Guild Wars 2

Hey all been playing my elementalist since launch and up to about level 70 I was feeling quite powerful and was able to take on a few mobs at once and not die horribly. However ever since then been dying a lot more, not being able to tak on more than 1 thing at a time, having to call in friends for nearly every level 70+ story mission.

During the mission where you have to kill The Mouth of Zhaitan my ranger friend soloed it with out any problems I could hardly damage him and he just took me down, had to ask my ranger friend to come and help me and he soloed it while i laid dead on the floor.

So the question is are we underpowered I would have to say a huge yes, it seems as if our heals can be beaten by guardians and rangers our DPS and be beaten by anyone and our tanking is just a joke.

Tried all weapons build is 20/10/10/10/20

Any and all help would be lovely!

in pve we’re definitely not under powered, I completed that mission 10/0/20/10/30 S/D with little trouble. Use your combo fields, time your ccs and heals, kite while your skills come off cooldown, takes some practice but Iv’e never had a problem in PVE like what you’re describing. Also make sure you’ve got appropriate level gear with decent itemization of course.

I definately feel that all the basic Ele skills should do more damage than they do. Compared to levelling my warrior, Ele feels like a wet noodle, which is wrong.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-problem-of-the-elementalist/first#post69485

yes

Didn’t see that post :P I’m glad it’s not just me

nope not in the slightest

I had no problems with any of the story missions or anything. 20/10/30/10/0 D/D.
There are other builds that work well, too. You just have to get used to their playstyle.

I have been able to manage all the story quests solo as a staff elementalist. Lot of circle strafes and kiting.

For WvW they make a great keep bomber/defender. Beyond that I consider them extremely sub-par for both wvw roaming and spvp.

Jnaathra.6549:

I have been able to manage all the story quests solo as a staff elementalist. Lot of circle strafes and kiting.

For WvW they make a great keep bomber/defender. Beyond that I consider them extremely sub-par for both wvw roaming and spvp.

That’s because staff ele is not designed to be a roamer. It’s designed for group combat. Everyone wants to be a roamer and expects whatever weapon set they like to be good at it, but this game isn’t designed that way.

I really like my Ele for PvE been playing it 0/10/20/10/30 D/D. Just use your combos, kite a little bit, and I can do well. I’m current lv 80 and I can say that high level content is harder for everybody. I have a warrior friend and we saved each other a couple times. Risen run like Bolt, they cripple you, poison you, stun you, pull you back. It’s just a pain lol

For PvP though (including WvW) it’s not the best class. Because most of our skills are AoE, so the damage is reduced (otherwise we would be taking down groups at a time). As PvP has a lot more variables than PvE, it’s becomes hard, because players can heal, can dodge, aplly conditions to you, have boons.

Right now I’m on a vit / toughness build, because I’m learning to pvp better, and I felt that some more resistance to get my combos right, etc, would do good.

I’ll soon try full glass cannon, to see wether my full combo can really kill a player. The problem with that is if we get stunned, knock-down, or if 2 players get on you… We just die in 2 seconds…

Well OP, it takes you less than 3 seconds to read the titles of the first page.

For the very reasons listed, I dumped my lvl 47 ele with GREAT animosity. I now run an engineer and have NONE of the problems as before.

My base issue is that in every genre where a pure caster, like an ele, exists – they are glass cannons…but the ele in GW2 is a cracked glass string of spaghetti.

Razarei.2809:

Well OP, it takes you less than 3 seconds to read the titles of the first page.

That post was not on the front page when I did my post

I one shot that mission, but it took me a half hour to do it. A real pain in the neck. You have to keep shifting between attunements, especially back to air to tag this mob when he ports away and starts shooting stuff at you. With ride the lightning and a couple of forward dodges, you can get there without getting too badly messed up. Saving arcane shield for this also helps.

But my damage was so low and the windows of dps time so small that it took a very long time to bring the mob down. I can see other professions having problems with this guy, btw. Elementalists are at least highly mobile and that helps a lot on this fight. A ranger is almost certainly the strongest profession for this fight. I’m not looking forward to doing it on my warrior who is kind of slow moving compared to my elementalist.

So far as elementalists are concerned, I think you have to do this fight as dagger/dagger, or perhaps scepter/dagger. Ride the lightning is virtually mandatory for it. Air elementals (both lesser and major) are also handy. And be patient, this isn’t a quick fight for an elementalist, due in large part to the fight mechanics.

I was able to solo all personal story missions except for the very last one to kill Zhaitan (which requires a group near as I can tell.) They get a lot harder towards the end, though, and some of them I had many wipes on before I figured out a proper skillset to approach them. Generally speaking, staff builds got less and less useful as time went on, and I switched almost exclusively to dagger builds.

For whatever it is worth, leveling my warrior has so far been a breeze compared to my elemental. (Just hit 40 on the war.) Better damage, more survivability, and frankly much simpler to use even with weapon swaps, there’s not that many skills to worry about. After hitting 80 I’ve mostly retired my ele except for WvW, which is the one thing she excels at. My war is better for solo pve and farming mats. (But I’m doubting she’ll be anywhere near as good in WvW. So the grass isn’t always greener.)

Elementalists don’t do as much damage compared to others for sure. However we have much, much more CCs and combos. I will say I didn’t do too much damage until I got an exotic weapon. I can easily take down a Warrior 1v1 as long as you can keep them hindered by CC and control skills. I wouldn’t recommend Elementalist for a straight up glass cannon profession.

atm Im very disapointed i got now my elementalist to lvl 80 did build him with traits to fully dd, also got exotic weapons … but then i just tried a lil mesmer as new character … and that evil mesmer need the same time to kill a mob then i do if i go to his area …
so what is the point if a non equipted lvl 3 mesmer do the same damage as a fully equiped elementalist with lvl 80 which get down lvled to lvl 5 exotic weapons o.O

so maybe any mesmer player her can tell me if it continue that way that you take down mobs in like 5-10 sec ? (that dmg really suprised me since i played a ingineur in beta and he did even less dmg as a elementalist, so that i was really happy at the beginning ^^ )

I think if you feel any other profession is “stronger,” you probably should play that profession because:
1, This is just a game after all. You should play what you like.
2, Ele is strong. Or at least if you like ele, you would feel that way.

You shouldn’t be obligated to play something. If you feel ele is weak or you feel other class is stronger, ele might not be the right choice for you. This is from my personal experience. I main ele and love it. When i try to play any other profession, I feel like I am not doing as much (even if I might actually do).

This is my favorite quote from my friend “If you have to think whether it is worth it or not, it might not be.” Don’t stress yourself over it.

Nope, I feel like ele is in a great spot right now.

I feel like the complaints are more about HOW the Ele “has” to be played, as opposed to how good the class is.

Many people expected a heavy damage Glass Cannon from the Elementalist, and you just cant do that imo. You can do some nice burst, but as far as consistent damage goes i feel like its the weakest class in the game.#

On the other hand the bunker build is just borderline OP and the most durable class in the game, with great mobility/CC and decent damage/support. Its just not what people want/expect when choosing a mage profession.

Xanes.2641:

I feel like the complaints are more about HOW the Ele “has” to be played, as opposed to how good the class is.

Many people expected a heavy damage Glass Cannon from the Elementalist, and you just cant do that imo. You can do some nice burst, but as far as consistent damage goes i feel like its the weakest class in the game.#

On the other hand the bunker build is just borderline OP and the most durable class in the game, with great mobility/CC and decent damage/support. Its just not what people want/expect when choosing a mage profession.

This is exactly it. Our damage application is very clunky, and in order to get optimal damage we have to know how all our traits and skills fit together AND play our keyboard like Rachmaninoff.

I find it interesting and enjoy the feel of it, but I can understand how people might be put off by having to jump through all those hoops to get damage that any random zerk Warrior can beat by pressing #2.

lmfao, Asura has gone and taken the exact same post and necrod a bunch of 6 month old threads.

if ele is underpowered than other clas must be like joke to eles .. basicly immortal to 1vs 1 with proper build even more if player knows what to do .. curently most powerfull class in game

Dina Van Heyr.3018:

if ele is underpowered than other clas must be like joke to eles .. basicly immortal to 1vs 1 with proper build even more if player knows what to do .. curently most powerfull class in game

so you have problem Killing a staff ele?

and a glass cannon D/D?

and a scepter one?

or maybe you are talking of pvp…..where ranger is the current fotm and “unbeatable OP class”

LordByron.8369:

.where ranger is the current fotm and “unbeatable OP class”

ranger is curenly most unbalanced and buggy class in game, talking pve or www, just check over 1200 respond (140k views) topic which is greatly ignored by devs.
Anet ansvered to whining ele players, how poor ele is, before they even learned how to play ele class so they buff ele and still do..so curently ele is most powerfull class in game, everybody can be defeated but eles are the hardest ones..

I’ve played as every single profession so far and leveled most of them to 80, and yeah I feel like ele is the weakest of all DPS-wise. Despite that, it’s still my favorite out of all my characters. What we need is a massive boost to our overall dps then maybe we’ll see different builds besides the cookie cutter bunker build we’re pretty much forced to play as just to actully be effective. Even if you go full glass cannon, which makes our already low survivabilty even worse, you still only deal a fraction of what other professions are capable of doing if they go full glass. In most games mage-type classes are usually the nukers of the game who out dps every other class combined but are as frail as wet tissue paper. Well, we’re as frail as wet tissue here, but also have some of the lowest DPS as well. That just doesn’t seem right to me. I should be able to go full glass and see meteors hit for 20k just like a full glass warrior can hit for that much with 100b.

Talking about bunker eles in pvp where holding a point is playing an objective and than comparing them to pve rangers, right. Rangers in pvp are currently very strong.

I’ve been moving towards celestial items while upgrading to ascended gear and if anything, I’m getting more and more impressed with the damage my elementalist is doing. The trick is to know what to compare it with. A melee warrior will of course do more, but a rifle engineer has a very similar damage output compared to an ele. How is the longbow faring?

I feel incredibly powerful, though not in damage but in influence on the battle :p

Indeed, Crowd Control and Just all out nuking won’t output what you’d expect. This is because A-net did away with the trinity. Don’t worry you are still balanced with other classes.

I don’t feel underpowered at all. I have a level 80 Warrior and a Level 80 Guardian and I’m now working on an Elementalist. I really enjoy the class and feel at least on par with my other 2 characters when they were that level. Add in how well rounded the class is and I am quite happy with Elemenatlist. I might not do the absolute most damage of anyone, but I’m still very respectable. Plus I can buff the party and put down some pretty good heals. The diversity of the Elemantalist is rivaled only by the Guardian in my opinion. I quite enjoy the class.

I’m just playing your standard 0/10/0/30/30 using a staff.

ThiBash.5634:

I’ve been moving towards celestial items while upgrading to ascended gear and if anything, I’m getting more and more impressed with the damage my elementalist is doing. The trick is to know what to compare it with. A melee warrior will of course do more, but a rifle engineer has a very similar damage output compared to an ele. How is the longbow faring?

Engineer suffers similar problems to the Ele. Because we have so much more skills than other classes, Anet made them abit weaker than other classes skills.

My Ranger does alot more dmg than my Ele. Heck, i daresay in full BM build with Apothecary gear that my pet alone does more consistent damage than my Ele in full berserk gear.

Elementalists are forced into going all out defensive so obviously they’re the hardest to kill but if elementalists don’t go all out defensive they get 1-hit killed in most boss-fights or they get killed first when zergs clash.
We are hard to kill for a reason. Because we go all-out on healing toughness and some vitality.

Xanes.2641:

Engineer suffers similar problems to the Ele. Because we have so much more skills than other classes, Anet made them abit weaker than other classes skills.

My Ranger does alot more dmg than my Ele. Heck, i daresay in full BM build with Apothecary gear that my pet alone does more consistent damage than my Ele in full berserk gear.

That’s also because unlike other professions, that can specialize in conditions or direct damage, elementalists have a mix of both. Which also means that you’ll rarely see high damage numbers, because your damage will be split between attacks, conditions (and maybe elementals).

nukularpower.2106:

I definately feel that all the basic Ele skills should do more damage than they do. Compared to levelling my warrior, Ele feels like a wet noodle, which is wrong.

Every class is UP in PvE level compared to a warrior. GS 100B is easiest to do in PvE.

You missspelled “overpowered”.
No other class can stack might up for the whole team so easily than an ele.
Through constant boon sharing you have alot of support for the team too, not to mention the water heals. You have a high survivability if playing alone, while you still have a nice movement and viable dmg. Actually pretty good in some fractals.
Sure you have not high-bursts like other classes have. But still you got a lot of aoe.

I don’t know i feel that ele die a lot, maybe a little bit more survival was good, when i’m alone i take forever to kill an mob, i give so little damage, my boyfriend is a mesmer and i can’t live without him anymore, i can’t kill an single mob by myself, i always need his help, is so frustrated, i’m always the first to die and he can hold so much, he can hold like 5 mobs and then revive me. That is so frustrated. I am lv 80 like him i have full exotic, i have tought, vitality, power damage, but still….. ARGH but maybe is just me maybe i suck in playing as ele -.-

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

No other class can stack might up for the whole team so easily than an ele.

quite false….
Mesmers, guardians and possibly Others can…..

Through constant boon sharing you have alot of support for the team too, not to mention the water heals.

Guardians and engis heals much better i hope you agree on this….
But thetruth is ele’s healing in pve is just useless…..

For Boon sharing (actually AURA sharing) requires a single weapon set…

Any ele with a build relying on a single weapon set is not effective…..

You have a high survivability if playing alone, while you still have a nice movement and viable dmg. Actually pretty good in some fractals.
Sure you have not high-bursts like other classes have. But still you got a lot of aoe.

And when it comes from the thing i play mostly i can clearly disagree.

While movement don t change anything in fractals, having more than 2 eles means struggling in DPS events like veteran shamans…

Its actually the undeniable proof of how bad is ele dps.

For fotm we have
D/D …obviously staying in melee range with 1shotting enemies is often a bad idea but is useful for trash mob even if requires twice the skill for half the effect of other classes.

You can t reach a good burst…..

S/F clearly awesome for projectiles…… cannot hit mobile targets :|

Staff well it just has range…..

Also as said DPS is a necessity…
Most mobs just hit hard as a truck….defense is just not useful you have to evade and kill them fast….

But the reality is clearly shown in gw2lfg….
You won t see LF ele there….never going to happen….so calling ele OP in PvE is clearly a huge mistake.

I’d like to see more survivability for the ele at the base level, with a small damage increase. And an appropriate reduction in healing of course.

Probably need to move the profession into the mid tier of hps (15k hp base folks, i.e ranger, mesmer, and engineer). If not that, it’ll really take a big rework on adding more defensive/evasive effects to our weapon kits.

LordByron.8369:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

No other class can stack might up for the whole team so easily than an ele.

quite false….
Mesmers, guardians and possibly Others can…..

Through constant boon sharing you have alot of support for the team too, not to mention the water heals.

Guardians and engis heals much better i hope you agree on this….
But thetruth is ele’s healing in pve is just useless…..

For Boon sharing (actually AURA sharing) requires a single weapon set…

Any ele with a build relying on a single weapon set is not effective…..

You have a high survivability if playing alone, while you still have a nice movement and viable dmg. Actually pretty good in some fractals.
Sure you have not high-bursts like other classes have. But still you got a lot of aoe.

And when it comes from the thing i play mostly i can clearly disagree.

While movement don t change anything in fractals, having more than 2 eles means struggling in DPS events like veteran shamans…

Its actually the undeniable proof of how bad is ele dps.

For fotm we have
D/D …obviously staying in melee range with 1shotting enemies is often a bad idea but is useful for trash mob even if requires twice the skill for half the effect of other classes.

You can t reach a good burst…..

S/F clearly awesome for projectiles…… cannot hit mobile targets :|

Staff well it just has range…..

Also as said DPS is a necessity…
Most mobs just hit hard as a truck….defense is just not useful you have to evade and kill them fast….

But the reality is clearly shown in gw2lfg….
You won t see LF ele there….never going to happen….so calling ele OP in PvE is clearly a huge mistake.

You seem to be a little misinformed. Try playing with S/D in PvE. Your ability to put up a fire field and spam a ridiculous number of blast finishers easily puts the Elementalist as the top might stacking class.

By boon sharing, yes granting fury to your party several times is very strong.

The ability to give an easy and strong aoe heal just for swapping to water is very strong.

Using gw2lfg postings as a way to determine the Ele’s strength is ridiculous. I have run a full party of 5 Elementalists before and not only did we kill things quickly, but we also never died or hardly had any damage for a long period of time.

Eles do not struggle in DPS when played well. I have 3 abilities that can hit up to and over 10k with S/D. The only reason an Elementalist would be holding a team down is if they don’t know how to play one very well.

Eles are not the top at anything. while we can stack a good amount of might, guardians can do 12 stacks to the party in 2s every 20s with just one skill that’s alot better then what we can do. Boon sharing by aura sharing while good also requires 2 traits while being stuck in the D/D or D/F weapon set to make good use of those traits and when you compare that to For Great Justice! that can be used for any spec on the warrior well…seems kinda meh if fury sharing is what your going for.

With that said I don’t think Eles are underpowered because we can do good support while dealing decent damage but Eles are not top dogs at any one thing.

You are a very bad Ele if you can’t keep up a very minimum of 12 stacks of might at all times. Guardian’s one ability does not recharge fast enough to allow for constant might, an Ele’s blast spam keeps up might at all times.

To say a Guardian is better is flat out wrong.

Dog.1472:

You are a very bad Ele if you can’t keep up a very minimum of 12 stacks of might at all times. Guardian’s one ability does not recharge fast enough to allow for constant might, an Ele’s blast spam keeps up might at all times.

To say a Guardian is better is flat out wrong.

Ele’s blast spam can keep up might only because we spec for boon duration, just like guardians could spec for it so it be up at all times.

Saying that eles can do group boons better then Guardians is just flat out wrong.

Yes Eles are Totally UP please buff them!

And with boon duration I get myself to 25 stacks, but I wasn’t counting that. I could probably go higher, but that’s the cap.

I am speaking about the party, I have never had a party have less than 12 stacks unless there’s a ranger sitting in the back. On average, even if no one else is stacking, they have 14.

On top of that, everyone can throw out a blast finisher, it’s not just the Ele. That nice little staff ability however, has no combo field. It is one stand alone ability.

With everyone using blast finishers, the party has no issue getting to 25 stacks at all times.

Just going to note here, most classes see Ele as the peak of balance most classes want to become. If you guys are ‘underpowered’, then every other class is absolute garbage.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

You seem to be a little misinformed. Try playing with S/D in PvE. Your ability to put up a fire field and spam a ridiculous number of blast finishers easily puts the Elementalist as the top might stacking class.

By boon sharing, yes granting fury to your party several times is very strong.

The ability to give an easy and strong aoe heal just for swapping to water is very strong.

Using gw2lfg postings as a way to determine the Ele’s strength is ridiculous. I have run a full party of 5 Elementalists before and not only did we kill things quickly, but we also never died or hardly had any damage for a long period of time.

Eles do not struggle in DPS when played well. I have 3 abilities that can hit up to and over 10k with S/D. The only reason an Elementalist would be holding a team down is if they don’t know how to play one very well.

again this 30/30/30/30/30 build with 6 hands?

Ele can do 1 thing at a time that is the problem..
You want to keep stacks of might with scepter? fine lets miss everything that moves….

You want to use D/D? good but you die in melee because mobs aren t FAIR

You want to use staff?
Cool you deal no damage and miss anything moving,…but you have range :|

No really ELEs in PvE are far from OP quite UP if i may say so….and as i said gw2 lfg is quite the proof

You want to ignore the only LFG tools used?
Then wich other excuse do you want?

So if you know the game you know with 1 ele migh stacks lowers PARTY dps because ele lacks DPS
2 ELES are outright terrible…..
3 ELES i bet you can’t get past veteran shamans in fotm and similar…

P.S: ele can stack 9 <==== might on a LONG CD
I want to see you waste a slot for arcane blast in PvE really……and then surviving while casting churning earth….

If you still have to say ele is OP i wait you for a fotm lvl 38 run……so you can show me how OP you are and how many stacks you keep while surviving….

you don’t have to limit yourself to a weapon set for aura share, signet build works on all weapon sets(not good for staff because you need to be close to your team for aura sharing). Not great for WvW but works good for most of the dungeons.

signet build also works good with s/d build, the immobilize you get from earth signet allows you to land your dragon’s tooth on target.

Guardian’s staff #4, if traited(two-hand cd), has very low cd and can easily maintain might buff on a whole party while healing the whole party too……(for me it’s the best guardian weapon with auto aoe + heal + cc + swiftness + combofield + might buff all in one package)

dps is still the biggest issue with elementalists, all skills have HORRIBLE cd. The low base HP certainly doesn’t help either.

Elementalists are actually are one of the few good class to use against shaman in fotm because of focus air #4

Wow, 9 stacks of might. I really don’t think there is any more that can be said. If that is all you think Eles can accomplish then you aren’t very experienced with the class.

I never said Ele is OP in PvE (only in PvP), I agree that they are balanced in PvE. It’s the people that say the class is underpowered that have a L2P problem.

Dog.1472:

Wow, 9 stacks of might. I really don’t think there is any more that can be said. If that is all you think Eles can accomplish then you aren’t very experienced with the class.

I never said Ele is OP in PvE (only in PvP), I agree that they are balanced in PvE. It’s the people that say the class is underpowered that have a L2P problem.

Wait your talking about “parties”, and buffs, and [clearing stuff with a party full of eles]….your talking about PvP >.>!? I mean I might be new to this game right now but.. Unless your spamming buffs all the time in spvp (Doubtful, and useless) How is what your saying have any bearing in pvp… If anything higher boons stacks should make eles incredibly OP in PvE and NOT in pvp…

Now as for the experience of a triple Rank 1 pvp-er in wow, I made my first character an ele, and got owned, my second character a necromancer got owned slightly less. (At this point I think “Huh, nice learning curve, and there must be some great pvp talent here!”) At this point I decide to try mesmer, and by buttons I consistently get top kills, top scores, and least deaths in spvp.

Uhmmm, something is wrong… I made an engineer, and my god is there CC amazing! You can keep someone in a root for 20 secs! (I realised at this moment that I wasn’t actually seen pvp talent, the same people that took the full 20 secs root without changing weapons to range were the same people owning me in my elemental) Atfer this I made a warrior and again I didn’t even followed a build, I just read the default skills, (did not change them one bit) went into spvp and bam, profit top score every single game… wow…

I remade (I deleted my first out of rage) my elementalist and Im leveling it to see if even if they have a “real” learning curve, I might be able to do something amazing eventually.

Anyways as for new people wanting to play elementalists, and are highly competitive, I would advice they stay clear until they “fix” them.

LordByron.8369:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

You seem to be a little misinformed. Try playing with S/D in PvE. Your ability to put up a fire field and spam a ridiculous number of blast finishers easily puts the Elementalist as the top might stacking class.

By boon sharing, yes granting fury to your party several times is very strong.

The ability to give an easy and strong aoe heal just for swapping to water is very strong.

Using gw2lfg postings as a way to determine the Ele’s strength is ridiculous. I have run a full party of 5 Elementalists before and not only did we kill things quickly, but we also never died or hardly had any damage for a long period of time.

Eles do not struggle in DPS when played well. I have 3 abilities that can hit up to and over 10k with S/D. The only reason an Elementalist would be holding a team down is if they don’t know how to play one very well.

again this 30/30/30/30/30 build with 6 hands?

Ele can do 1 thing at a time that is the problem..
You want to keep stacks of might with scepter? fine lets miss everything that moves….

You want to use D/D? good but you die in melee because mobs aren t FAIR

You want to use staff?
Cool you deal no damage and miss anything moving,…but you have range :|

No really ELEs in PvE are far from OP quite UP if i may say so….and as i said gw2 lfg is quite the proof

You want to ignore the only LFG tools used?
Then wich other excuse do you want?

So if you know the game you know with 1 ele migh stacks lowers PARTY dps because ele lacks DPS
2 ELES are outright terrible…..
3 ELES i bet you can’t get past veteran shamans in fotm and similar…

P.S: ele can stack 9 <==== might on a LONG CD
I want to see you waste a slot for arcane blast in PvE really……and then surviving while casting churning earth….

If you still have to say ele is OP i wait you for a fotm lvl 38 run……so you can show me how OP you are and how many stacks you keep while surviving….

pls stop im crying already! devs pls BUFF eles… the poor guys…