Guild Wars 2

Now outside the broken skills ( rtl-magnetic grasp-fire grab- lightning touch), there is absolutely nothing to complain about the ele, the problem is not everybody can play ele.

This is a combo profession, you are capable to maintain a continous barrage of fire with no interrupt, but this require precise knowledge of what every skill does and when can be used effectively and how.

Now you’ve got “filler” skills which are supposed to be used between high dmg skills, but really the term “filler” is not even correct because the less dmg skills are actually extremely useful in their own terms when used wisely.

Take scepter/focus for example, many people complain that dragon’s tooth is hard to land without signet of earth..but that’s not correct; I use shatterstone for example to “force” the enemy to dodge and if he doesn’t better for you because after 2 shatterstone you increase your dmg by 10% + possible might stacks ( accordingly to your build), if the enemy dodge he’d waste the 2 dodge and now you can use freezing gust to guarantee the hit or use gale.

The one above was an example, I don’t use the same strategy over and over again ( which make the 90% of eles extremely easy to predict) I adapt to the enemy , keeping a close eye to boons and weapon set equipped but the great thing about ele is: not matter the situation you can come up with different solutions.

Not even underwater the ele can be considered UP, you’ve got all the tools to dominate even under the sea : 2xinterrupt-2xblind-great burst-burning-bleeding-regeneration-vigor-cripple-stun and a teleport with quick CD (12s) and the elite whirpool which is the ultimate underwateer elite at 3k dmg for hit.

I’m a tPvP ele, currently I can beat any profession in 1vs1, beat 1vs2 baddies, hold for a while against multiple opponents( 1vs4 I run away and 1vs3 when I need to buy some time to my team), I run balanced builds, not too much tanky or too much attack and rely on dodges a lot on top of map awareness.

I use:
1) dagger/dagger to obliterate : thieves-warriors- guardians – eles – necros
2) scepter/focus to dominate : mesmers – engineers – rangers – eles – necros
3) staff for maximum support and point holder

Of course it is possible to use a single weapon set to beat all of the other professions, but I use what make the killing faster in my opinion, they are different applicable strategies for each enemy that eles should learn well.

You need to put loads of effort in learning this profession and it takes hundreds of fights to start having an idea, but trust me an ele can beat anything when played correctly.

I really hope Anet won’t listen to all the drama and simply fix the above mentioned broken skills and few traits, that would be all.

So much typing and you’ve already shot your argument to pieces in the first sentence.

“Not everybody can play ele” Now.. if you weren’t so full of yourself, you’d realize that this is an MMO, people of all skill levels will play it, casuals, hardcores, etc.. and when a class can only be playable by the elitist minority, while other classes don’t require that sort of “dedication” – something is wrong with it.

This is basically what people like you have been saying for a while now…
“You need to be good to play elementalist”
“You need skillz”
“Baddies can’t play ele!”
etcetcetc – it’s the same BS over and over

That should have been your first clue.

In order for it to be balanced the elementalist would have to be easy to play, and hard to master – same as every other class should be.

I read the post the same way Sharpe did. Your argument is essentially: the Elementalist is only playable by the natural-born elite, therefore it is working as intended. No, seriously, no. If the average player cannot get over the learning curve, it is too steep. If the average player can get over the learning curve, but still cannot play well, the class is underpowered. If the class is only successful when played by the elite players, there is a serious problem.

Your argument seems to be heavily tPvP influenced. The game also includes PvE, Dungeons, WvWvW and sPvP: the class needs to be accessible in all forms of the game.

Sharpe.1485:

“Not everybody can play ele” Now.. if you weren’t so full of yourself, you’d realize that this is an MMO, people of all skill levels will play it, casuals, hardcores, etc.. and when a class can only be playable by the elitist minority, while other classes don’t require that sort of “dedication” – something is wrong with it.

They can play a Warrior, then. What in the name of all that is good is wrong with some “elitist” players liking a CHALLENGE in a game once in a while?!

There are 6 professions in this game which are faceroll-ably easy, and 2 which are difficult to play. Let us have our challenge if we want it, stop trying to take it away from us just because you want to play Elementalist so darn much because of whatever stigmas you have attached to it!

Amnon.4769:

They can play a Warrior, then. What in the name of all that is good is wrong with some “elitist” players liking a CHALLENGE in a game once in a while?!

Absolutely nothing – which is why all classes should be hard to master.
Only the truly “elitist” players who enjoy the challenge should aspire to reach the skill ceiling.
And they would be much better at any of the giving classes than the rest of the common mortals.

Amnon.4769:

There are 6 professions in this game which are faceroll-ably easy, and 2 which are difficult to play. Let us have our challenge if we want it, stop trying to take it away from us just because you want to play Elementalist so darn much because of whatever stigmas you have attached to it!

This is what you people fail to understand, there is NOTHING to take away from you – once classes are balanced, it is purely your skill against other players skill – that is what balance is!
Wanting a whole class to remain underpowered just so you can “rofl I’m playing this POS and can still beat you!” is not a reasonable argument to alienate every person that enjoys the elementalist playstyle.

Edit for clarification – Do not get me wrong, I love the elementalist, I can be very successful with it in sPvP/tPvP once I went the usual cookie cutter 30earth/water+arc.
I can PvE just fine, I can run instances just as well as anyone else and be a valuable and contributing member of my group.
This however does not mean that the elementalist isn’t in dire need of a revision.
Anyone that thinks it over, compares it to other classes and evaluates trait and skill synergy with an objective view will see it.

Sharpe.1485:

This is what you people fail to understand, there is NOTHING to take away from you – once classes are balanced, it is purely your skill against other players skill – that is what balance is!
Wanting a whole class to remain underpowered just so you can “rofl I’m playing this POS and can still beat you!” is not a reasonable argument to alienate every person that enjoys the elementalist playstyle.

I don’t want the class to stay as it is so I can “rofl” at someone; I want the class because I truly enjoy the challenge of playing it. Why, why, why must I keep saying it? I’m not being selfish, I just want my darn difficult game.

I’m sick and tired of 3-button rotations.
I’m sick and tired of standing in place mashing the keyboard.
I’m sick and tired of not having to use a single brain cell, and rather use muscle memory, to play my class.

This is why I left WoW.

Sharpe is on the money. All classes should require about the same level of skill for the same level of results.
If you want a challenge try only using skills with odd numbers or take some gear off if you feel its necessary to handicap yourself rather than playing an underpowered class.

Oh yes, why don’t I go play Barbie Adventures blindfolded and tell you how hard that game was, too?

I don’t want to handicap myself, I want a challenging class. If you don’t, there’s nobody forcing you to play it.

Amnon.4769:

They can play a Warrior, then. What in the name of all that is good is wrong with some “elitist” players liking a CHALLENGE in a game once in a while?!

As a general rule, the “elitist” players who want a challenging class tend to pick overall poor performing classes that can perform decently only under very specific situations.

Think about it, if a very skilled player is feeling a good solid challenge from something then what’s the average Joe feeling? They’re throwing up their hands in frustration and switching to a different character, and that just doesn’t work as well in an MMO as it does in a ‘single-player’ game, especially one trying to be as ‘fun’ and ‘accessible’ as GW2 is.

Oliin.9581:

Think about it, if a very skilled player is feeling a good solid challenge from something then what’s the average Joe feeling? They’re throwing up their hands in frustration and switching to a different character, and that just doesn’t work as well in an MMO as it does in a ‘single-player’ game, especially one trying to be as ‘fun’ and ‘accessible’ as GW2 is.

Like I said, they have other classes to play which are far easier. I want my challenging class, I honestly couldn’t care less if other people don’t enjoy it, because for them to enjoy it would detract from MY enjoyment of the class.

Just like I don’t play a Warrior because I find it boring (which you don’t see my whining about on the Warrior forums), if you have a problem with Elementalists, then don’t play one.

Wow I think the attitude displayed above says it all and gives a good indication of how much weight we should give it.
Oh and inb4 last word addict.

Amnon.4769:

Like I said, they have other classes to play which are far easier. I want my challenging class, I honestly couldn’t care less if other people don’t enjoy it, because for them to enjoy it would detract from MY enjoyment of the class.

Just like I don’t play a Warrior because I find it boring (which you don’t see my whining about on the Warrior forums), if you have a problem with Elementalists, then don’t play one.

Do you see me whining anywhere here? I’m just saying that usually when I see people talking about how much they like a class because it’s so challenging to play and all the people saying it’s underperforming just don’t know how to play the game …. it’s because the class isn’t performing well and needs some sort of tweaking.

Personally I enjoy my elementalist and don’t see myself not playing it anytime soon. That said I see plenty of other people doing roughly the same things I am without being challenged nearly as much and can easily see either elementalists being balanced up to them or those other classes being tweaked downward to meet us. Until then I’ll continue to putter about on my elementalist and a couple alts.

Let me put it in simpler terms:
This game has 2 challenging classes, and 6 easy classes.
People who can only play easy classes are trying to force ANet into changing Elementalist to be easy.
I don’t like to play an easy class because I find it boring.

People who like easy classes should try one of the 6 easy classes, and not try to steal the precious few challenging ones. That is greedy, that is selfish, that is childish.

People who like easy classes already have 75% of the classes to play, while people like myself have 25%. I’m fine with it, but by whatever god you believe in, you’d better be sure I’d speak my opinion against people who try to make that ratio any worse for me.

Amnon.4769:

That is greedy, that is selfish, that is childish.

Amnon.4769:

I honestly couldn’t care less if other people don’t enjoy it, because for them to enjoy it would detract from MY enjoyment of the class.

Pot, meet kettle.

Amnon.4769:

Let me put it in simpler terms:
This game has 2 challenging classes, and 6 easy classes.
People who can only play easy classes are trying to force ANet into changing Elementalist to be easy.
I don’t like to play an easy class because I find it boring.

Usually in MMOs ‘challenging’ classes perform poorly. Most often this is because the class was tuned to be too weak. It could be not enough damage, or health or what-have-you, but they end up being too weak and are thus more challenging compared to other classes.

If it turns out that elementalists really are performing poorly as measured by the devs then I can’t imagine them not trying to fix the problem. In other games the developers have generally measured that in terms of either xp/death or xp gain over time, but it may very well be different here.

Still I don’t see ANet going and buffing elementalists just on forum complaints alone so don’t worry about that. Of course on the flip side, if they determine they need a buff then no amount of wheedling will change that either.

Amnon.4769:

Let me put it in simpler terms:
This game has 2 challenging classes, and 6 easy classes.
People who can only play easy classes are trying to force ANet into changing Elementalist to be easy.
I don’t like to play an easy class because I find it boring.

People who like easy classes should try one of the 6 easy classes, and not try to steal the precious few challenging ones. That is greedy, that is selfish, that is childish.

People who like easy classes already have 75% of the classes to play, while people like myself have 25%. I’m fine with it, but by whatever god you believe in, you’d better be sure I’d speak my opinion against people who try to make that ratio any worse for me.

There is so much irony in this post.

So the people who want to make this profession a little easier for casuals to play it without throwing a fit about it are greedy, selfish and childish but yet the only reason why you want to keep it the way it is, is because YOU want it keep it that way I’m sorry but to me that sounds greedy, selfish and childish at the same time so feel free to correct me.

There is no point in playing a challenging profession if they do not make up for the challenge of playing it, in a game where time is the resource you can’t afford to do long, time-consuming combos and then having those combos be sub-par compared to another professions combo that requires less time to do it, you might as well play that other profession if you want to stay competitive.

Spiritus.3508:

Amnon.4769:

That is greedy, that is selfish, that is childish.

Amnon.4769:

I honestly couldn’t care less if other people don’t enjoy it, because for them to enjoy it would detract from MY enjoyment of the class.

Pot, meet kettle.

Outstanding.

Spiritus.3508:

Pot, meet kettle.

You’ll have to excuse me for not feeling sorry for those people who can play 6 out of 8 classes, but want the other 2 as well. You don’t see me going to the Warrior forum whining it’s too boring; so leave the non-simple classes alone if you can’t play them.

Is it greedy to want my 2/8 classes? Only according to you, the guys trying to steal #7.

Amnon.4769:

Spiritus.3508:

Pot, meet kettle.

You’ll have to excuse me for not feeling sorry for those people who can play 6 out of 8 classes, but want the other 2 as well. You don’t see me going to the Warrior forum whining it’s too boring; so leave the non-simple classes alone if you can’t play them.

Is it greedy to want my 2/8 classes? Only according to you, the guys trying to steal #7.

You’ve been hoisted with your own petard. I’de cut your losses.

War Monk, when you can come up with anything other than 1-liner piggybacks on other people’s comments, I’d start taking you more seriously. Meanwhile, I still don’t consider wanting to have 2 classes and you having 6 “Greedy” or “Selfish”.

Amnon.4769:

War Monk, when you can come up with anything other than 1-liner piggybacks on other people’s comments, I’d start taking you more seriously. Meanwhile, I still don’t consider wanting to have 2 classes and you having 6 “Greedy” or “Selfish”.

Lol I sooo want you to take me seriously. I need your approval.
However I am admiring your determination to fight on after having having your arguments pulled down around your ears.

If it were, then how come Spiritus isn’t here to defend his comment? In fact, you’re the only one.

Sharpe.1485:

So much typing and you’ve already shot your argument to pieces in the first sentence.

Yes, Sharpe, YOU sure did.

I don’t think my comment needs defending…it stands on its own.

So Spiritus, you believe me wanting 2 classes, while you have 6 is Greedy and Childish?
Especially when you’re the one asking to take one away from those 2… If your argument stands, it’s only because War Monk is rolling it up that hill you’ve made.

God, I wish we could get an official response on the Elementalist. This has to be the only class where the devs are completely silent, and the forum is turning into a kitty-cat-crazy-ball-of-string! Seriously, almost every post in this thread makes the poster look like a complete idiot. Someone needs to lock this thread and make an official comment to shut-up one side of the argument or the other, because the current situation is unhealthy for the players and bad for the game in general.

I think the argument stems from people not wanting to be labeled as less skill. Even though there are never equality in terms of skill, admitting to be inferior is a blow to their fragile ego. It is easier to blame it on something else than themselves for their inability. For those interested, this is being coined the “dunning Kruger” effect.

Wazabi.1439:

I think the argument stems from people not wanting to be labeled as less skill.

Similarly, I think the “counter-argument” stems from people with a need to feel like they are “special”, “better” or “elite” and it is imperative to them that everyone else acknowledges their self-labeled superior skill.

Celine, I couldn’t care less what label you put on me; I’m staggered that it seems to impossible for you to understand that some people actually enjoy a challenge.
Not everyone wants to play ezmode; those of you who do are welcome to do it.

Sharpe.1485:

So much typing and you’ve already shot your argument to pieces in the first sentence.

“Not everybody can play ele” Now.. if you weren’t so full of yourself, you’d realize that this is an MMO, people of all skill levels will play it, casuals, hardcores, etc.. and when a class can only be playable by the elitist minority, while other classes don’t require that sort of “dedication” – something is wrong with it.

This is basically what people like you have been saying for a while now…
“You need to be good to play elementalist”
“You need skillz”
“Baddies can’t play ele!”
etcetcetc – it’s the same BS over and over

That should have been your first clue.

In order for it to be balanced the elementalist would have to be easy to play, and hard to master – same as every other class should be.

Who ever said that you need to be pro to play ele?
Obviosly I have used wrong words and I apologize for that nevertheless the purpose of my thread remain, I wasn’t trying to downgrade anybody, I have simply made a statement : you need to be able to combo in order to play ele.

This means tht unless you’re comfortable to switch attunements on the fly and know every skill inside out…then you shoudn’t play ele, this is not to say that you can’t play ele but simply that you won’t enjoy it and be as successfull as other players.

I have seen eles in PvE sticking to Air and spend 1 min to kill an ettin, while if they’d use all of their attunement spell they could have killed the ettin in a flat second, that’s the ele in essence, in a second you can unload 15-20 skill on a target.

Now of course there will be a strategy behind the order of execution of these skills as to disable the target for as long as possible and kill him as fast as possible, still if the target is tough, you still got the tool to make the fight an attrition fight, where you end up winning anyway.

That’s how I can beat every other single profession, I chain skills to bring them down leaving them without a second of respite, I make heavy use of vigor boon, so I can dodge often even at close range increasing my survivability by a lot, the ele has easy access to this great boon on top of regeneration and protection, much more than guardian itself, that’s why I defeat guardians also

Amnon.4769:

Sharpe.1485:

This is what you people fail to understand, there is NOTHING to take away from you – once classes are balanced, it is purely your skill against other players skill – that is what balance is!
Wanting a whole class to remain underpowered just so you can “rofl I’m playing this POS and can still beat you!” is not a reasonable argument to alienate every person that enjoys the elementalist playstyle.

I don’t want the class to stay as it is so I can “rofl” at someone; I want the class because I truly enjoy the challenge of playing it. Why, why, why must I keep saying it? I’m not being selfish, I just want my darn difficult game.

I’m sick and tired of 3-button rotations.
I’m sick and tired of standing in place mashing the keyboard.
I’m sick and tired of not having to use a single brain cell, and rather use muscle memory, to play my class.

This is why I left WoW.

Elementalists will be fine when they’ll nerf the other classes down to their DPS level.
BAD games are those where a spam-1-I-Win-Button classes exist and don’t get brutally nerfed.
In GW2 we actually have at least 3 of such classes, they have to go, else GW2 will be just a farce.

Ele is not really “wrong”, a game where people have 15-20k HP and get hit for 3-4k (like eles can do with effort) is perfect. It’s wrong when there are I Win one shot wonders.

So, eles should not be really buffed, just their bugged things fixed.

The other classes, on the other hand, they are the wrong ones and should be brought down in line, not eles buffed to become garbage 1 button crit like the others.

Vaerah.4907:

Amnon.4769:

Sharpe.1485:

This is what you people fail to understand, there is NOTHING to take away from you – once classes are balanced, it is purely your skill against other players skill – that is what balance is!
Wanting a whole class to remain underpowered just so you can “rofl I’m playing this POS and can still beat you!” is not a reasonable argument to alienate every person that enjoys the elementalist playstyle.

I don’t want the class to stay as it is so I can “rofl” at someone; I want the class because I truly enjoy the challenge of playing it. Why, why, why must I keep saying it? I’m not being selfish, I just want my darn difficult game.

I’m sick and tired of 3-button rotations.
I’m sick and tired of standing in place mashing the keyboard.
I’m sick and tired of not having to use a single brain cell, and rather use muscle memory, to play my class.

This is why I left WoW.

Elementalists will be fine when they’ll nerf the other classes down to their DPS level.
BAD games are those where a spam-1-I-Win-Button classes exist and don’t get brutally nerfed.
In GW2 we actually have at least 3 of such classes, they have to go, else GW2 will be just a farce.

Ele is not really “wrong”, a game where people have 15-20k HP and get hit for 3-4k (like eles can do with effort) is perfect. It’s wrong when there are I Win one shot wonders.

So, eles should not be really buffed, just their bugged things fixed.

The other classes, on the other hand, they are the wrong ones and should be brought down in line, not eles buffed to become garbage 1 button crit like the others.

The great thing about ele is that they can be totally unpredictable with their skill rotation, making them extremly hard to counter effectively.

On the contrary the “one hit” wonders are far too easy to predict, 90% of them will use the same couple of strategies over and over again, hence once you learn them you’ll have really an easy time against them

The only real issue I have with the Elementalist is that even when you stack defense, you still get two-shot by thieves. If they changed it so the glass cannons would be two-shot, and the defensive builds were 3-4 shot, then everything’d be fine.

ThiBash.5634:

The only real issue I have with the Elementalist is that even when you stack defense, you still get two-shot by thieves. If they changed it so the glass cannons would be two-shot, and the defensive builds were 3-4 shot, then everything’d be fine.

If you build defensive on ele, you can’t be 2shooted by 3 thieves combined let alone a single one.

War Monk.5120:

…All classes should require about the same level of skill for the same level of results…

Agreed.

The question then is ‘do you lower the ele or raise the ’easier’ classes’?

Sharpe said “This however does not mean that the elementalist isn’t in dire need of a revision.”

The ele would only be “…in dire need of a revision.” if it’s to be dumbed down. If he wanted the other classes ‘smartened up’ then he’d have said so.

Don’t lower the bar to the lowest common denominator. Raise the bar on the too-easy classes, to where player skill shows.

Difficulty should be sufficient so that player skill shows — great skill should yield great results.

Folks get used to single player games where even the least skilled can kick butt. In MMOs, by definition, half the players are of below average skill — quite a shock to learn that the hard way. How folks react to this challenge is telling. Do they buckle down and work to improve their game, or do the instead put their effort into lobbying to make the game easier so their lack of skill has little effect?

Sharpe.1485:

So much typing and you’ve [Arheundel] already shot your argument to pieces in the first sentence.

“Not everybody can play ele” Now.. if you weren’t so full of yourself, you’d realize that this is an MMO, people of all skill levels will play it, casuals, hardcores, etc.. and when a class can only be playable by the elitist minority…

This is the fallacious argument Hyperbole.

Going from “Not everybody can play ele” to “…only playable by the elitist minority…” is twisting what Arheundel said to a ridiculous extreme to make your argument. That forfeits credibility and cedes the argument.

It’s fine to argue against what he says. It’s not fine to argue against what he doesn’t say.

And the Ad Hominem attack (the ‘so full of yourself’ bit) is uncalled for.

I do like the elementalist as it stands now. Except for the obviously bugged skills, I don’t think it needs changing. I like the fact that classes are different and do consider the elementalist the Ferrari of the classes, taking skill to drive, you don’t take it out to get your learner’s permit. I laugh at my wife playing a warrior… “1, 2, 2 oh kitten, 5” dead." The versatility is amazing, and I wouldn’t want the class any other way. We have the most powerful utility kit in the game, and much of the time it depends on a well-working team to function, which I’m ok with. It’s not hard to roll another character/class and run them for different situations. I hope the dev’s don’t do anything to affect the current usage state of the ele.

There are two solutions to the balance issue: raise ele dps or nerf other dps to our level. If you think neither is needed then you aren’t being objective. OP already lost all credibility as demonstrated throughout this thread.

Nick Danger.9821:

This is the fallacious argument Hyperbole.

Going from “Not everybody can play ele” to “…only playable by the elitist minority…” is twisting what Arheundel said to a ridiculous extreme to make your argument. That forfeits credibility and cedes the argument.

It’s fine to argue against what he says. It’s not fine to argue against what he doesn’t say.

And the Ad Hominem attack (the ‘so full of yourself’ bit) is uncalled for.

You’re right, I did go a little overboard and I apologize.

It’s just disheartening to come on these forums day in and day out, trying to reach a concensus and discuss in a civil manner what exactly is wrong with the class, how it could be improved, bug fixes etc, when there’s always 1 or 2 guys coming in the thread, calling everyone “noobs” that the elementalist is just absolutely fine as it is, and everyone else are just “baddies” who would do better than to just reroll warrior and spam HB or thief for 2,2,2,2,2.

Either way, in short – my argument with the OP is related to “If not everyone can play elementalist, then the class is unbalanced” – Cuz everyone should be able to make one, and play it confortably – mastering it however – should be something for the extremely good players and dedicated to contend with.

And right now that doesnt happen. Take sPvP for instance – any average joe that goes into PvP with an ele, without much thought into stats, traits, just gets completely obliterated in 2 or 3 seconds.

Generally, people want to pick the Elementalist, because it is the Elementalist. They don’t want to pick the Elementalist, because it’s the Unnofficial Underpowered Class That Makes Elitists Feel Good About Themselves.

If the game is too easy, then the solution is not to make one or two professions to suck, so they can appeal to those who want challenge. The solution is to design hard content (like dungeons) or play in organized pvp against good players.

Elementalists are one of the most played professions, because people want to play it for what it is advertised to be: a spellcaster that can use all four elements to cast flashy spells. Many of those people won’t want to pick another profession, because they love the flavor behind the elementalist the best, among other reasons, like those who like spellcasters the best but don’t enjoy the dark/ creepy style of the Necromancer or the more abstract/ illusion-driven playstyle of the mesmers.

Ideally, people should be free to pick the professions with their favourite flavor, and all those professions should be strong enough for casual players to enjoy normal content, and with a skill floor high enough for hardcore players to master for hardcore content.

The elementalist is clearly underpowered. When you use an equally hard-to-master profession, like the mesmer, the difference is massive. It’s just so much easier to go through normal pve/ casual pvp with a mesmer, it’s not even funny – and the mesmer is harder to grasp for newbies than the elementalist.

Most people play ele becasue they find it the most entertaining class. Most of us (Ele players) arent so “Pr0 noobs” to go play the strongest class, just because it is easiest to play (like warrior). I mysef would have no fun from it because I dislike melee playstyle (“I swong a sword! I swong a sword again! Wow, I swong it again, that’s great!” xd).

This doesnt change that Ele IS UnderPowered. When I saw a guardian killing 3 Kraits in few seconds underwater it was like… “Hey! No matter what would I do I will not achieve such results!”

And than hearing “Gtfo, learn to play your class” and such is kinda not nice to hear :<

PS.: <——Compleatly agrees with Sharpe

Didn’t make this thread to seek people approval, my only interest is to make sure that Anet doesn’t buff the ele in an unnecessary way, the truth is that you can’t play ele expecting to use only 20% of the skills and still be as good as an ele who use 100% of his skills.

I read several threads with people claiming how bad skills some skills are : dragon’s breath-cone of cold-staff earth attacks and many more; I don’t need any more info to draw a clear picture of what kind of players can complain.

As I have said outside few bugged skills and traits ( which is true for all professions) the ele is perfectly fine, genuinely I can defeat any other profession with a mix of tactics and perfect knowledge of what each skill of my bar can do and when it can be used to max effect.

Basically you can’t play ele if you think you can’t make use of every single skill in your arsenal, it means you still not able to fully grasp how ele works, I don not care to be considered an elitist jerk or whatever, what I achieved has been entirely thx to my efforts not some kind of natural uber gamer skill, to be where I am now I have died thousand of times and at every death I learned how to counter an attack, against mesmers I simply used my guild leader teachings ( who main a mesmer) to finally understand how to beat them on an ele, same thing for thief-warrior-guardian (played by other members of my guild).

I have got no simpathy for people who think they can conquer the world using the s/d combo and cry when they fail to kill a target with a single combo, to put it in numbers:

1) Warrior deal 20k dmg with 3 skills
2) Ele deal 20k dmg with 20 skills

The difference is that warrior is now too predictable while there is no way for you to know how the ele gonna start or end his rotation , because that 20k dmg can be delivered in an infinite number of ways, and here is the strenght of ele compared to warrior.

If you don’t like to memorize all 25 skills available and understand how they work, than go play something else, it’s that simple, rather then being butt hurt about the truth people should use that “proudness” to actually learn the profession properly

Seraskus.6810:

Most people play ele becasue they find it the most entertaining class. Most of us (Ele players) arent so “Pr0 noobs” to go play the strongest class, just because it is easiest to play (like warrior). I mysef would have no fun from it because I dislike melee playstyle (“I swong a sword! I swong a sword again! Wow, I swong it again, that’s great!” xd).

This doesnt change that Ele IS UnderPowered. When I saw a guardian killing 3 Kraits in few seconds underwater it was like… “Hey! No matter what would I do I will not achieve such results!”

And than hearing “Gtfo, learn to play your class” and such is kinda not nice to hear :<

PS.: <——Compleatly agrees with Sharpe

Or you could have simply bothered to read and test Underwater skills with an ele seen as I go solo underwater and destroy an entire pack of kraits of my own.

1) Water= ice glob- detonate ice glob , tidal wave , ice wall -detonate ice wall .
2) Fire = lave chain – heat wave ( to give yourself vigor and dodge some more)
3) Air = air pocket ( use it wisely accordingly to the situation ) , lightning cage
4) earth = murky water , rock spray

The one above is a rough example, depending of my utilities I change tactics and the order of my attacks, but yeah after my rotatiot 5 kraits were dead in few seconds.

But of course it’s easier to complain and call names people who actually try to explain how thigns really are with ele…nothing new here

All professions are meant to use 100% of their skills. That does not change the fact, though, that almost all professions are so strong, than they can do most pve and most casual pvp with 2-3 skills. One of the biggest complaints about the elementalist in this forum, is that we must use double of our skills for lesser results. Telling those people that “lol, but you must use more skills with an ele!!1” is not a valid argument, because they already know it.

Likewise, stating that we have all the tools we need is not a strong point neither, because that has nothing to do with the known problems around the elementalists. We all know we have a lot of tools for a lot of situations (although I’d argue that D/D has not enough defense). The main problem is, all other professions can get better results in a lesser time. It’s not about the elementalist not being able to achieve its goals. The elementalist can achieve its goals. It just can’t do it as efficiently as other professions. This applies to all elementalists weapons, but it’s more obvious for underwater combat.

Effort for the sake of effort is pointless. Extra effort should come with extra reward.

Finally, there are really strong arguments against our traits. There’s a large difference between a trait that decreases your recharge rate of half of your weapon skills and even does something else, like providing a stat boost, which is what happens with other professions, and a trait that decreases the recharge rate of 1/4th of the skills of a professions that most depends on rotating those skills out, without even a bonus effect on top of that.

I also want to add that I know how to play an Elementalist, and I surely knew what to expect out of them before even the game’s release. Considering how early this game still is, I doubt any of us is significantly better than the other. No one needs to teach me that a dodge button exists, that changing attunements is key or that the elementalist is a combo class, because that is basic knowledge to most of us.

Mesmers are equally hard to master, and look at how they’re one of the strongest professions for pvp.

A Razer Naga helps a lot and rebinding attunements to letter keys (I have W for fire and R for water as R was typically my main healing skill or recuperate before getting one, maybe I’ll bind T or E to earth) will too. Sometimes you just have to learn to kite and balance some situations around the downed state. The molten lava when downed talent combined with radiation field and stacked DoTs (bleed, burning) will really see the mobs’ HP racing downwards really fast. Annoying thing is, sometimes you’re downed before throwing down the radiation field or first lava (which stacks with downed lava )

@Ammon
“Oh yes, why don’t I go play Barbie Adventures blindfolded and tell you how hard that game was, too?
I don’t want to handicap myself, I want a challenging class. If you don’t, there’s nobody forcing you to play it.”

You just shot yourself in the foot. The elementalist IS a handicap. A challenging class can be any class that starts out easy enough that anybody can play but is just as challenging to play very well as any other class. More work =/= more challenge and that is what you are getting with the elementalist as it is. The elementalist is a challenging class and I like that, but not because I have to put a lot more effort into it because that isn’t “challenge”.

EVERY class should be playable by EVERYBODY in exactly the same manner. It should start out like every other class does but to eventually become great with the class and “master” it, you should have to really practice. Right now, you have to really practice just to play late game pve…

@Sharpe First, thank you for the polite and well-reasoned reply.

Sharpe.1485:

…everyone should be able to make one [ele], and play it confortably – mastering it however – should be something for the extremely good players and dedicated to contend with.

Agreed. I think the current ele does this.

And right now that doesnt happen.

Disagree. Low skill players can play eles, hightly skilled players can make an ele shine. That’s good. The problem is…

Take sPvP for instance – any average joe that goes into PvP with an ele, without much thought into stats, traits, just gets completely obliterated in 2 or 3 seconds.

…the problem is that some classes are too easy to play.

The solution isn’t to radically alter the ele (ie make it easier), but to radically alter the ‘too easy’ classes to be like the ele, where skill shines.

I suck at playing eles, an average skill ele player will completely obliterate me. I like that, it gives me motivation/opportunity to improve. Don’t dumb down the ele to my level, make me raise my game.

DiogoSilva.7089:

…almost all professions are so strong, than they can do most pve and most casual pvp with 2-3 skills.

Those professions are the ones that are ‘broken’.

One of the biggest complaints about the elementalist in this forum, is that we must use double of our skills for lesser results.

First, eles can get ~equal results with ‘extra’ effort.

The questions are two-fold:
-first, is ‘too much’ effort required to play an ele well? There’s a number of examples of people playing an ele well. Also, the game is still new and we’re still working out bugs/strategies/etc. So no, eles don’t require ‘too much’ effort.

-second, how should eles required effort be balanced? Dumb down eles? Make the ‘too easy’ classes harder? Some combination of both?

To decide this, I’m going by the assumption that no class should, as you say, be able to do “…most pve and most casual pvp with 2-3 skill…” AN gave us classes with more skills than that, and hopefully intends all skills to have a purpose/use in competitive fights.

It’s not about the elementalist not being able to achieve its goals. The elementalist can achieve its goals. It just can’t do it as efficiently as other professions.

You understand you’re arguing to dumb down the ele right? You’re not arguing to make the ‘too easy’ classes harder.

Why is that? Why is your solution to make eles ‘easier’ instead of the other classes equally ‘hard’?

I feel that the fact that this issue has risen so much in prominence and that it was discussed so heavily to begin with means that it is in need of some serious work. I believe that every person should be able to play each class equally. There is no class that Anet specifically designed for players who are “elite” or better than everybody else. Doing that would be like shooting yourself PR wise. If they ever come out and say that the elementalist was really only meant for the cream of the crop humans, I will literally demand a refund and take any legal actions that I can. It is among the highest of insults.

And to the people who believe this class should be just for the best of the best. You need to find something else to raise your self-esteem. You are like a bully who picks on others because you are bigger than them. You only want it to stay the same because you finally found something you are good at.

And please don’t mistake people that I have been talking about with people who want the elementalist to stay the same for legitimate reasons. I just can’t stand those that believe only the best people were meant to play the elementalist.

Nick Danger.9821:

The questions are two-fold:
-first, is ‘too much’ effort required to play an ele well? There’s a number of examples of people playing an ele well. Also, the game is still new and we’re still working out bugs/strategies/etc. So no, eles don’t require ‘too much’ effort.

This probably stems from the Animations.

I cant overstate this enough, But skills like Lava Font, that takes far to long to build up and almost literally tells people don’t stand here before it starts to deal damage. Meteor showers random damage locations, Burning speeds blast radius makes it very hard to land in an open field due to the damage only being on the end location. Dragon’s Tooth 4 second animation. Churning Earth’s long cast time practically forces you to use lightning flash just so you can hit people that back pedal out of the radius. Eruption like lava font advertises players to GTFO before it even does damage.

I think thats the underlying issue with Elementalist atm. Ground targeting and our heavy reliance on it. Do we never land skills? no. But the effort taken to just get skills to land on half competent players then coming out with lesser then average damage is a problem.

Am not saying it should be instant, just faster then it is now. I get it people need some time to react. But as it is now Elementalist are penalized just for players, playing the game. AkA just moving, not dodging just moving.