Guild Wars 2

elementalists are better now for the fact that anet unnerfed signet of restoration and celestial amulet. I play ele and eng ( for making a parallel ) and also eng celestial build hase become really popular and effective …. before the unnerfed of celestial amulet the builds strong for eng were quite only based on rabid amulet … in my opinion it is not the elementalist who got buffed … but only the runes he uses. And we wil lsee after the little nerf on might and on sigil of battle if something will change

PierPiero.9142:

elementalists are better now for the fact that anet unnerfed signet of restoration and celestial amulet. I play ele and eng ( for making a parallel ) and also eng celestial build hase become really popular and effective …. before the unnerfed of celestial amulet the builds strong for eng were quite only based on rabid amulet … in my opinion it is not the elementalist who got buffed … but only the runes he uses. And we wil lsee after the little nerf on might and on sigil of battle if something will change

Is there another one coming? As far as i know might was already nerfed to 30 from 35 power per stack.

Lawful.5314:

Difference is huge, and that is effectiveness.
Some of them can’t get the job done all the time.

You can argue how important effectiveness is all you want but effectiveness doesn’t equate to viability. The only thing viability is measured in is whether or not it gets the job done.

I’d also argue that there is no one over-arching be all-end all spec for any class that always gets the job done. Berserker anything is going to get downed in 2 seconds when it impacts with a 40+ man zerg in WvW. While my spec may survive that, it won’t be nearly as effective for 30+ fractal content. All about using the right tool (spec) for the job.

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

I don’t know if it’s better, i just know i play better, but anyway, it’s forever fun to play. I just wish we could have equal base stats. Less HP and less armor is ok as long as you have more of something else to compensate. For great justice. But I guess it’s balanced this way because we have more skills and are smarter with an inimitable aura of grandeur.

MyPuppy.8970:

I don’t know if it’s better, i just know i play better, but anyway, it’s forever fun to play. I just wish we could have equal base stats. Less HP and less armor is ok as long as you have more of something else to compensate. For great justice. But I guess it’s balanced this way because we have more skills and are smarter with an inimitable aura of grandeur.

Yep, basically that was the mindset when they made the class, give them 20 weaker skills, and let them compensate with quantity over quality.

And in fact, half of those skills are very situational.

Lawful.5314:

PierPiero.9142:

elementalists are better now for the fact that anet unnerfed signet of restoration and celestial amulet. I play ele and eng ( for making a parallel ) and also eng celestial build hase become really popular and effective …. before the unnerfed of celestial amulet the builds strong for eng were quite only based on rabid amulet … in my opinion it is not the elementalist who got buffed … but only the runes he uses. And we wil lsee after the little nerf on might and on sigil of battle if something will change

Is there another one coming? As far as i know might was already nerfed to 30 from 35 power per stack.

No , i don’t think . I wanted to say that the effect of nerf of might and of sigil of battle will be visible in a while . For example now many cele rifle eng don’t use sigil of battle more but that build is less based on might than elementalist one . I was only saying that something could happen .

Lawful.5314:

Wait what? It went from worst class in the game to best class in the game?

It was never that bad, people didn’t know how to play them that much back then.
I recall Ele’s in PvP were all going glass-cannon and getting 1-shot by anything on a staff zerker build.

Nowadays in PvP Ele’s tend to go for a more tanky setup with team support and decent damage, or burst Scepter yolo builds XD at least those have more survivability then the previous zerker staff builds.

In PvE Ele right now is competing with thief for #1 on damage as those 2 are the top damage dealing classes in dungeons, add to that, that ele’s tend to bring fury to the group, as well as fire fields for might stacking a couple(or ton depending on your build) blasts and ice bows which are just insane for damage and 5s deep freezes.

Exeon.4358:

It was never that bad, people didn’t know how to play them that much back then.
I recall Ele’s in PvP were all going glass-cannon and getting 1-shot by anything on a staff zerker build.

It was the worst profession in the period from Dhuumfire patch to april feature pack.

Lawful.5314:

SO i haven’t played Guild Wars 2 in over a year, but i used to roll Elementalist, despite it being the weakest class in PvP and being Mediocre in PvE.

Has anything changed for Elementalist this past year?

Seems like Thieves got nerfed pretty hard as i googled up some QQ threads, otherwise i think most classes became better?

Not sure, how is elementalist now in PvP and PvE?

Indeed 1 year ago I also gave up on elementalist for several months but around the April-May patch the elementalist became viable again. Since August we’ve had a couple small nerfs but nothing that completely invalidated the class.
Thieves got nerfed but are still a force to be reckoned with.
Rangers got buffed and are now finnaly a force you’d rather have with you than against you.
Warriors got nerfed, still needs some tweeks but are generally quite good.
Engineer turrets got improved making it a viable and fun profession.

That is about all that I really know.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Engineer turrets got improved making it a viable and fun profession.

It’s fun but not for your enemy.

Exeon.4358:

Lawful.5314:

Wait what? It went from worst class in the game to best class in the game?

It was never that bad, people didn’t know how to play them that much back then.
I recall Ele’s in PvP were all going glass-cannon and getting 1-shot by anything on a staff zerker build.

Nowadays in PvP Ele’s tend to go for a more tanky setup with team support and decent damage, or burst Scepter yolo builds XD at least those have more survivability then the previous zerker staff builds.

In PvE Ele right now is competing with thief for #1 on damage as those 2 are the top damage dealing classes in dungeons, add to that, that ele’s tend to bring fury to the group, as well as fire fields for might stacking a couple(or ton depending on your build) blasts and ice bows which are just insane for damage and 5s deep freezes.

When i was playing over a year ago, Elementalists were running almost exactly the same build as they run now, but they were the weakest class in PvP.

All cantrips with maxed water and arcane, plus some earth.
(back then you had 70 traits, now you only get 14 total traits)

Maybe elementalists were playing glass cannon at the very start of GW2, but that was a very long time ago when people thought the class was a “damage dealer mage” but it didn’t take people very long to realize that you can’t survive unless you run defensive builds and that your damage isn’t that great even full glass cannon.

So the class turned into something like a starvation class, you would win fights by outliving the opponent while you chip down his HP bit by bit and outplaying him.

Anyone who is saying that “The class was never weak” has probably just started playing recently, or didn’t actually play elementalist back then.

PierPiero.9142:

Lawful.5314:

PierPiero.9142:

elementalists are better now for the fact that anet unnerfed signet of restoration and celestial amulet. I play ele and eng ( for making a parallel ) and also eng celestial build hase become really popular and effective …. before the unnerfed of celestial amulet the builds strong for eng were quite only based on rabid amulet … in my opinion it is not the elementalist who got buffed … but only the runes he uses. And we wil lsee after the little nerf on might and on sigil of battle if something will change

Is there another one coming? As far as i know might was already nerfed to 30 from 35 power per stack.

No , i don’t think . I wanted to say that the effect of nerf of might and of sigil of battle will be visible in a while . For example now many cele rifle eng don’t use sigil of battle more but that build is less based on might than elementalist one . I was only saying that something could happen .

I don’t know if the sigils are a major blow or not, they are felt in longer fights and might is generally weaker now, so you can’t stack as much and its not as powerful, but in general, shouldn’t be that much of a problem, unless you were one of those “pro” elementalists that ran 1v3 fights for over 90 seconds each fight, having enough time to stack up 20 stacks of might. (Even with the nerfed signet, you would still be able to get up about 16 might stacks in those 90 seconsd anyways)

Iris Ng.9845:

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

Yep. It’s not only the Elementalist that “has to” use specific skills to be viable in PVP.

How many Warriors out there not using Berserker Stance? How many Mesmers not using Decoy/Blink? How many Engies without Toolkit? etc etc

Saying that only Eles “need” to use Cantrips while all other professions can use all their skills is completely false.

I was using a Staff dps build, in a good organized team it’s pretty good way of doing massive damage, sure you die a lot if you are isolated, but the key to the build is to stay with your team and support them with hard hitting AOE skills.

maddoctor.2738:

Iris Ng.9845:

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

Yep. It’s not only the Elementalist that “has to” use specific skills to be viable in PVP.

How many Warriors out there not using Berserker Stance? How many Mesmers not using Decoy/Blink? How many Engies without Toolkit? etc etc

Saying that only Eles “need” to use Cantrips while all other professions can use all their skills is completely false.

I was using a Staff dps build, in a good organized team it’s pretty good way of doing massive damage, sure you die a lot if you are isolated, but the key to the build is to stay with your team and support them with hard hitting AOE skills.

Shoutbow warriors don’t use stances, turret engi don’t use toolkit, phantasm Mesmer don’t have both dercoy and blink…now how many viable ele build without canrips?…none

Yeah, staff ele brings icebow, d/f ele “has” to bring signet of Air and guess what? Fresh Air ele has to trait for Fresh Air. Wait? Are we gonna argue about how each profession must use what skills and traits to bring out the most synergies with their build now? Pointless.

Even full signet condi ele is viable. Diamond skin ele is viable. Things that matter is to play uour build with the right role. If you spec for pure damage, you plus one your team fight. If you spec for bruiser, you bunk a point, try a decap or hold out a 1vX until your teammate arrives. Playing with builds should have that in mind.

I believe that for a decent bit, Ele’s WERE the weakest class in PvP. I believe this was right when the EA + Ripple nerf happened.

Iris Ng.9845:

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

This. Skill/utility balance in this game is fricken awful. I’m still yet to find anything that comes close to water/arcane/cantrips. In 2.5 years, the crap skills/traits are just just as crap, the situation has not improved.

The reason why water/arcane/cantrips is always the best choice is that the basic design of the class is flawed — the base defense is too low, which guarantees that survivability traits/utilities remain king.

The base defense of thieves is not that much higher, yet it is offense that remains king for them. To each his own.

The problem is not that we need defense, but that our defensive skills/traits/utilities are quite better than our offensive ones. Look at fire/air traits for example, they are terrible. In addition, our attacks are generally hard to land or ineffective while our healing abilities are strong and almost automatic.

I am experimenting with new builds on my own and I can tell you that using arcane is not mandatory. I have tried interesting combos with GoEP and GoLE and they work rather well. But so far the only thing that I have found to be required in all builds is a strong cleansing potential.

scerevisiae.1972:

Iris Ng.9845:

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

This. Skill/utility balance in this game is fricken awful. I’m still yet to find anything that comes close to water/arcane/cantrips. In 2.5 years, the crap skills/traits are just just as crap, the situation has not improved.

The reason why water/arcane/cantrips is always the best choice is that the basic design of the class is flawed — the base defense is too low, which guarantees that survivability traits/utilities remain king.

Yep, the core of the class itself is very weak.
70% of our traits are garbage.
Our cantrips are decent.
Our survivability and damgage is weak-mediocre.

Like i said in the previous posts, we exceel at nothing, we are jack of all trades, master of none, even more so, we are less than average at them actually.
If you combine all the weaker aspects of the elementalist into one and add its versatility in the mix, the class is barely average.

And the only reason why elementalist is viable at the moment, is because compared to 1 year ago, almost every single class was nerfed in some way, as i look through the patch notes and the gear was slightly improved for PvP.

If you want to say that Elementalist is one of the best classes in the hands of a good player, then the same could be said about ANY other class aswell, infact, ANY other class, in the hands of an excellent player, will be stronger than the elementalist, with less effort required.

Don’t go running around watching Youtube videos of the 1% of the elementalist elite mopping the floor with pugs, then thinking the class is very strong, the truth is, that 1% of the warrior elite, 1% of the thief elite, 1% of the necro elite, and others will mop the floor with that elementalist with little to no effort.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

But so far the only thing that I have found to be required in all builds is a strong cleansing potential.

Which is why I’m so hesitant personally to veer away from 4 Water and /D when using two weapons. The double cleansing wave plus Cleansing Fire basically means I can ignore conditions entirely.

Again the issue you’re struggling with is design. It’s all flip flopped. The thief has highest burst damage with tons of escapability. Our damage isn’t equal and we don’t have anywhere near the same escapability (due to nerfs) because we get healing. This is what I’ve struggled with my Elementalist for so long, cause it leaves you ultimately to some very limited options design wise if you want to have the best of all worlds like most classes can.

Also the second they offer the same ranged AOE potential in other class I’m totally going to it. Really paying attention to HOT changes. I’d be on a necro right now but it’s just not quite the same. I tried Engineer at release and while I loved it the Grenades just hurt my hands to use lol…

The base Elementalist has to work with is just so abysmal stat wise. Maybe HOT will change that I am not sure but having to overcome baked in class limitations of defensive stats by having to excessively gear defensively to perform in WvW is annoying at best and criminal in that there’s very few ways to gear to get the “best of everything” package.

Just see with time.

Supreme.3164:

maddoctor.2738:

Iris Ng.9845:

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

Yep. It’s not only the Elementalist that “has to” use specific skills to be viable in PVP.

How many Warriors out there not using Berserker Stance? How many Mesmers not using Decoy/Blink? How many Engies without Toolkit? etc etc

Saying that only Eles “need” to use Cantrips while all other professions can use all their skills is completely false.

I was using a Staff dps build, in a good organized team it’s pretty good way of doing massive damage, sure you die a lot if you are isolated, but the key to the build is to stay with your team and support them with hard hitting AOE skills.

Shoutbow warriors don’t use stances, turret engi don’t use toolkit, phantasm Mesmer don’t have both dercoy and blink…now how many viable ele build without canrips?…none

There is one… but I’m not sharing

Lawful.5314:

scerevisiae.1972:

Iris Ng.9845:

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

This. Skill/utility balance in this game is fricken awful. I’m still yet to find anything that comes close to water/arcane/cantrips. In 2.5 years, the crap skills/traits are just just as crap, the situation has not improved.

The reason why water/arcane/cantrips is always the best choice is that the basic design of the class is flawed — the base defense is too low, which guarantees that survivability traits/utilities remain king.

Yep, the core of the class itself is very weak.
70% of our traits are garbage.
Our cantrips are decent.
Our survivability and damgage is weak-mediocre.

Like i said in the previous posts, we exceel at nothing, we are jack of all trades, master of none, even more so, we are less than average at them actually.
If you combine all the weaker aspects of the elementalist into one and add its versatility in the mix, the class is barely average.

And the only reason why elementalist is viable at the moment, is because compared to 1 year ago, almost every single class was nerfed in some way, as i look through the patch notes and the gear was slightly improved for PvP.

If you want to say that Elementalist is one of the best classes in the hands of a good player, then the same could be said about ANY other class aswell, infact, ANY other class, in the hands of an excellent player, will be stronger than the elementalist, with less effort required.

Don’t go running around watching Youtube videos of the 1% of the elementalist elite mopping the floor with pugs, then thinking the class is very strong, the truth is, that 1% of the warrior elite, 1% of the thief elite, 1% of the necro elite, and others will mop the floor with that elementalist with little to no effort.

Your question was, “Are elemetalists better now?”.

This has been answered many times here already. The answer is “Yes”.

You have spent the rest of this thread trying to argue that this answer is wrong, and that elementalists are a weak profession. Why did you ask question if you were so sure of the answer? Trolling?

To be blunt: You are a year away from the game. What do you know? You are outta touch with whats going on right now.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

It was never the worst class in the game.

Yeaaaah it most definitely was. After they completely destroyed the old DD bunker ele and before we got all the compensatory buffs to our traits months later (which served nothing but to bring the build back under a different gear set) this was indisputably the worst class in the game.

But to the OP, we’re slightly worse off than we were under the old DD bunker build, but significantly better off than when that build was destroyed. And we still have no build diversity, either go celestial bunker or stick to kiddy mode content.

no dude, everyone realized it 1year ago back in 2014.
more skilled player have it figured out almost 2 years ago

you are just late on this matter.

not sure how you act so certain on how this class is weak cuz no it’s not weak.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Supreme.3164:

now how many viable ele build without canrips?…none

There is one… but I’m not sharing

dude noone cares about a mr. nobody and his/her non-existent (and probably crap) build.

Saying turret engi and phantasm
is just as kittenaying signet condi ele…you know what im saying here, not serious viable. i can even run trip arcane for the lolz if i want to.
btw s/f double arcane is pretty good dueling build.

anyway, the guy has point, no serious mesmer not running portal, decoy, blink, no serious engi not running grenade, gear kit, every serious thief build run ss signet and SR.
turret and phantasm are only hotjoin level viable just like MM, it would be the same saying condi signet or frost bow lolz.

btw stances are bad for warrior now, either shout or die.
be4 it was either triple stance or die, now is shout or die. triple stance is so weak in current meta with DD ele and rifle engi.

scerevisiae.1972:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Supreme.3164:

now how many viable ele build without canrips?…none

There is one… but I’m not sharing

dude noone cares about a mr. nobody and his/her non-existent (and probably crap) build.

Most of the time the viability of a build depends on how you use it. There are builds that you can use that don’t have cantrips they just run differently.

But I really do want to see signets becoming more viable.

Wynne.3908:

Your question was, “Are elemetalists better now?”.

This has been answered many times here already. The answer is “Yes”.

You have spent the rest of this thread trying to argue that this answer is wrong, and that elementalists are a weak profession. Why did you ask question if you were so sure of the answer? Trolling?

To be blunt: You are a year away from the game. What do you know? You are outta touch with whats going on right now.

I’ve been back for a couple of weeks now.

Are elementalists better now? Slightly yes, but mostly the same as they were, with other classes being tweaked.

Elementalist is average at best, and people saying that its a “TOP” class, should really stop with that rubbish.
What makes the class seem like TOP, are the handful of players that can play it really well, but same can be said about any other class that is being played by that good player.

With Elementalist, you either go full 6 water and 6 arcana, trying to compensate for your horrible damage with overhealing the damage you are receiving, and blowing cantrips to survivive longer, or you run Fresh air zerker and you die in 2 shots, while dealing somewhat decent damage, comparable to a warrior.

is ele better now?

id say in some ways yes.
But deffinently yes when it comes to players who learned all the nice tricks a ele can do

Lawful.5314:

Wynne.3908:

Your question was, “Are elemetalists better now?”.

This has been answered many times here already. The answer is “Yes”.

You have spent the rest of this thread trying to argue that this answer is wrong, and that elementalists are a weak profession. Why did you ask question if you were so sure of the answer? Trolling?

To be blunt: You are a year away from the game. What do you know? You are outta touch with whats going on right now.

I’ve been back for a couple of weeks now.

Are elementalists better now? Slightly yes, but mostly the same as they were, with other classes being tweaked.

Elementalist is average at best, and people saying that its a “TOP” class, should really stop with that rubbish.
What makes the class seem like TOP, are the handful of players that can play it really well, but same can be said about any other class that is being played by that good player.

With Elementalist, you either go full 6 water and 6 arcana, trying to compensate for your horrible damage with overhealing the damage you are receiving, and blowing cantrips to survivive longer, or you run Fresh air zerker and you die in 2 shots, while dealing somewhat decent damage, comparable to a warrior.

This

PvE: Second to Warrior.
PvP: Equal to shatter portal mesmer, number one.
ZergvZerg: Use a staff and Arcana V trait, with whatever gear. Number one.
Roaming: If we’re talkin’ 1v1, second to warrior, unless if you’re one of those dire +kit engis, then go shoot yourself and I’ll spit on the corpse.
For <5v5, yes number 1. The heals, resses, AoE regeneration and protection on 10s cd, will change kitten up.

Elementallist is now my number one class, before, in 2013 and early 2014 Mesmer was until it got minor nerfs that looked ok but damaged its backbone for certain builds, including the flaw you can’t run perplex in wvw unless you wannabe a snail. Back on topic, you can do it all as an ele. It’s a brilliant class for PvE, and roaming especially. PvP Play d/d meta, and you’ll get a 60% win ratio. If you’re a non meta guy like me, run d/f, has its ups and downs compare to d/d. better for stomps and vs pew pews. S/F fresh air is funfunfun, but hard stuff to learn.

Henrik.7560:

Play d/d meta, and you’ll get a 60% win ratio. If you’re a non meta guy like me, run d/f, has its ups and downs compare to d/d. better for stomps and vs pew pews. S/F fresh air is funfunfun, but hard stuff to learn.

Personally i don’t really like the D/D cele meta, so i tend to steer away from it, it is surely the most reliable build, but i just hate the playstyle.
Myself i also run s/d and have lots of fun and success with it.

Henrik.7560:

PvE: Second to Warrior.

Euh…time to wake up, buddy.

Lawful.5314:

scerevisiae.1972:

Iris Ng.9845:

To someone who said elementalists can not live without triple cantrips, I say it’s also equally rare to see mesmers without blink and decoy, warriors without shouts or stance, thieves without shadowstep and signets, or engi without grenades and toolkit, ranger without lightning reflex and all that jazz.

This. Skill/utility balance in this game is fricken awful. I’m still yet to find anything that comes close to water/arcane/cantrips. In 2.5 years, the crap skills/traits are just just as crap, the situation has not improved.

The reason why water/arcane/cantrips is always the best choice is that the basic design of the class is flawed — the base defense is too low, which guarantees that survivability traits/utilities remain king.

Yep, the core of the class itself is very weak.
70% of our traits are garbage.
Our cantrips are decent.
Our survivability and damgage is weak-mediocre.

Like i said in the previous posts, we exceel at nothing, we are jack of all trades, master of none, even more so, we are less than average at them actually.
If you combine all the weaker aspects of the elementalist into one and add its versatility in the mix, the class is barely average.

And the only reason why elementalist is viable at the moment, is because compared to 1 year ago, almost every single class was nerfed in some way, as i look through the patch notes and the gear was slightly improved for PvP.

If you want to say that Elementalist is one of the best classes in the hands of a good player, then the same could be said about ANY other class aswell, infact, ANY other class, in the hands of an excellent player, will be stronger than the elementalist, with less effort required.

Don’t go running around watching Youtube videos of the 1% of the elementalist elite mopping the floor with pugs, then thinking the class is very strong, the truth is, that 1% of the warrior elite, 1% of the thief elite, 1% of the necro elite, and others will mop the floor with that elementalist with little to no effort.

Wrong. After not playing gw2 for almost 2 years I hopped into pvp on an elementalist, a class that I started playing a week ago, copied the meta build and dominated over 2 dozen players in 1v1s. It’s not a hard class to pick up. You can literally mash 2345 and rotate through the 4 attunes and end up with enough damage output to take someone down while being obnoxiously hard to kill. I lost a single 1v1 against an engi because I ignored and underestimated turrets due to being ignorant of the changes and got outplayed. If you have a good feel for all your skills d/d is easier than something like a thief, which requires a lot of timing and positioning. As ele you just go in and keep applying pressure, your opponent is the one that has to find the burst window to actually kill you. And then you hit mistform and ride the lightning out. Well played.

As far as traits and skills go, whoop dee doo. I’ve played thief/necro/warrior at 80 and all of them have more worthless than useful traits and skills. It’s a problem with the game, nothing unique to ele. There is no problem “inherent with the class”. If anything it’s funny how you have more sustain options than a necro.