, because you wont win any 1v1 (probably vs. thief). And what is a offensive portal for if you loose the teamfight anyway. The s/d thief replaces the ele. Same or even better survivability and quicker between points

So, imho you can still play mesmer and ele but mistakes will be punished much harder while plaxing perfectly doesnt bring a real advantage….

The dmg in this game is way to high right now.. Nec and thief can take down a bunker guard in seconds, anert has to take a step back and nerf condindmg overall. Direct dmg is very high too but at least good avoidable (not talking about annoying stealth openers) and not that spammable.

Arheundel.6451:

With the shift in the meta, having an Elementalist on your team flat out gimps you in competitive play. How can we fix this?

By toning down spirit rangers and necromancers.

Every class has problems against thiefs. Thiefs removed HGH Engis from the Meta. Now they make the life hard for other classes.

As long as thieves, spirit rangers and especially necromancers dominate the pvp game entirely, every other build/profession will look like being up. So first of all, these definitly have to be rebalanced.

But to get back to the topic: Elementalists are currently in a very bad spot. There is no reason to play them. ArenaNet pushed elementalists towards a jack of all trades, that doesn’t have any strengths, but a lot of weaknesses. There is no real possibility to specialize on something, either on DD, conditionDD, disabler, support or bunker, as elementalists are always forced into their defensive trait lines. And as guardians outclass an elementalist as bunker, mesmer and thieves outclass them as support and pretty much every other profession is better having raw dmg, Elementalists don’t fulfill any role in any group anymore.

The only thing that makes elementalists still playable is their good scaling with the player’s personal skill, as they have 20-25 skills instead of only 10-15. They are versatile having 4 attunements and can adapt to a lot of situations. Currently they can’t really adapt to the condition-spam-meta without giving up a lot of dmg or survivability as stun breakers. So a well played elementalist is hard to catch and difficult to kill, as long as you don’t focus and stunlock him, but they aren’t any further danger as long as you pay attention.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Arheundel.6451:

With the shift in the meta, having an Elementalist on your team flat out gimps you in competitive play. How can we fix this?

By toning down spirit rangers and necromancers.

@Diogo , the problem here is that I’d like to move away from this nerfing game, the way I see it, Anet is using this nerfing game to avoid the root of the problem which include several factors for the ele :

- the focus is not viable both in PvP and PvE, I’m not talking about the lack of mobility which get compensated by great defensive skills in earth, in air we find decent skills, but is in fire and water that the skills are complete garbage

- the staff is too heavily based on teamplay, where it becomes un-viable outside extremely coordinated gameplay ( like rainbow spike in GW1 ), which I don’t see even at top levels, nobody can protect you for long when a s/d thief, warrior or any other class sit on you while using a staff, you become a free kill where you spend more time kiting that actually help your team

- there is almost complete lack of active defenses on this profession, the only weapon set which offers the best compromise between active and passive defenses is..D/D.
I’d like to see more active defense on scepter and staff where I can keep the enemy at distance without becoming uncatchable

Scepter dagger does have the damage component. Its not EASY to pull of, but there is no better burst then Earthquake → Hurl → Lightningflash → Airatunement → Lightningstrike → RLT or Fire 1 → Firegrab → Lightningflash → ….
Problem is that physical damage is useless at the moment, because conditions are just over the top. Its impossible to remove the condispam of a necro for extended durations. Burst can be dodged. Condispam can be dodged for 20%, but eventually you will eat it.
Additionally the best condition amulet has good toughness on it but no vit → to counter condi play condi.

Elementalist is one of the weakest classes in the current meta. It has been nerfed too much while the other classes received new builds and many buffs.

Eles have been nerfed month after month because anet only balances according to the forums QQs, and there were many towards ele.

With every balance patch this game is more unbalanced, and anet will realize after they see the soloq ladders full of necromancers, rangers and thieves

Rerroll, elementalist was overnerfed on the bunker side. But his burst is unmatched. Just reduce condition spam a little and ele will be top notch again.
And even with the condi spam. Im learning to duel condition professions right now with my glass ele. I frequently beat them. Tho I need to be a lot better then them skillwise it is possible. If it cheers you up I can put up some YT video of me instagibbing some rangers/thiefs/necros :P

Blimm.5028:

Rerroll, elementalist was overnerfed on the bunker side. But his burst is unmatched. Just reduce condition spam a little and ele will be top notch again.
And even with the condi spam. Im learning to duel condition professions right now with my glass ele. I frequently beat them. Tho I need to be a lot better then them skillwise it is possible. If it cheers you up I can put up some YT video of me instagibbing some rangers/thiefs/necros :P

The bunker nerf affected LOT MORE dps eles than bunker eles: bunker eles are still “somehow” strong ( not strong as other bunkers but well..) but sustained damage builds got totally demolished, forcing eles to go full dps with no stunbreak ( i even question the choice to go valk at this point).

I had to laugh when a friend of mine said to one guildy who wanted to learn the ele and he said “don’t worry, i’ll give you the macro and you’ll be fine”, because that’s what eles currently are.

Sadly the ele is that kind of class that if you give it too much they become gods of everything ( just like engi currently) so i have literally no idea what to do with it.

Blimm.5028:

Rerroll, elementalist was overnerfed on the bunker side. But his burst is unmatched. Just reduce condition spam a little and ele will be top notch again.
And even with the condi spam. Im learning to duel condition professions right now with my glass ele. I frequently beat them. Tho I need to be a lot better then them skillwise it is possible. If it cheers you up I can put up some YT video of me instagibbing some rangers/thiefs/necros :P

Ok that cheers me up. It’s nice to know I can defeat other classes when I’m a lot better. Thanks to this eles will have a way lower soloq ladder than they deserve, because they will probably lose vs equally skilled condispammers

Rerroll, elementalist was overnerfed on the bunker side. But his burst is unmatched. Just reduce condition spam a little and ele will be top notch again.
And even with the condi spam. Im learning to duel condition professions right now with my glass ele. I frequently beat them. Tho I need to be a lot better then them skillwise it is possible. If it cheers you up I can put up some YT video of me instagibbing some rangers/thiefs/necros :P

Bursting someone down works quite well if your opponent doesn’t pay any attention at all and he has to be a glass cannon as well. One single dodge, shield, invulnerability, teleport, stun breaker…. as you said, he has to be worse than you. I’d still prefer the burst of a thief, as a thief can deliver group stealth and is hard to catch.

Sadly the ele is that kind of class that if you give it too much they become gods of everything ( just like engi currently) so i have literally no idea what to do with it.

There are thousands of good suggestions in the elementalist and suggestion forum how to balance the elementalist without making him neither op nor up. To give him possibilites to specialize. But unfortunatly ArenaNet doesn’t care about anything outside of spvp.
Just take a look at all the bugs the elementalist does currently have. Most skills and traits are worthless because of these bugs – lingering elements for example. Will they ever be fixed?

Blimm.5028:

Rerroll, elementalist was overnerfed on the bunker side. But his burst is unmatched. Just reduce condition spam a little and ele will be top notch again.
And even with the condi spam. Im learning to duel condition professions right now with my glass ele. I frequently beat them. Tho I need to be a lot better then them skillwise it is possible. If it cheers you up I can put up some YT video of me instagibbing some rangers/thiefs/necros :P

Please do! Current videos and tPvP Play Only. Its easy to smack around the Hotjoiners.

Earthquake – Lightning Flash makes it really hard for them to avoid your burst. People think Mogwow hacks but that combo is the “secret” to it. If they’re knocked down they either have to stun break or die. If you pick the squishy targets they are pretty much dead with S/D burst.

Leaked video of an ANet balance meeting.

Caffynated.5713:

Leaked video of an ANet balance meeting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0n8N98mpes

LOVED IT

Lupanic.6502:

Every class has problems against thiefs. Thiefs removed HGH Engis from the Meta. Now they make the life hard for other classes.

It’s always the thief that gets the blame -_- The only thief build that could need a nerf is the S/D evade build. I have no idea why Anet have us larcenous strike since all we wanted was a better pathing on Flanking Strike. But Anet had to mess with a weapon set that worked perfectly…. I think they should revert the change back to what it was and keep the new pathing, then that weapon set will require more skill and it won’t be able to steal all your boons all the time.

All other builds are working ok or are not that good for PvP.

Theplayboy.6417:

Blimm.5028:

Rerroll, elementalist was overnerfed on the bunker side. But his burst is unmatched. Just reduce condition spam a little and ele will be top notch again.
And even with the condi spam. Im learning to duel condition professions right now with my glass ele. I frequently beat them. Tho I need to be a lot better then them skillwise it is possible. If it cheers you up I can put up some YT video of me instagibbing some rangers/thiefs/necros :P

Please do! Current videos and tPvP Play Only. Its easy to smack around the Hotjoiners.

Challenge accepted!

Il have to gather some material tho, because my recordings from since the most recent patch are rather scarce.

Edit: No sane thief is playing burst anymore for a reason. You give your team nothing and the burst is easier to get out of then elementalist-burst because it has a “speed limit”. The faster your fingers/macro the faster you burst.
Thief burst has SOME animation time.

Unless you played bunker, the elementalist, was only really viable when everybody was a noob, which was the first beta.

Well played Arenanet. Well played.

Finally this came up!!The problem is that anet nerfed ele so hard which was justified in THAT meta..And then they went and buffed so many things in so many levels.
Then the condi meta happened and found an ele with lowest health in game ,survival based on healing which was heavily nerfed and also nerfed cond removal in water line..
I personally feel like i have turned from a 1vs1 beast into a 1vs1 noob against anything thats used atm (when played by players on their main char :P )..And dps ele is just the result of making sustain ele useless in this mess of cond spam.

Its also really important to notice how signet of restoration is VERY weak now.They nerfed its healing by 20% and then they also removed the healing from dodge rolls in evasive arcana and earth 2 on scepter.Thats so much loss of sustain that ll make you cry when you calculate it down

Please remove the internal cd on cleansing water, or at least make it per target. It was added because they didn’t like eles spamming their cantrip builds to cleanse too quickly, but cantrips were strongly check with the stun break movements. Doing this would help curb the condition boom and give eles a better place through anti condition support

An ele won the 1v1 tournament hosted by BT. Surely there can be a use for an ele in the meta, even as a backpoint defender.

Avead.5760:

Finally this came up!!The problem is that anet nerfed ele so hard which was justified in THAT meta..And then they went and buffed so many things in so many levels.
Then the condi meta happened and found an ele with lowest health in game ,survival based on healing which was heavily nerfed and also nerfed cond removal in water line..
I personally feel like i have turned from a 1vs1 beast into a 1vs1 noob against anything thats used atm (when played by players on their main char :P )..And dps ele is just the result of making sustain ele useless in this mess of cond spam.

Its also really important to notice how signet of restoration is VERY weak now.They nerfed its healing by 20% and then they also removed the healing from dodge rolls in evasive arcana and earth 2 on scepter.Thats so much loss of sustain that ll make you cry when you calculate it down

he knows what he is talking.

They nerfed our healing because it was too much. They nerfed our condi cleanse because it was too much. IN THE PAST.

And then they buffed other classes making ele useless crap

Lol every class feels this way because necro and engi have such over powered aoe. The “balance” of these two classes was a complete failure at anet both at their understanding of class balance and player communication. The saddest part is that we are right at the door step of their big tourney with the worse balance and play the game has seen in spvp… it’s a shame.

Thesilentflute.8761:

Lol every class feels this way because necro and engi have such over powered aoe. The “balance” of these two classes was a complete failure at anet both at their understanding of class balance and player communication. The saddest part is that we are right at the door step of their big tourney with the worse balance and play the game has seen in spvp… it’s a shame.

Eles are not just in a bad spot. They are in the worst place they have ever been while the other classes are the strongest they have been until now. The more they “balance”, the more imbalanced the game is

I’d say most power dps classes are no longer viable with the exception of sd thief due to necro’s being so over the top.

Ele now is pretty much like warrior used to be. Do your burst combo and die.

It’s so sad, I hope a dev comes by this thread and feels ashamed

Geiir.7603:

Lupanic.6502:

Every class has problems against thiefs. Thiefs removed HGH Engis from the Meta. Now they make the life hard for other classes.

It’s always the thief that gets the blame -_- The only thief build that could need a nerf is the S/D evade build. I have no idea why Anet have us larcenous strike since all we wanted was a better pathing on Flanking Strike. But Anet had to mess with a weapon set that worked perfectly…. I think they should revert the change back to what it was and keep the new pathing, then that weapon set will require more skill and it won’t be able to steal all your boons all the time.

All other builds are working ok or are not that good for PvP.

Flanking stab would still need to be more worthwhile then it was that 2nd hit reward was more of a problem than the tracking. That and given everything else they did at the time of the change it be a hard knock life in general as a thief.

On NA there has been an exodus of eles. I would definitely say ele is bottom tier atm.

I can understand mesmers complaining to some degree with the current meta, but eles? Almost every single team that played in EU qualifiers had an ele and they did a great job. How can you even say they are unplayable or in worst spot ever? If that was the case nobody would have run one in their team don’t you think?

Pretty much every single class is forced to embrace a single spec / build as the meta changes if they want to play at highest level of competition, that goes for everything (look at thieves forced into S/D, ele in S/D, engineer P/S, necro conditions and so on and so forth).

Just complaining to complain without any solid proof that indeed your class is in a terrible spot (as you make it seem) doesn’t really do you any justice, just saying.

Anelyn.4593:

I can understand mesmers complaining to some degree with the current meta, but eles? Almost every single team that played in EU qualifiers had an ele and they did a great job. How can you even say they are unplayable or in worst spot ever? If that was the case nobody would have run one in their team don’t you think?

Pretty much every single class is forced to embrace a single spec / build as the meta changes if they want to play at highest level of competition, that goes for everything (look at thieves forced into S/D, ele in S/D, engineer P/S, necro conditions and so on and so forth).

Just complaining to complain without any solid proof that indeed your class is in a terrible spot (as you make it seem) doesn’t really do you any justice, just saying.

Ele is still being played because it was one of the most played classes in the game (due to it being op for too long). But it’s a fact that teams are dropping eles from their comp and a huge number of eles rerolled to other classes.

Also, you will have a solid proof the day 6th with the soloq leaderboards. You can come back to this thread then.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Arheundel.6451:

With the shift in the meta, having an Elementalist on your team flat out gimps you in competitive play. How can we fix this?

By toning down spirit rangers and necromancers.

By toning down s/d thieves.

S/D thieves are pretty much an elementalist hardcounter.

I also feel condi classes have way less of a tradeoff when it comes to amulets.

Power dps can take valkyries sacrificing damage or take berserker sacrificing survivability. Condi classes don’t really have that tradeoff with rabids. It has the precision for x on crit, the thoughness aswell as condi dmg.

In exchange it doesn’t burst.

If you are seriously comparing condi burst to a 16-20 might backstab with signet popped or a full shatter>blurred frenzy or a burning speed>firegrab>arcane utilities or scepter burst, then I pity you.

Zenith.7301:

In exchange it doesn’t burst.

If you are seriously comparing condi burst to a 16-20 might backstab with signet popped or a full shatter>blurred frenzy or a burning speed>firegrab>arcane utilities or scepter burst, then I pity you.

but….condition build burst with conditions…sure its fine, but necros

Lighter.5631:

Zenith.7301:

In exchange it doesn’t burst.

If you are seriously comparing condi burst to a 16-20 might backstab with signet popped or a full shatter>blurred frenzy or a burning speed>firegrab>arcane utilities or scepter burst, then I pity you.

but….condition build burst with conditions…sure its fine, but necros

6-7 seconds to do significant damage is not burst. When you can immediately take out half of someone’s health in 2-3 button presses then you can compare it to D/P or mesmer or warrior burst.

Bunker condi classes exist because if you are glass and not a mesmer or thief you get eaten alive by mesmers and thieves.

When an engineer can run a burst build or a ranger can use a longbow/gs burst build without being free food to mesmers and thieves and warriors and eles and prety much anything, then you’ll see less condi bunker builds.

But if you’re something outside mesmer/thief, chances are if you don’t build condi bunker you will die a lot without accomplishing much.

So now Elementalists are useless? What’s next? Guardians suck at support?

In all my tournies with friends I never felt my ele was useless. Could hold my own on their far point and run away if I was being zerged by the respawning waves, 1vs1 those annoying s/d jumper copypaste builds. 0/30/0/20/20 using D/F. Just can’t get use to scepter all the attacks are slow and easily dodged by anyone who can see red aoe circles or my character raising his hands to prepare a 1-2 second cast = dodge/daze/stun me now.

Also it’s very cool phoenix cannot be blocked. Got alot of kills with that bad boy. Probably my favorite scepter skill besides water trident and lighting strike.

edit: regarding that earthquake lightning flash burst combo into air, the way I play ele would rather keep a focus with me even if the damage is inferior to offhand dagger.

Us Warriors aren’t viable for almost a year now, so man up and stop crying.

Obviously there’s always going to be at least 1 class that won’t be viable, and I’m pretty sure 1 of those classes will always be Warrior, the other one will change. Maybe Warrior will even be both of the classes that aren’t viable!!

This is a useless post by the way.

It really is a shame how much damage anet did to eles, glass ones in particular. The pvp devs are incompetent, it’s just that simple. They have no idea what they are doing, so every ‘balance’ patch is just random changes which don’t make any sense, which is why the game is no more balanced now than it was a year ago. The worst thing is the devs think they are doing an awesome job and none of the problems are their fault, so they aren’t even going to try to change anything. They’re just going to keep on doing things the way they have been, ignoring players completely, and the game is going to continue the stagnate, and this combat system is going to completely go to waste.

DiogoSilva.7089:

By toning down spirit rangers and necromancers.

I agree with this 100%. I really feel like a current bunker/balanced ele is in a pretty good spot right now. The problem is the burst that classes have.

Necro burst, Mesmer Burst (which will be a problem if condis get toned down), S/D ele burst, and even some of theif burst should be toned down so that sustained damage builds can become more viable and even shine. Currently, every class is forced to some extreme to be playable, and I feel like it is b/c burst is too strong. It is a game of “kamikaze him b4 he kamikazes me” with just guardians and spirit rangers bringing real support.

I think burst should be toned down, and then healing should be toned down a bit if bunkers dominate again. If they just wind down slowly, that is a.o.k.

Lol, this thread was taken over by pve ele players, it seems. Was there any thread over the ele forums that redirected them to this place?

The pvp elementalists, much like the pvp mesmers, are currently not seeing much play because of the meta set in place since the big balancing patch. Elementalists have a decent bunker build (not sure how strong it still is compared to guardian’s) and a really strong instant burst build in pvp. No one is playing them because the meta is currently broken, and everyone and their mothers are abusing the new overpowered builds from necromancer/ ranger (/ thief? not sure about this one) while they last.

Whoever here thinks that elementalists are terrible because of nerfs will be very shocked if someday our instant-burst build gets nerfed.

Ele is very viable. You just need to play it cleverly then you can easily compete at the very highest level. An ele is particularly good at pressuring downed targets and its damage and mobility and healing are still very strong. A very good class still

Whoever here thinks that elementalists are terrible because of nerfs will be very shocked if someday our instant-burst build gets nerfed.

Nope, not rly. After having been nerfed, nerfed, nerfed again, then kicked while laying on the ground, then getting another slap in the face and after finally every other class got buffed, nothing ArenaNet can do will surprise me. I nearly lost my entire faith in their developer teams, after they stated pretty clearly, that they a) want the elementalist to be a jack of all trades, so useless everywhere b) won’t give him possibilites to specialize c) refuse to make every weapon equally viable and d) don’t give a kitten kitten about anything outside of pvp.

The point is not just that the elementalist is weak in the current meta. He doesn’t have a role in any teamsetup, guardians are better bunkers, thieves and mesmers deliver better team utility and still have extremly high dmg. Additionally thieves are very hard to catch and mesmer have a high base hp pool with a lot of defensives through illusions, deception, stealth and conditions. ArenaNet pushes the elementalist towards a direction of having absolutly nothing.
Currently he can develop a high burst, but only once. That’s not really useful in teamfights, after his burst he is a sitting duck. His burst can be mitigated, dodged and countered by paying attention. And normally only glass cannons should really get onehitted by the fresh air burst.

There were some few elementalists in the PAX EU qualifiers, I’ve watched them myself. It’s kinda logical that these guys are still playing the elementalist, they trained with him for months, so they probably don’t just want to give up the entire class. I’m playing the elementalist myself too, because it is just the class I want to play. But there were already a lot of teams that gave up the elementalist completly, taking engineers, necromancers, thieves, mesmer and guardian instead. And the few elementalists I’ve seen didn’t really do any good. Most of the time I’ve seen them laying dead on the ground.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Whoever here thinks that elementalists are terrible because of nerfs will be very shocked if someday our instant-burst build gets nerfed.

I think you are seeing this from only 1 angle..Of course it has to do with the huge nerfs that happened.If ele still had rtl at 20 sec cd it would still see play as far point assaulter.
If ele still had mistform heal he wouldnt die to a necro that easily.If signet wasnt nerfed so much in so many ways eles 1vs1 potential wouldnt as low as now..etc etc
What im saying is that nerfs like the cleasning water one make no sense now that some things have become so strong.The prenerf ele would feel a lot more balanced in this meta than it was back then when it comes to mobility( comapred to engi,thief,warrior) ,cond removal against necro ,healing and stunbreaks against warrior stunlock etc ..perhaps not when it comes to instant burst but i really doubt arcanes are gonna stay like that and when they get nerfed it would be truly no reason to bring ele

And btw those nerfs were mostly pvp nerfs and didnt happen in pve world..so i dont understand why you think pve eles have taken over this topic?For them healing,cond removal nerf never happened

Bottom line is that ele nerfs shouldnt be lifted of course..but if things are gonna stay as they are now they may as well reverse all ele changes for the last 4 patches :P

And btw those nerfs were mostly pvp nerfs and didnt happen in pve world..so i dont understand why you think pve eles have taken over this topic?For them healing,cond removal nerf never happened

Nonsense. The elementalist was nerfed in PvP and PvE. Especially for PvE these nerfs were just stupid, just take a look at the RtL nerf. In PvE the elementalist has always been weak, now he is even weaker. No healing while in mist form, stunbreakers taken away, condi removal reduced etc. pp. The only nerf that affected pvp only i can remind of is the signet nerf.

It’s true that the old state of the elementalists would have made them viable in the current meta, but it’s still the meta that’s to blame.

About pve, lol. PvE is beyond broken akittens current simplistic state. The only thing that is going to save all non-warrior professions in pve is not balance, it’s content design. If conditions, boons, movement, party support and control were relevant in pve, you would see the current state of elementalists compete with the current state of pve warriors.