Guild Wars 2

OK, every single time I have asked for help on my elementalist, the answer has always been to just reroll.

This is kittening rediculous. Surely if it is that fundamentally underpowered it needs a buff asap? Why do they let it go for so long before fixing it?

I can’t do ANYTHING on my ele. Even if I complete a perfect combo and land every shot like you should, they just get up and spike me down, or out sustain. It’s not fair and it needs to be fixed.

When every single time you ask for help, the answer you receive is to reroll – then something needs to be done imo. First time I’ve been disappointed with Arena net.

No, you can strike from the shadows with a near-instant gib combo if they don’t suspect it/evade/have some defensive utility. Ele isn’t UP b/c it can be like a magic thief, just without the sustained damage/stealth/mobility. Its not UP b/c they had good sustain when building 100% defense (before they nerfed the heals, stun-breaks, mobility, and cleansing)

Ele is meant for people who really like super-adventure box tribulation mode, where everything is a 1-shot KO. You can then enjoy watching the great game we play from your down-state.

But seriously, I don’t think they actually have a clue about what to do with the ele class. We were in this spot before (after they nerfed the damage in beta) until people figured out you could build 95% defensive and play the game like everyone else. That spec survived too well, so they nerfed it into oblivion and put us back in tribulation mode. What they need to do is decrease the instant-burst capability and make sustain more accessible (so 30 arcane/15 water isn’t necessary for any spec that isn’t kamikaze).

All that said, nothing will get fixed. They won’t give ele utilities with reasonable cooldowns. They won’t give ele reasonable damage. They won’t give ele an elite that does anything worthwile. They won’t give ele a reasonable health pool or ability sustain ever again. They aren’t interested in fixing ele, the only intention is to make the 1-tick pony burst-spec minimally viable so that people won’t complain.

Your issue is not specific to elementalist. Many professions can throw everything they’ve got at a target, and it still walks away.

My advice, if you keep doing what you’ve always done..you’re always gonna get what you always had.

I will agree I’ve yet to see a true burst ele, but I have seen many that have had more than enough sustain. If your landing all of your rotations perfectly, then the issue is that your understanding your targets defense/offense. Perfectly landed rotations don’t mean much if they’re all done whilst they were in death shroud or protection/stability. Rather than chain your skills perfectly, look carefully at what buffs they’re running..kite and auto dmg when they’ve popped defense. If anything, I would support your view more if it was angled that while attunement swapping, skill use, utility use that it is also difficult to manage buff tracking and that some form HuD customization would be useful/helpful

Jatacid.3725:

OK, every single time I have asked for help on my elementalist, the answer has always been to just reroll.

Because that’s the best advice they can give you. Elementalist, being one of the classes with the heighest skill ceiling, is balanced around one or five progamers that just recently discovered how strong other classes can be when played on the same level. I would personally recommend necro at the moment, as it is one of the classes that has a real “flow” when played.

Statistics speak louder than forum whines.

If every player in spvp was a proper competitive player and actually played to win (including choosing viable classes and builds) then anet would instantly see that hardly anyone is using ele and that they have a serious problem.

you can re roll a character almost instantly in spvp. You become s better player if you learn n more than one class. There really no excuse.

Ele’s seriously do have a problem. The fact Iv’e never lost to an ele even with experimental builds shows they need help. I don’t even play the class, but obviously no class should be that weak. Some great ele’s can put up a fight, but they run out of that burst and it’s just a death sentence for them. This is of course spvp. Wvw may be a lot different.

Rerolling only makes sense if you like what you reroll to. Otherwise if you’re coping out what you enjoy for that purpose and you aren’t trying to make money from the game its better to just walk away until things are fixed.

But the same is true for weapon sets as well not just professions.

I don’t like that answer either because it feels defeatist. Rather than opt for hoping for buffs, however, I think you’ll feel better by being more proactive and trying to improve your own gameplay and find a role/build that you can make work for you. I’m not saying they don’t need buffs or other professions don’t need nerfs; I’m not interested in that. For what it is worth I’m just saying you are probably going to have more fun working at it if you take a problem solving approach rather than ‘I fail’, ‘this profession is flawed’, ‘opponent is op’.

So, let’s brainstorm. What are you having problems with specifically/what are you trying to do that you aren’t succeeding at? Specifics are key here because that is how we get better: incrementally.

To some extent, rerolling is actually a really good answer. Reroll to learn other professions, their builds, how they are played, etc. I don’t just mean sign on to one and check out their traits, I mean actually play them until you feel reasonably competent. This will dramatically increase your performance as you will know what to look for and the best ways to counter if and when possible. But reroll until a profession is buffed? Nah, you could be waiting a real long time. Play the profession that you enjoy.

However, with profession choice also comes an understanding of how they fit into the current meta and what that means for build choice and role, as well as the inherent limitations of the profession in general due to how it operates. Are you trying to get your ele to do something it just cannot do? I’m of the camp that the ele is limited to a primarily defensive roamer, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they will always be limited to this role in the long run due to their mechanical limitations.

Unfortunately all can tell you is; reroll as well.

I played exclusively ele for 11 months, only character. I tried ALL builds, including all weapon combos, went to forums and tried builds, humbled and asked for advice.

Believe me man, I tried EVERYTHING, they are just not cutting it. After I got sick and tired of getting ignored, I decided to roll for a guardian, which is eles x3 in EVERY ASPECT OF THE GAME. Ok let me put it into perspective; my fully geared with ascended ele tried Liadri for over 100 times, leaving her like at 10-20% hp at the last trials, I could have probably gotten her but I decided I had enough. THen, out of a wimp and seeing how many guardians had beaten her, I decided to bring my Guardian, which I sh[t you not, had greens with random stas, a rabid scepter adn a rare cleric torch, grabbed a rare staff with I dont even remember the stats, only 2 trinkets, both lvl 10 green with power and some vit (Im not kidding you….) went shouts with AH and got her in less than 10 trials, then tried a radiance Zeal build and beat her again……

Right there I realize how f[cked up the class is on sustain, damage and utility. Perhaps Im not the best ele player in the world, but Im able to fend off uite well by myself. But you know something is wrong when I have to put 4 times the effort to be on par with a bad player playing any other class, and playing with someone who knows more than what their 1-4 skills does can and most likely than not will kill me/make me run away with my tail between my legs and the pride sh[tted on.

Sadly until we get some deserved buffs I will advise you to turn away and leave the class as the critter it is. Only then, when they get close to no representation is that Anet will realize how much the f[cked up.

/cheers, from a player than learned and now rolls and Guardian

Allarius.5670:

Play the profession that you enjoy.

I kind of retired my Ele in sPVP for while now. I love the ele’s theme and class mechanic and all but being facerolled by other classes again and again and again is not my idea of enjoying anymore.

Enjoying my necro and mesmer to be quite honest. But I still have hope for the elementalist in future patches. I will return to ele once dominant classes are finally brought down to ele’s level. Eles are somehow what all other classes should be like – highly telegraphed skills, risk/reward is quite on the spot although sometimes on the verge of too much risk too little reward, i.e the kamikaze fresh air zerker builds. Yeah, there are traits here and there that requires the much needed overhaul to be more appealing (Fire, Earth) and weapon sets (Staff and Focus) that are so lackluster and underused that seeing one in tPVP is like seeing bigfoot pass by your house one Christmas evening) but once these got some love and attention, Eles will be okay, IMO. They don’t need to super buff the class, just fixing the broken stuff and toning down the OP builds (s/d thief, healing signet and skull crack warriors, fear necro, I’m glad sprangers got somewhat toned down but the targeting system for players and AI should really get a major overhaul because petting zoo is still ugh), and we’ll enjoy playing as elementalist again.

It is no point to play class that lose to anything in 1v1
I had play ele for almost 2,500 hours in GW2 and over 10k hours in GW 1 at the competitive level. This is the worst point of this class in the history of GW.

What I do now is roll other 7 classes and got tons of fun building, testing new builds and never touch my ele in pvp again.

So old, and still so true.

Phoenix+Dragon’s Tooth ele with the usual predetermined traits, the only builds that works = Backstab thieves with full zerker spec, but worse.

You can get some really nice burst dmg on the ele the problem is the survivability you lose isn’t worth the trade. We don’t have stealth, clones, or a second health bar to keep us in the fight. We had healing as our survival mechanic but it only really seems to work with bunker. I run 0/10/0/30/30 bunker in wvw even in its nerfed state its still the best Ive found. Im not throwing out crazy numbers but I’m also not getting two shot by thieves.

I think allot of the ele sustained dps issues stem from the fact that our auto attacks in most of the attunements are pretty lackluster. I get that the class is supposed to attune dance and pull off combos and such, but being locked out of air really hurts our dps. Personally Id like to see a revamp of our auto attacks over all 3 weapons. 30 points in arcane would be less of an issue if my vapor blade or impale did close to the dmg lightening whip did..

The issue is simple and people have been crying about it even when ele was THE meta.
You get the lowest stats in the game,you ar forced into spending 30 points in line that gives zero stats,you have no active defence by default other than 2 healing spells top which are nullified by a few autos and your biggest chunk of your damage requires proper setup unless you pic 2 arcanse and try to be a suicide bomber
We have been screaming for ages that Ele has no survivability at all and people were “noob you are immortal” back in the days..Well im in the difficult position to announce you that all that were coming from a investing 50-60 points into specific admittetly too strong traits that are now nerfed and running a defensive amulet that now is useless cause of the condi meta.
Ele had always trouble at surviving ,just now its exposed.And its good that is exposed cause finally anet might notice and do something and stop hide behind the excuse of the overperformance of a single build that used to rule but now is crap
tl dr :GIVE ELE STEALTH !!! :p

Avead.5760:

T :GIVE ELE STEALTH !!! :p

Make Staff earth 4 smoke field would be great.

BlackBeard.2873:

No, you can strike from the shadows with a near-instant gib combo if they don’t suspect it/evade/have some defensive utility. Ele isn’t UP b/c it can be like a magic thief, just without the sustained damage/stealth/mobility.

lol… JUST without sustained damage, stealth and mobility.

Yeah, I am currently playing around with a guardian, mostly for WvW. And boy, guardians work so much better in teams. Eles might have nice burst … if they can land it and if they can stay alive. Which rarely happens. Both eles and guardians have low health pools. But it’s so much easier to survive on the guardian … its crazy. On top of this I feel the guardian has much better team support. And bursting? Well, thiefs are so much better at this thanks to to their stealth and high mobility.

What is the role of the elementalist? I don’t know …

woeye.2753:

What is the role of the elementalist? I don’t know …

Well..it was supposed to be the jack of all trades.But engis took that role with more options ,less restriction and the super power that is “having a viable condi build” so..
:D

There are too many hard counters to them right now. S/D thief crushes them and Necro put too many condis on them.

Those culprits are getting shaved a bit so the matchup should be more fair, but we’ll see