Guild Wars 2

I really can’t take this anymore. ArenaNet doesn’t seem to want to discuss the balance of Elementalists. They seem to feel they are just fine I guess.

I’m done with this game now. I really love the elementalist, I really do. But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

Good job ArenaNet, I’ll play again when you finally make Elementalists viable beyond two builds and make the vast majority of their tool kits viable for MORE than just 5v5 Structured PVP.

Right now they feel like they are just purely balanced for 5v5, but you know —- a vast portion of this game is 8v8 and WvW. Guess what? Elementalist sucks in this game modes, so I’m done. I just can’t stand feeling constantly subpar to every other class.

Wait, Elementalists are balanced in 5vs5 but suck in WvW? What have you been smoking?

WvW is about the only thing they are actually good at due to their AoEs.

its a good class lots of aoe damage meteor shower kill bosses fast. and earth elemental is good on mitigate damage. so don’t really see the unbalanced issue. and if you don’t like the class just make another one?

Just roll a Warrior. All your problems are solved.

-Kill players and NPC’s at twice the speed.
-Twice as much HP
-Much higher Armor
-80%+ crit chance depending on spec
-1200 range rifle that one shots players in PVP
-Pierce multiple targets in a line at 1200 range with the rifle.
-Very high melee AoE damage and mobility.

Or use the exploit that turns you into a thief and spam 2. :P

Leveling my Ele, I ~always~ had issues with story missions where the mobs were just so strong and I would constantly have to graveyard rush enemies and take a death for every one I killed. My warrior is only in his 50’s, but the quality of life difference is amazing. I can just face tank and spam Hundred Blades and have no issue. It’s really quite dramatic.

Well, my ele is level 80 and has 70% of the world done. So is it possible? Of course. It just takes a little more time and skill than warrior. I won’t lie though, I hate knowing people are getting things done easier than I am because of my profession, but I’ve always been an ele as my main, and this isn’t going to change it. Don’t fret too much though, the game hasn’t even been out for month and they clearly have many things too be fixed and can’t do it all at once.

Bah-bye. When you realize Elementalist is simply not the play-style for you and you should pick a class that is, feel free to come back. Just don’t forget your password, which I’m guessing is “aaaaaaaa” since you obviously are only capable of pressing one button.

Rainsfords.7419:

Leveling my Ele, I ~always~ had issues with story missions where the mobs were just so strong and I would constantly have to graveyard rush enemies and take a death for every one I killed. My warrior is only in his 50’s, but the quality of life difference is amazing. I can just face tank and spam Hundred Blades and have no issue. It’s really quite dramatic.

I ditched my level 56 elementalist after doing her story quest last night. It’s simply not worth it. The profession, in it’s current state, frustrates the crap out of me.

There’s nothing wrong with having a profession that’s harder to master then others, but there should be a payoff. A mage/elementalist is a glass cannon that is supposed to die when it get’s hit to much. But all glass and no cannon makes the elementalist no fun at all. Has this profession been tested during beta? Compared to my engineer the gap in playability seems huge. A real shame.

Elementalist is prolly one of the best suited classes for WvW… and he is playable in 8’s as well.

I’m stubborn, so I still play an elementalist. However, it seriously bugs me to know that while I got to do some amazing keyboard workout, other classes can just faceroll to be about as effective.

@Amnon
Thats the point most people make: With ele, you need to make amazing combos to be about as effective as a tief spamming 2 on their keyboard. Thats not balanced.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Thats the point most people make: With ele, you need to make amazing combos to be about as effective as a tief spamming 2 on their keyboard. Thats not balanced.

So they are free to play a different class. I like amazing combos, I like the smell of the smoke coming from the keyboard as I hit those number buttons and F buttons at 88MPH. I like relying on dodging rather than armor, because it makes me feel like my skill matters and not my gear.

And honestly, I don’t feel “on par” with other classes; I feel the Elementalist is better. I feel the Elementalist has control of the fight.

Refugee.3092:

Has this profession been tested during beta? Compared to my engineer the gap in playability seems huge. A real shame.

Oh yes it has been tested. And it has probably gotten the biggest nerfs of all during the last beta weekends. I dont even wanna know what kind of damage and horribly OP kitten we did if we got nerfed before Haste/PW and Mesmers and guardians.

Where is our spell that hits for over 6k, 8k, 10k? Thief has three abilities in D/D that can crit for 6-17k. Oh, and you can spam one of them. If I get a 4k crit I’m happy. That sucks.

In before someone comes here to tell Elchulo that elementalist is not a “WoW Mage” 1 skill spam class. I do agree with you tho, as playing on my warrior or testing my thief, the dmg output is just so easy to do, and its almost 2times eles dmg. Doesnt really feel fair, but on the other hand, I cant play warrior or thief for long since they are so simple to play, its just too boring.

TemperHoof.6438:

I’m done with this game now. I really love the elementalist, I really do. But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

Sounds somewhat overkill, why not just play alts in the meantime?

Durgish.8952:

It just takes a little more time and skill than warrior.

Small correction here, it takes a LOT more time (unless you’re not playing solo, I guess).

Durgish.8952:

Don’t fret too much though, the game hasn’t even been out for month and they clearly have many things too be fixed and can’t do it all at once.

This is something I have mixed feelings about. While you can try to be “understanding” about the situation of the game, they didn’t need to ‘gather data’ or take such a long time to nerf the elementalist to the ground before release.

GankSinatra.2653:

I dont even wanna know what kind of damage and horribly OP kitten we did if we got nerfed before Haste/PW and Mesmers and guardians.

It was just alright, -almost- right there with warrior, ranger and the others. I could actually kill the level 20’s centaurs comboing without taking more than 10-15 seconds each, and it didn’t really hurt that much when they hit me. Playing the same area/level range (Kessex Hills) after release, the same centaurs cost a lot more to kill (15-25 seconds), and seemed to hit me much harder than prior to the nerf.

Still, it’s hard to say, since the differences become more and more noticeable as your character levels higher, and we never had access to high level maps.

Freakiie.8940:

Wait, Elementalists are balanced in 5vs5 but suck in WvW? What have you been smoking?

WvW is about the only thing they are actually good at due to their AoEs.

Until someone sees your Ele` & its extended “Ooh, let`s stand still unprotected & cast easily dodgeable AoEs” & then rushes over & kills you in one second…

Eles are the cc/support class. S/D has great single-target damage potential and a handful of nice ccs (2 blinds, launch, knockdown – and with proper traits, you can cycle them!) and lots of blast finishers; staff has great combo fields (bring two eles and keep the group’s health at 100% using s/d’s blasts in healing rain, coupled with blasts from others) and awesome mobility (you can ‘tank’ 30 mobs or so, aka run in circles with them on your back, with no problem!). But don’t expect high numbers, don’t expect to one shot everyone; you can apply very nice pressure though (staff aoes in W3 make people scatter) or shutdown single targets with s/d, but never spec purely glass cannon (except maybe in specific groups in sPvP, but that’s a totally another matter).

Thing is, cc and party-wide support are quite underrated and underestimated in this game, where you can just kill a boss faster rather than controlling him. Why would you waste time for any cc if you can just kill it twice as fast? The same problem was in GW1 – direct damage with some mitigation from spirits/minions owned every other PvE build, making all support and cc skills just useless.

It’s not THAT useless here, as proper cc can save your party from 10k+ hits in some dungeons, but people are still within the mindset of ‘high dps is best and fu everything else’.
I’m thinking about getting a voice-coordinated group of 5 eles into explorable dungeons, and then compare it with something like 5 thieves. It’s still a plan for a bit further future, though.

The ele’s real problem, though, is that it’s a jack of all trades, with nothing really worth speccing into except for mf in general PvE.
You can’t really go full glass cannon because of the lowest hp pool and the lowest armor. You could use your skills (utilities and weapons) to survive, but then you’re wasting your glass cannon potential, aka not dishing out damage.
You can’t really go full support (cleric’s), as group heals are quite rare even with staff and the green numbers are not THAT high if you’re on your own – if you can coordinate blasts in rain with your group then it’s different, but then you don’t need to go +healing.
You can’t really go full vita/tough, because you’ll still have lower hp/armor than counterparts (like warrior or necro), while dishing micro damage.
You can’t really go full condition damage as you have only a few condition skills, and going full carrion/rampager’s may tempt you to autoattack with earth s/d rather than cycle through attunements as you need it.
And if you do go one of the spec paths, you’re still outclassed by every other profession running a similar build.
Still – you’re good enough to play the game and get things done, as the game, right now, isn’t really that demanding.

This comes from a lv80 ele, with 100% map exploration, half of explorable dungeons done, all personal story done and quite focused on W3, as well.

TemperHoof.6438:

Right now they feel like they are just purely balanced for 5v5, but you know —- a vast portion of this game is 8v8 and WvW. Guess what? Elementalist sucks in this game modes, so I’m done. I just can’t stand feeling constantly subpar to every other class.

they are not balanced in spvp -_-
take any other class made for the purpose your gonna use the ele for and it will do better then the ele could ever hope for with the same player behind the keyboard.
ele’s takes rediculessly high RL skills just to be on pair with a lowskilled bambie, which is a clear indicator that its underpowered as kitten. take the same VERY high skilled player and throw him on another class designed to do the task you took the ele for and he will do SO much more then he ever could on a ele.

balance is not about weather or not you can make a class work if you are insanely skilled and fighting less skilled people NO its about if you are equelly skilled to the people your fighting and you will have a fight which is a coinflip away from who wins.
and the ele deffinately do not fill that description, and is therefore wildly UP compared to the other classes. and this goes through every aspect of the game from spvp to wvw to dungeon runs to solo pve. the ele needs to be MUCH more skilled then any other class to neat the same positive results and they can NEVER reach the same results as the VERY best of the best players on other classes simply becouse their class cannot archieve it with the tools they got (dps vs survivability vs utility/Effective cc)

The Elementalist sacrafices too much single target damage, health and armor for the ability to use 20 skills. There are many utilities in those 20 skills but, thier cooldowns are long and it almost forces me to invest heavily in Arcane and cooldown reduction traits. I’m a very fast player; all my abilities are keybound and it’s not fast enough.

Other classes have HALF the abilities on MUCH shorter cooldowns. The toolbox of some professions are smaller but, much more effective.

GankSinatra.2653:

Refugee.3092:

Has this profession been tested during beta? Compared to my engineer the gap in playability seems huge. A real shame.

Oh yes it has been tested. And it has probably gotten the biggest nerfs of all during the last beta weekends. I dont even wanna know what kind of damage and horribly OP kitten we did if we got nerfed before Haste/PW and Mesmers and guardians.

Actually during the first BWEs we’d do some good damage in total glass cannon, with one build and one weapon. Therefore they nerfed it silly, all across the board.

Erebus

they are not balanced in spvp -_-
take any other class made for the purpose your gonna use the ele for and it will do better then the ele could ever hope for with the same player behind the keyboard.
ele’s takes rediculessly high RL skills just to be on pair with a lowskilled bambie, which is a clear indicator that its underpowered as kitten. take the same VERY high skilled player and throw him on another class designed to do the task you took the ele for and he will do SO much more then he ever could on a ele.

How can you still comment on sPvP if you never did any sPvP?

TemperHoof.6438:

But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

Hi, I’m a necromancer and you sir, disgust me.

Actually during the first BWEs we’d do some good damage in total glass cannon, with one build and one weapon. Therefore they nerfed it silly, all across the board.

Right. It was nerfed to the ground in the later BWEs. It’s unfortunate that people didn’t realize that when they rolled one on release, but many of us in the beta knew that this was going to be a very weak class relative to others at launch because of the huge nerfs late in beta. As it is, a very skilled player can match the results of an average to below average player on another class, which is indicative of a massive over-nerf.

I wanted to play an Ele, and I started one to reserve a name, but haven’t leveled it much because I knew it would be weak after the beta nerfs.

The way i look at it, elementalists can be great with comboing, but other than that, weak. If you arent being the one attacked you can do great damage to enemys but if your the one being attacked your screwed.

Blackmetal.9751:

The way i look at it, elementalists can be great with comboing, but other than that, weak. If you arent being the one attacked you can do great damage to enemys but if your the one being attacked your screwed.

I would argue the “great damage” part as most of out damage comes from easily avoidable area attacks. To land anything meaningful you are relying on your opponent to be clueless of their surrounding environment or standing still. That is why I am mostly sticking to staff WvW where zerg tends to miss things

Nekro if you wanna cry with us about our bad classes, stand in line. If you wanna start a fight, stand in line with the thiefs and mesmers waiting behind the bushes to kill us with MOA and Pistol Whip.

Gelrod.1295:

Erebus

they are not balanced in spvp -_-
take any other class made for the purpose your gonna use the ele for and it will do better then the ele could ever hope for with the same player behind the keyboard.
ele’s takes rediculessly high RL skills just to be on pair with a lowskilled bambie, which is a clear indicator that its underpowered as kitten. take the same VERY high skilled player and throw him on another class designed to do the task you took the ele for and he will do SO much more then he ever could on a ele.

How can you still comment on sPvP if you never did any sPvP?

i still dont get where you get this rediculess accusation from?!
i guess that blood have a hard time to get to your head and it makes illusion and voices tell you wierd stuff -_- either that or you are simply just utterlykitten and doesn’t understand the simpliest things at all.

now stop saying bullkitten or prove that i have never done spvp -_- moron… did tons in the beta’s(testing diff classes etc.) and did quite a bit in the actually game (not that much after release since i really didnt like it in the beta and most of my gaming time after release have gone to lvling chars, wvw and doing dungeons)

No significant changes, even minor ones, can be made in a short time without a various observation and investigation, or u can guess what will happen.

The problem is same issue that early warlocks had in WoW(talking vanilla). While they were perfectly viable class, the amount of effort needed to do well with them, was much higher then other classes. A rogue could simply hit a few keys and stunlock people, while a warlock had to employ every skill in there arsenal just to keep pace.

The idea that a class should be 30x’s harder to use, yet only have same level of strength as other classes when utilized in this way is bad design. Way you want to design all classes is for them to be fun even at the base level, but excell dramatically in hands of a high end player.

Ele is the warlock of GW2 its very hard to use and only a few will ever excell with it and it will probably never be fixed…because in eyes of the devs its working as intended. I love my ele but, i know for a fact other classes can do my duty easier, and with less effort… which has sort of put me off of the game as well since… ele is only class i enjoy =\

I have a level 80 ele and I’ve put her aside for now and playing my mesmer alt. I have been trying to finish my personal storyline since level 76 but it is very difficult to travel around in Ruins of Orr. 99% of the time most of the way points are contested so you have to try to fight the mobs 1 on 1. The things is, you can’t really kite the dead risens very well because there are too many of them packed close together. Often you will aggro several other risens or another one will spawn right next to you while you’re in battle with another. The risens also spawn very quickly here. I am not saying it’s impossible to travel or explore Ruins of Orr but it is quite difficult for a squishy ele.

I see rangers, guardians, thieves and warriors not having much problems but I don’t see any other eles trying to farm this area. Btw, my mesmer is much more fun to play and I don’t faceroll as often.

TemperHoof.6438:

I’m done with this game now. I really love the elementalist, I really do. But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

It’s funny cause i keep reading that EXACT same sentence in almost every other class forum, barr three classes who seem mostly finished.
Example would be the Necro and the Engi forums, funny how that works.

TemperHoof.6438:

Good job ArenaNet, I’ll play again when you finally make Elementalists viable beyond two builds and make the vast majority of their tool kits viable for MORE than just 5v5 Structured PVP.

Ah yes, threats work always so well, you coming from a different MMO where this worked i take it?

TemperHoof.6438:

Right now they feel like they are just purely balanced for 5v5, but you know —- a vast portion of this game is 8v8 and WvW. Guess what? Elementalist sucks in this game modes, so I’m done. I just can’t stand feeling constantly subpar to every other class.

So your claiming we suck in WvWvW? or perhaps it’s just you sucking at playing one?
And again that “every other class” part, your not helping your argument with grasping at such hilarious straws.

The problem is same issue that early warlocks had in WoW(talking vanilla). While they were perfectly viable class, the amount of effort needed to do well with them, was much higher then other classes. A rogue could simply hit a few keys and stunlock people, while a warlock had to employ every skill in there arsenal just to keep pace.

Wrong, Warlocks where just simply kitten. Cant bekittento write an essay on why, if you played one during Vanilla you’d know. Where do people get this idea that if your class is hard to play it cant be underpowered?

Anyway we saw how they ended up later…overpowered and brainless playstyle. Although at high arena ratings they where a fair bit harder to play, but actually DID get enough pay off for working 3x as hard, unlike us elems.

If engis are whining it is because they have a lot of bugs. If they actually feel underpowered they’rekittencrazy.

All should be like engis. Possible to spec for aoe dmg, bunker, can choose to get lots of knockbacks, can choose to get an amazing burst build. Quite a few choices that work for them, yet not feeling utterly overpowered and frustrating like a lot of other classes.

Can use some reduced knockbacking though, you can get netted and knockbacked from 100-0 as an ele. Maybe not 1v1, but if its a 2v2 you’ll probably drop.

GankSinatra.2653:

Wrong, Warlocks where just simply kitten. Cant bekittento write an essay on why, if you played one during Vanilla you’d know. Where do people get this idea that if your class is hard to play it cant be underpowered?

Played warlock and druid in vanilla WoW, both classes blew very very hard.
Then they made warlocks very strong, druids kept sucking for some more years till they made them a bland shadow of themselves. Stronger but plain and boring. Exactly what I’d hate to see in GW2.

Nekrothaft.6390:

TemperHoof.6438:

But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

Hi, I’m a necromancer and you sir, disgust me.

My 2nd main is a (condition specced) necro. It’s possibly the least powerful class… except for Elementalist.
I am sorry but by playing both extensively, necros still are better – or at least it’s easier to bring their “potential” out than doing the same for an elementalist.

Also, necros cantrips etc can’t even be compared with the bland garbage elementalists got.

Of course both don’t hold a candle to my ranger or warrior. I was not shameful enough to roll a thief though so I can’t talk about them.

Erebus

i still dont get where you get this rediculess accusation from?!
i guess that blood have a hard time to get to your head and it makes illusion and voices tell you wierd stuff -_- either that or you are simply just utterlykitten and doesn’t understand the simpliest things at all.

now stop saying bullkitten or prove that i have never done spvp -_- moron… did tons in the beta’s(testing diff classes etc.) and did quite a bit in the actually game (not that much after release since i really didnt like it in the beta and most of my gaming time after release have gone to lvling chars, wvw and doing dungeons)

Erebus

-_- wouldn’t prove kitten, already told you several times and can see that soy did the same that i would take any fight with you if it is possible to do so on a max geared char (not a ele vs ele ofc).

http://i.imgur.com/usuQx.jpg

How could you not know, that everyone gets maxed gear + lvl in sPvP if you ever did sPvP?

Vaerah.4907:

Nekrothaft.6390:

TemperHoof.6438:

But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

Hi, I’m a necromancer and you sir, disgust me.

My 2nd main is a (condition specced) necro. It’s possibly the least powerful class… except for Elementalist.
I am sorry but by playing both extensively, necros still are better – or at least it’s easier to bring their “potential” out than doing the same for an elementalist.

Also, necros cantrips etc can’t even be compared with the bland garbage elementalists got.

Of course both don’t hold a candle to my ranger or warrior. I was not shameful enough to roll a thief though so I can’t talk about them.

Thieves don’t get the best ranged abilities or pets. Though dual pistols is still sweet.

This is more evidence on why I’ve officially quit playing Elementalist until they fix them. With all the tactics and skills I’ve put together, busting my butt over-working to make a meager point in PVP as a weak Elementalist —- I rolled a Ranger and Day-One I was landing 380s in sPVP! I NEVER made anywhere near 150+ points as an Elementalist, and suddenly I’m ROLLING in high scores as a Ranger.

Yes I am Zhaiya Of The Hunt.

Than good for you, that you found a class thats suits your playstile better.

I’ve applied the logic of an Elementalist to the Ranger. No only can I endure Thieves though, as a Ranger I’m actively hunting them down and killing them. Something I have a very hard time doing as an Elementalist. Now that I can kill thieves and burst them down just as fast as they can burst me down, I have no fear of them at all.

Elementalist, in hind sight, have absolutely no burst potential.

Elementalist Burst?: And no, Blowback + Signet of Earth + Dragon Tooth + Pheonix + Fire Grab + Churning Earth = A LOT OF WORK!!

Ranger Burst: Auto Attack + Quickness + Bleed + 20% Crit Increase Elite = Easy Mode Dead Target.

I do way better with my Elementalist than I do when playing Ranger. That doesn’t mean Ranger is bad, does it?

As I said, good for you if you’ve rerolled to a class that suits you better. But just because you do better now than before doesn’t mean elementalist sucks. It just means you are better playing Ranger than Elementalist.

^^ Agreed.

I’ve re-rolled Warrior and feel a lot more effective on the field. PVE or PVP, doesn’t matter.

My Warrior has…

9000 more health
700 more armor
500 more power (850 with signets activated)
30% more critical chance
300 more condition damage (600 with signets activated)
Single target burst damage at 10k+ (single hit) on light armor.

I lose ground targeted AoE and combo fields and gain all of the above? Ok.

Oh no, I’m an extremely good Elementalist. Their Traits, Base Stats, and Utility Skills all just suck. Even worse, they can’t switch weapons so are trapped at a certain Range.

After playing every other class, I just can’t help but conclude that Elementalist is just too poorly designed.

As I said, I like Elementalist and I am effective. I like the traits, I love my utility skills. I like the whole mechanic of the Elementalist.

If you do better with a Ranger now thats great for you. But don’t say, Elementalist sucks, because he doesn’t.

Gelrod.1295:

I like the traits, I love my utility skills.

Okay, he’s trolling. Better off pretending the guy doesn’t exist.

Because I’ve got another opinion than you I am trolling?

I’ve played Elementalist since BWE #1, there is a lot about them I love. But I just can’t fool myself anymore, as much as I love what they have —- it’s just not good enough to compete. I never see Elementalists in a Structured PVP Tournament, and for a very good reason. Now that I’m Ranger I’m able to actually WIN Tournaments. It has nothing to do with my skill with the class, I just realize that after doing all the math —- they just don’t measure up!

Well, I’ve played Elementalist since BWE1 as well and do alot of tourneys with him. And win most of them. In my opinion Elementalist is stronger than Ranger. You think the opposite. And thats fine. You play Ranger and think you are in a better position than before and I play Elementalist and think I am strong. Both are happy.