Guild Wars 2

But it really is impossible.

I have only tried the elementalist for a couple of matches, but now I’m really liking the combat style and its versatility.

I’ve played several hotjoin matches to get used to skills, rotations and combos, then when I’ve realized that hotjoin had nothing else to teach me, I’ve jumped on SoloQ when horrible things started.

I have to say that I’ve played Necromancer for an huge chunk of time (before the june patch), power-based non-spirit ranger and jumped for some time on the warrior bandwagon.

Here’s some of my impressions:

• 30 mandatory points into Arcana is disgusting: they are a must go for pretty much any build because of the attunement recharge and the on-dodge effects. It feels awful when you need to heal and you have your water attunement recharging and you want to burst and the air attunement is unavailable. Any build not running 30 into Arcana is a sub-par build as far as I’ve tested. It really saddens me that a whole profession is forced to play with 30 less traitpoints.
• 30 points into water are a must go to have enough sustain: another things I’ve found out playing in SoloQ. The amount of conditions coupled with the really small HP pool of elementalists force them to bring a lot of condition removals in order to have enough sustain to survive condition professions, which are still very popular. This is seriously a major problem which also affects many other professions which are forced to bring a lot of condition cleansing traits/skills to survive the condition spam. So any build I’ve tried to theorycraft and try, ended up with 30 in water and 3 cantrips, otherwise, I just melt to conditions.

So, after you’ve spent 60 points on defensive traitlines, there is really nothing left to spend on increasing the damage output and I’ve ended up to build a sub-par bunker when I wanted to build balanced.

• 30 in Air with Fresh Air is borderline viable, but the lack of 30 in water makes you die horribly to conditions and have no sustain at all.
• 30 in Fire is unviable, because it might have some potential, but it is even less viable compared to Air because its damage is more sustain rather than bursty, which means that you are more exposed to damage. The lack of sustain coming from 30 in Water clearly says that you can’t afford to be exposed for a long time.
• 30 in Earth are not an option at all. The condition damage of Elementalist is quite high, but it relies on low amount of conditions with high duration rather than constant application, which means that the amount of condition removals in this meta, built to counter Spirit Rangers, Necromancers and Engineers, completely destroy its viability.

At the end of the day, I came up to the conclusion that Elementalist is not worth playing in this meta at all and all the reasons of this are clear, under the eyes of everyone.

Why hasn’t the balancing team done nothing yet? Why I feel forced to play Necromancer or Warriors to be competitive? Why people ask me to reroll once they see I’m playing Elementalist?
Is this what the balancing team wants their game to be?

Well, this seriously isn’t the game I want to play.

Just stick to whatever’s OP in the meta and enjoy the ride and let the devs worry about balancing and break the game more (truth: Anet can’t balance). Or simply quit the ‘competitive scene’ and you’d find inner peace.

Well if you play fresh air it’s kill or be killed, if you play 30 water it’s eventually die while not putting out a lot of pressure.

you can ask help from the elementalist subforum. i see some ele’s doing really well in pvp. i thought they had gotten useless but time made me see the truth.

Valentin.2073:

you can ask help from the elementalist subforum. i see some ele’s doing really well in pvp. i thought they had gotten useless but time made me see the truth.

I’ve checked the ele subforum and the opinion of a lot of elementalist players before starting playing it and it looks like that pretty much everyone is under my same idea.

I thought that it was an exaggeration, pretty much what always happened in the thief subforum.

an ele plays a really good role to team balance. they can roam and rain aoe’s on a zerg. i see some ele’s being effective in tpvp. the only bad thing really is what a team needs is just one ele. 2 ele’s on a team is just too much just like thieves, if they are too many they become useless.

Valentin.2073:

an ele plays a really good role to team balance. they can roam and rain aoe’s on a zerg. i see some ele’s being effective in tpvp. the only bad thing really is what a team needs is just one ele. 2 ele’s on a team is just too much just like thieves, if they are too many they become useless.

Then why people are asking me to reroll if I play ele even if I’m the only one in the team?

I really want to see those Elementalists succeding in tPvP, but I barely see one.

I main my ele in tpvp, I do get the reroll a diffrent prof a bit. But ele is alot of fun to play and i think its a good support and can bunker fairly well. Shame its a bit tied to a few ways to play it but its good fun and i do quite well in tpvp.

asherchill.7314:

I main my ele in tpvp, I do get the reroll a diffrent prof a bit. But ele is alot of fun to play and i think its a good support and can bunker fairly well. Shame its a bit tied to a few ways to play it but its good fun and i do quite well in tpvp.

As I understand it, it’s not that ele is useless, it is that it’s usefulness is only 60-80% of other classes in a mode that requires extreme specialisation. A less better choice due to the jack of all trade-iness of the class.

Sadly playing ele right now its playing sPvP tribulation; everything can kill and everything WILL kill you, it is just a matter of when.

As you noted, at least 20 arcana and 20 water are required for any specc that doesnt want to be blown on the first round of attacks, couple that with mandatory 2-3 cantrips and you have a totally useless ele that cant neither do damage, support their team (since it is too busy trying to keep himself alive) nor keep themselves alive effectively.

My only advise? Do as all the pros have; reroll to a different class (last MLG, 0 eles, the one competition after that 1 ele, costed the match to their team). Good options right now for damage; thief, warrior, mesmer. For support guardian, engi.

Eles ARE extremely fun to play indeed, but just as fun they are as ineffective. Some people cant see those two apart, but they are indeed, very mutually exclusive.

Just like useless =/= unviable. Sure the class doesnt suck donkey’s balls, but match an ele vs a team that know more than what their 1-5 skills does and you will have an ele that cant pull their weight. THAT is what iscalled being unviable. Get it right, people.

And you want to be taken seriosly? Give me prove of all these “pro” eles dominating sPvP high ranking, I want to see one carry their team on a esport…..oh wait…..we have 0 representation….. well gee

The elementalist is a PVE class.
The devs want you to use a staff in WvW.
The devs look at s/d burst in tpvp and think we’re fine.

S/D = spam everything to get someone to down state. Then try to finish them off or run away while someone else does.
S/D = die in 1 auto-attack from anything because you have 11k health and 900 toughness.

D/D = spam everything. Try to cleanse. Try to cleanse. Try to cleanse. Try to cleanse. Try to run. TRY TO RUN. Release.

Staff = Try to hide. AoE. Try to run. Release.

Some eles have 19k hp and still hit like truck.

Since GW1, Anet want people to use their “special trait line”, the one that impact more the playstyle of your profession (Attunement recharge for elementalists), this was quite the same before in almost all the GW1 templates you had to a decent amount of attribute points to fit the meta.

But i don’t think this is a shame at all, because it’s meant to be this way, if you have a specific class mechanic, which make your strengh most of the time, you want to improve it.

BTW i used my brain a bit lately and what is a real shame is that sigil of Battle work on attunement swapping, but not rune of the Warrior.

19K and hit like a truck? please link this build i need it badly !
( for reality checking though we have only 70 trait points and we are not talking about wvw )

Veteran Oakheart.4035:

Since GW1, Anet want people to use their “special trait line”, the one that impact more the playstyle of your profession (Attunement recharge for elementalists), this was quite the same before in almost all the GW1 templates you had to a decent amount of attribute points to fit the meta.

But i don’t think this is a shame at all, because it’s meant to be this way, if you have a specific class mechanic, which make your strengh most of the time, you want to improve it.

BTW i used my brain a bit lately and what is a real shame is that sigil of Battle work on attunement swapping, but not rune of the Warrior.

Well, then what’s the point of giving players choices while you implicitly force them to spend 30 points into Arcana?

Also, it isn’t the same in every profession. Thief, for instance, isn’t forced to pick Trickery at all.

Xaos.3257:

19K and hit like a truck? please link this build i need it badly !
( for reality checking though we have only 70 trait points and we are not talking about wvw )

Something gimmicky like this maybe? Far from viable but hey people like QQing about S/D spikes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArIhImIblx5IAiMOQgRhOEPswBJqCA-ToAA2CnI4SxljLDXSuscNsYWA

That’s why i said "most of the time "

Arcana 30 is a must since it lowers your Attunement cooldowns to 9 seconds, which is NEEDED for more protection uptime from earth and to proc Healing Ripple and the condi remove on water attune more often. It’s also a necessity since without it you end up stuck without an attunement to switch to/can’t rapidly adapt to the change in play like you’re meant to as an Ele.

Evasive Arcana is a NECESSITY since you get a blind, a heal+cleanse and a blast finisher from it for another heal in water fields if you’re staff, without which you can’t survive.

sorrow.2364:

Veteran Oakheart.4035:

Since GW1, Anet want people to use their “special trait line”, the one that impact more the playstyle of your profession (Attunement recharge for elementalists), this was quite the same before in almost all the GW1 templates you had to a decent amount of attribute points to fit the meta.

But i don’t think this is a shame at all, because it’s meant to be this way, if you have a specific class mechanic, which make your strengh most of the time, you want to improve it.

BTW i used my brain a bit lately and what is a real shame is that sigil of Battle work on attunement swapping, but not rune of the Warrior.

Well, then what’s the point of giving players choices while you implicitly force them to spend 30 points into Arcana?

Also, it isn’t the same in every profession. Thief, for instance, isn’t forced to pick Trickery at all.

Be honest now sorrow, when was the last time you saw a competitive thief in spvp not using 30 points into critical strikes? Thieves can’t be tanky even with defensive traits and without 30 into CS they do pathetic damage, so they’re forced into that traitline. It’s the same with most professions….

Hype.8032:

Be honest now sorrow, when was the last time you saw a competitive thief in spvp not using 30 points into critical strikes? Thieves can’t be tanky even with defensive traits and without 30 into CS they do pathetic damage, so they’re forced into that traitline. It’s the same with most professions….

Yes, but that’s because it is the only viable damage traitline because of its grandmaster traits, which are a requirements for any build, not because it has to offer some profession-speficic feature you can’t live without.
I bet that Thieves would prefer power a lot more then precision, but sadly Deadly Arts does not have Executioner or Hidden Killer.
A thief can live without the increased recharge rate on Steal, an elementalist can’t live without the Attunement recharge rate increase of Arcana. That’s the point.

I can say the same about engineer and the Tools traitline.
Or maybe Necromancers and Soul Reaping and Ranger with Beast Mastery.
None of those traitlines are mandatory for their respective profession.

My point was that those 30 points into CS are MANDATORY. It limits potential builds by giving 40 effective points to be used. I agree ele isn’t in a good spot. I worry about how Anet is planning to fix it though. D/D ele already destroys dagger main hand thieves and the only reason it hasn’t been a problem lately is because S/D thieves kept them out of the meta. I’m betting the ‘fix’ for one profession will just push another out of the meta. It might have already begun with LS only stealing one boon.

Valentin.2073:

you can ask help from the elementalist subforum. i see some ele’s doing really well in pvp. i thought they had gotten useless but time made me see the truth.

This coming from the spirit ranger who complains about every other class’s balance IN EVERY KITTEN THREAD. lmao.

Xaos.3257:

19K and hit like a truck? please link this build i need it badly !
( for reality checking though we have only 70 trait points and we are not talking about wvw )

a’ight sir, I may have to ask for your forum posting card, since you have absolutely no idea of what you are talking.

First of all, the only way you can achieve 19k is by having 30 in water, and runes that have vitality on them, and even then the highest you can get is 18k, so you sir, are a blatant lier, and a really bad at it. Also, please “enlight” us on how a 30 water/30 arcane hits like “truck” when he has no power, no damage trait, no power runes, no critical chance, no critical damage, even if you dont take 30 arcane that ele will be dead long before the first rotation is over since each element has 16 sec CD.

Fortus.6175:

a’ight sir, I may have to ask for your forum posting card, since you have absolutely no idea of what you are talking.

First of all, the only way you can achieve 19k is by having 30 in water, and runes that have vitality on them, and even then the highest you can get is 18k, so you sir, are a blatant lier, and a really bad at it. Also, please “enlight” us on how a 30 water/30 arcane hits like “truck” when he has no power, no damage trait, no power runes, no critical chance, no critical damage, even if you dont take 30 arcane that ele will be dead long before the first rotation is over since each element has 16 sec CD.

Allow me to self-quote my guess:

zencow.3651:

Xaos.3257:

19K and hit like a truck? please link this build i need it badly !
( for reality checking though we have only 70 trait points and we are not talking about wvw )

Something gimmicky like this maybe? Far from viable but hey people like QQing about S/D spikes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArIhImIblx5IAiMOQgRhOEPswBJqCA-ToAA2CnI4SxljLDXSuscNsYWA

Unless the person who made the claim can fess up this is the best approximation I have.

After reading the forum, i’ve been doing a fun random build with random runes,amulet, traits, D/D ele in tournament : http://youtu.be/DxcWczN_PGo feel free to laugh at it, it’s for fun purposes only, so don’t need to be rude

Dont go 30 water..its a trap.At least not if you dont want to go pure bunker.
In fact dont even go 10 there..Sustain/bruiser ele builds are the biggest kitten there is atm.They die so fast doing nothing in terms of pressure.
Without saying anything about its viability im gonna say that for normal soloq level 0 30 10 0 30 fresh air s/f with flash arcane shield and blast is fine. It actually on paper has all the tools to win 1vs1 aganst most builds except the ones that can reset and burn your defences like d/p thief or mesm with ports on staff or blink.
Its a bit difficult at start cause its hard to both do damage (burst has many stages) and to survive.
But i think that 1vs1 assuming that you are aware at all times what the enmy is doing and teamfights assuming that you take care of your position,know what can kill you and when and what you can kill ..its fine.
In teamfights you can overcome you weakness with getting good position and taking down the targets that can take you down fast.The burst is a lot harder for them to avoid in the mess and you can abuse position and kite almost as good as a mesm against slow targets
Tbh it hard counters engis and fairs really good agains necros cause of earth 4 and 5 . And against warriors standing on point saoking damage like pve mobs,rangers having the reaction time of my grandma i dont feel kitten at all ../sad lol

Hype.8032:

My point was that those 30 points into CS are MANDATORY. It limits potential builds by giving 40 effective points to be used. I agree ele isn’t in a good spot. I worry about how Anet is planning to fix it though. D/D ele already destroys dagger main hand thieves and the only reason it hasn’t been a problem lately is because S/D thieves kept them out of the meta. I’m betting the ‘fix’ for one profession will just push another out of the meta. It might have already begun with LS only stealing one boon.

Of course I’m not saying that Thieves aren’t in a bad spot diversity-wise too or that CS isn’t as mandatory as Arcana.

0/15/10/15/30 D/D Zerker can do pretty well against bads too!

zencow.3651:

0/15/10/15/30 D/D Zerker can do pretty well against bads too!

nah that ll melt against the first warrior like the guy that posted the myth buster thread.
You need to be in melee range which is something you cant do atm..not in a non tanky build at least

u guys should try my 10/30/10/0/20 mlg zerker d/d ele build.

I think the loss of the extra boon stolen from LS along with warriors/necros being scaled back will be enough to get ele back into the meta. I’m not familiar enough with ele to say that for certain but do you think ele is really that far away from being viable?

Oblivion.8307:

u guys should try my 10/30/10/0/20 mlg zerker d/d ele build.

You should have played the suicide staff build .The great minds in anet hasve listened to us and conceived the 30/30/0/10/0 with lava tomb
Its revolutionary in the whole gaming world. Your goal is do die on top of them while being on top of lava font and then mist form for a third lava font.
More should run it in hot joins.The first time i got a kill this way i was laughing for whole minutes

Avead.5760:

Oblivion.8307:

u guys should try my 10/30/10/0/20 mlg zerker d/d ele build.

You should have played the suicide staff build .The great minds in anet hasve listened to us and conceived the 30/30/0/10/0 with lava tomb
Its revolutionary in the whole gaming world. Your goal is do die on top of them while being on top of lava font and then mist form for a third lava font.
More should run it in hot joins.The first time i got a kill this way i was laughing for whole minutes

Yah I have done something similar but with 10 in earth for 10% more in melee than water at 10% above health (which is what im guessing why you put those 10 in water) given how we are going kamikaze. Fun the first few times I got them low, then they kinda learned from it and started ranging me, basically the tactic only worked on those who dont know what AoE is.

then maybe have a venom share thief lock them for eternity !
Lol..and then just go and die and kill them all.My god this would be hilarious ..and totally viable :P

Apparently 0/30/0/10/30 fresh-air S/F ele can do pretty well, but it is really slow and will still gets crapped on my thieves. It is also hard, and not as effective as a warrior or engineer.

Other eles can do o.k. if they have a good team around them, but you don’t get that unless you are at the top of the leaderboard. If you are working your way up, ele will just keep you down as it won’t fit on any team. You are pretty much always better off filling the same role with another class, as ele survivability is really the issue after all the nerfs.

Also, a couple of notes:

If you are going to play ele, esp. d/d you almost need 20 points in earth b/c Rock Solid is one of the best pvp traits in the game. It helps you with ether renewal (necessary for condis) and for stomps, warrior wombo-combos, and any other cc.

Also, you really have to go at least 15 in air, probably 20 just to have damage on-par with other classes. Maybe 20 in fire could be an o.k. replacement, but fire stats and abilities are terrible.

Going 15 in water is nice, but kills your dps after you pay the arcana tax. It works on a bunker, but you are still better with a guardian. Going 30 in water is not worth it b/c of the ICD on cleansing water, and you really might as well just play shouts. This difference is really unfair and uneven and was never needed. I am still bitter about some of these changes, but its where we are.

BlackBeard.2873:

snip

Define ok; if by ok you mean having to depend on your team carrying your weight and having to run away from more than half the other classes, then we have two very different opinions of what ok is.

If you go into a match saying “please let there be no thief, mesmer, warrior, necros or ranger, PLEASE!” then you are going to have a very bad time.

Is it too much to ask to be able to go into a match and play without having to worry on when the next spawn is? I mean, I do get that some people enjoy playing eles because they get to see a lot of scenery when they are walking back to the battle, but I, for once, would like to be able to fight toe to toe with any opponent, or at least most.

Fortus.6175:

BlackBeard.2873:

snip

Define ok; if by ok you mean having to depend on your team carrying your weight and having to run away from more than half the other classes, then we have two very different opinions of what ok is.

If you go into a match saying “please let there be no thief, mesmer, warrior, necros or ranger, PLEASE!” then you are going to have a very bad time.

Is it too much to ask to be able to go into a match and play without having to worry on when the next spawn is? I mean, I do get that some people enjoy playing eles because they get to see a lot of scenery when they are walking back to the battle, but I, for once, would like to be able to fight toe to toe with any opponent, or at least most.

By o.k. I mean you can be a positive addition to your team. For instance, if you play cmc’s 0/20/20/0/30 d/d ele, you need to play aggressive, but you can really help your team and take down most classes, including all the classes you listed. You aren’t going to be the best 1v1 fighter, and every single fight is a disadvantage but winnable. The build really focuses on team-fights were you can put great pressure on the opposing team, stick to a target, and take out high-priority targets while surviving pretty well.

Condi-spam necros go down quick if you jump in their face and don’t give them an inch to breathe. Warriors can be whittled down if you keep burning up, and most are stupid enough to face-tank churning earth, which will end the fight. Spirit rangers can be taken down if you play well and take out their spirits first. Glass thieves and mesmers can be taked down if you can dodge their burst, and counter-burst. Even though you don’t burst as hard as glass, they have much less survivability, and your burst (burning speed + arcane wave) will put them immediately on the defensive, and lightning whips can finish them off from stealth.

Its certainly not an optimal build (you are better off with another class), but you can do more for your team than just cheer from the downed state. However, if you don’t have a good team, you cannot carry at all.

Sorrow, Unless you are joking and that would simply just make you a jerk.

Welcome to the club.

You finally see the light, unless I am confusing you with someone else, you finally understand what it feels to play an Elementalist.

Avead.5760:

Dont go 30 water..its a trap.At least not if you dont want to go pure bunker.
In fact dont even go 10 there..Sustain/bruiser ele builds are the biggest kitten there is atm.They die so fast doing nothing in terms of pressure.

This is completely wrong.

This is spreading misinformation at the finest.

silvermember.8941:

Sorrow, Unless you are joking and that would simply just make you a jerk.

Welcome to the club.

You finally see the light, unless I am confusing you with someone else, you finally understand what it feels to play an Elementalist.

Why would I ever make such an huge OP if my only purpose was to joke/troll?

runeblade.7514:

Avead.5760:

Dont go 30 water..its a trap.At least not if you dont want to go pure bunker.
In fact dont even go 10 there..Sustain/bruiser ele builds are the biggest kitten there is atm.They die so fast doing nothing in terms of pressure.

This is completely wrong.

This is spreading misinformation at the finest.

Do you even play ele?? Then pls go ahead and tell me how much damage you do to a warr with a 30 in water build..even with zerkers on
Not only that but tell me also how usefull is that 15 minor trait 1.5 k burst heal when the necro chilled you out of water.
Or how that gm trait that removes 1 condie when you grant regen with an icd of 5 sec helped you outlast a necro/engi/sp ranger

runeblade.7514:

Avead.5760:

Dont go 30 water..its a trap.At least not if you dont want to go pure bunker.
In fact dont even go 10 there..Sustain/bruiser ele builds are the biggest kitten there is atm.They die so fast doing nothing in terms of pressure.

This is completely wrong.

This is spreading misinformation at the finest.

Oh im sure you must be referring to all those eles who after you put some pressure on them thye run away and you cant catch them, all while you are capping the base they were standing at.

Show me a video of player playing agaisnt experienced players of an ele holding a point alone or with one mate where the ele doesnt have tor resort to run away with its tail between the legs. Remember, just because they can run away and you cant kill them doesnt mean they are fine, in fact, thre fact that you are now standing on the base and he is running away is prove that you won the fight (reminder, you win the fights by capturing points, not by running around)

Fortus.6175:

Xaos.3257:

19K and hit like a truck? please link this build i need it badly !
( for reality checking though we have only 70 trait points and we are not talking about wvw )

a’ight sir, I may have to ask for your forum posting card, since you have absolutely no idea of what you are talking.

First of all, the only way you can achieve 19k is by having 30 in water, and runes that have vitality on them, and even then the highest you can get is 18k, so you sir, are a blatant lier, and a really bad at it. Also, please “enlight” us on how a 30 water/30 arcane hits like “truck” when he has no power, no damage trait, no power runes, no critical chance, no critical damage, even if you dont take 30 arcane that ele will be dead long before the first rotation is over since each element has 16 sec CD.

I forget that you need to use those stupid amulets and you can’t even use foods.

sorrow.2364:

silvermember.8941:

Sorrow, Unless you are joking and that would simply just make you a jerk.

Welcome to the club.

You finally see the light, unless I am confusing you with someone else, you finally understand what it feels to play an Elementalist.

Why would I ever make such an huge OP if my only purpose was to joke/troll?

It was more or less just filler when I said that. But it is nice to see more people understand the elementalist plight.

Fortus.6175:

Yah I have done something similar but with 10 in earth for 10% more in melee than water at 10% above health (which is what im guessing why you put those 10 in water) given how we are going kamikaze. Fun the first few times I got them low, then they kinda learned from it and started ranging me, basically the tactic only worked on those who dont know what AoE is.

20% dmg vs vulnerable targets while in water is much more potent than Vital Striking. Thus one of the key pillars to kamikaze ele is being in Water when you get downed.

The best kamizake ele you can get is 10/15/25/10/20. With the combined traits you do double damage while downed.

sorrow.2364:

But it really is impossible.

I have only tried the elementalist for a couple of matches, but now I’m really liking the combat style and its versatility.

I’ve played several hotjoin matches to get used to skills, rotations and combos, then when I’ve realized that hotjoin had nothing else to teach me, I’ve jumped on SoloQ when horrible things started.

I have to say that I’ve played Necromancer for an huge chunk of time (before the june patch), power-based non-spirit ranger and jumped for some time on the warrior bandwagon.

Here’s some of my impressions:

• 30 mandatory points into Arcana is disgusting: they are a must go for pretty much any build because of the attunement recharge and the on-dodge effects. It feels awful when you need to heal and you have your water attunement recharging and you want to burst and the air attunement is unavailable. Any build not running 30 into Arcana is a sub-par build as far as I’ve tested. It really saddens me that a whole profession is forced to play with 30 less traitpoints.
• 30 points into water are a must go to have enough sustain: another things I’ve found out playing in SoloQ. The amount of conditions coupled with the really small HP pool of elementalists force them to bring a lot of condition removals in order to have enough sustain to survive condition professions, which are still very popular. This is seriously a major problem which also affects many other professions which are forced to bring a lot of condition cleansing traits/skills to survive the condition spam. So any build I’ve tried to theorycraft and try, ended up with 30 in water and 3 cantrips, otherwise, I just melt to conditions.

So, after you’ve spent 60 points on defensive traitlines, there is really nothing left to spend on increasing the damage output and I’ve ended up to build a sub-par bunker when I wanted to build balanced.

• 30 in Air with Fresh Air is borderline viable, but the lack of 30 in water makes you die horribly to conditions and have no sustain at all.
• 30 in Fire is unviable, because it might have some potential, but it is even less viable compared to Air because its damage is more sustain rather than bursty, which means that you are more exposed to damage. The lack of sustain coming from 30 in Water clearly says that you can’t afford to be exposed for a long time.
• 30 in Earth are not an option at all. The condition damage of Elementalist is quite high, but it relies on low amount of conditions with high duration rather than constant application, which means that the amount of condition removals in this meta, built to counter Spirit Rangers, Necromancers and Engineers, completely destroy its viability.

At the end of the day, I came up to the conclusion that Elementalist is not worth playing in this meta at all and all the reasons of this are clear, under the eyes of everyone.

Why hasn’t the balancing team done nothing yet? Why I feel forced to play Necromancer or Warriors to be competitive? Why people ask me to reroll once they see I’m playing Elementalist?
Is this what the balancing team wants their game to be?

Well, this seriously isn’t the game I want to play.

Thirty points in Arcane is only mandatory for a s/d dps spec, the non viable D/D sustain , bunker s/d (which also may not be viable) or a dps d/d spec. Although, s/d spec can have 20 into arcana and a few non viable sustain s/d specs. I would state Staff ele requires thirty points but at this point the meta for that is some what not stable.

Traits like fresh air allow you to not need to have thirty into arcane only ten. Makes you wonder when anet will actually reduce attunement recharge to further not need 30 into arcana. You could state why not have refresh attunement trait for fire, earth and water but would that actually be worth while or (in waters case) too over powered.

Currently I hate to have an Ele on my team, I would rather see them on the enemy team because they barely do anything.

Ele’s either use that awful Fresh Air build which dies instantly the moment anyone sneezes in their direction, dying so easily to autoattacks, random AoE splash damage, conditions, anything.
Or they’re that water+arcana “bunker” build with about half the survivability of a REAL bunker (warrior or guardian) and putting out absolutely terrible damage/pressure.

Ele players, I know you like how the class handles (15+ buttons/cooldowns, lovely), but please stick to PvE or WvW. Currently you have no role or purpose in SPvP.

If you must play then roll a Warrior or Thief, they take only a few minutes to learn and you will be VERY effective.

Wintel.4873:

Currently I hate to have an Ele on my team, I would rather see them on the enemy team because they barely do anything.

Ele’s either use that awful Fresh Air build which dies instantly the moment anyone sneezes in their direction, dying so easily to autoattacks, random AoE splash damage, conditions, anything.
Or they’re that water+arcana “bunker” build with about half the survivability of a REAL bunker (warrior or guardian) and putting out absolutely terrible damage/pressure.

Ele players, I know you like how the class handles (15+ buttons/cooldowns, lovely), but please stick to PvE or WvW. Currently you have no role or purpose in SPvP.

If you must play then roll a Warrior or Thief, they take only a few minutes to learn and you will be VERY effective.

Pretty much this thread in a nutshell

i notice some ele’s are getting tanky nowadays. i dont think that they are always the first one to die in a team fight.

eles move so fast. it’s really hard to catch them.