Guild Wars 2

There is 1 ele build that is viable. One. Others may say that is the same for all classes, but it’s not. You can make like 10 ranger builds that are amazing as long as it has ancient seeds and/or taunt. You can make 97 warrior builds as long as they have adrenal health. You can make both a condi necro and a power necro build that works. You can make a guardian build as long as it has dragon hunter and it will work. You can make about 5 different power mesmer builds and 3 different condi mesmer builds and they’ll be extremely effective. You can make as many thief builds as you want and they’ll work. You can make about 17 scrapper builds and they’ll work. You can make at least 2 different revenant builds with as many weapon combos as you’d like and they’ll work. You can’t make more than 1 ele build without finding yourself being useless.

They should know by now, about 10,000 posts about it.

What you did describe is build variety of 1 base build, not build diversity, build diversity would be a completely different path of what the other build uses, and still be viable, see condi engi for example, quite viable, and no need of use scrapper traits.

this post is total BS. Most classes only have 1 or 2 viable builds.

S/F ele is viable at basically all levels, except the most-competitive, which doesn’t even exist right now. Since there are no seasons, all you have are very casual players who make plenty of mistakes to allow you to make up for the weakness of the spec by just being better than the opponent.

Also, don’t waste your time asking for build diversity. Power-creep in this game killed it, and don’t even expect HoT specs to be viable after the next expansion. Just play something you enjoy and don’t complain, or move on to something you do enjoy.

Complaining serves exactly 0 purpose around here. Nobody hears it, nothing happens.

LOL 2 Rev builds? if you don’t take power invo glint/shiro, you are just hurting yourself. With the huge nerf to retribution line in the last balance patch, condi rev and retri power rev was weakened significantly.

Lolementalists….. the class that qq’s loudest in gw2 after years of being god-tier.

@Poelala..I admire your passion and dedication for the class, as an ex ele main I congratulate you but it’s time to move on, we had our share of fun and now it’s time for reality to kick in. As I explained several times in the past, the elementalist is a fail design concept.

For 4 years we were lucky to have OP/broken trait/amulets that made the class “viable” in pvp, basically Anet has used these elements in the game to save themselves from some well deserved backlash.

Most of you certainly won’t know or remember but this was ele in 2012:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ&index=11&list=PLBF2912D72F052EC7

The devs were literally at the end of the rope..then…@Daphoenix happened and the d/d spec became the defacto ele main and only viable build for years

The idea was to include all defensive traits +amulet and huge healing power stats to outsustain the enemy little by little.

Jonathan Sharp was relieved…no hard job required anymore -_-.

During one dev QA stream, J. Sharp was quick to mention d/d build as soon as somebody in chat was showing concern about ele; few streams before @Daphoenix…the devs were scared to answer anything and they used to quickly dismiss and question about ele; they used to say something :" we’re aware…we’re looking…the game still young" and similar crap.

The class was, is and will remain a complete disaster..no future whatsoever:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Bad-feeling-about-next-elite-spec/first
In this thread I explain why ele is a failure of design and how the next elite will suck just as much if not worst than Tempest.

It’s not a matter anymore of buffing or add some new traits…the core design is bad.
There is no precise self-sustain principle like we have for other professions, I mean : " how ele is supposed to survive ?"

-The devs say healing burst…but healing burst without toughness or stealth..it’s not enough. But toughness+healing is rather strong, too strong in most cases

-The community says ele has protection….but power dmg post HoT greatly outperform this simple defensive boon, the direct dmg now is so high that protection alone won’t save you from losing 60% of your HP in a single hit…and ele has the lowest HP in the game

We’re left with a profession that at its core lacks strong evasive/block skills/trait, has the lowest armor/HP and that it’s asked to facetank dmg in PvP

They have no vision for elementalist..or at least not a vision shared by players, I suggest you to indefinitely swap main..you’ll save yourself more frustration and you’ll actually start enjoying the game again

I can only add after Supreme.3164 that devs ignore our any attempt to make discussion about state of ele for years, literally ignoring tons tons of problems and propositions how to improve things. Other devs somehow manage to stay in touch with players playing other classes but our dev simply ignores EVERY ELE BALANCE POST.

Joking a bit…there is good chance that ele dev see your post and see that title is ele related and he’s like ,,nope nope, moving along, everything is fine".

Another fun fact : pvp balance team and skill balance team ARE NOT THE SAME THING: it means that pvp team doesn’t have control, influence or knowledge what skill balance devs do. That’s why base healing of tempest was nerfed and tied to healing power while in pvp healing amulets started to be removed.

Ele has about the same amount of HP as Guardian, btw.

What eles lack are really protective and offensive skills. Guardian has so many condi cleanse, invuln, and protection, while dishing out immense damage.

Ele is simply UP, and the only way Tempest works is with the most protection and healing traits available.

Most builds are countered and blocked tremendously, which makes it tough for eles.