Guild Wars 2

I dont want anyone to think this is an Elementalists suck, so I switched to a mesmer or theif thread… I happen to enjoy 2 classes, the Elementalist, and the Necromancer.

After playing my elementalist through level 40, monsters started getting harder, I could kill a veteran around my level, I could kill 3-4 monsters around my level, with a lot of dodging, and a ton of skill swapping. I played with D/D mostly.

Now, on my Necromancer, and I’m playing a full minion spec, with power/precision, and d/d and scep/focus, which is not the most popular spec, on a class that is not considered overpowered by any means.

Let me say the difference is night and day, I think playing the ele really got my skill level up. My Necromancer can fight 4-5 monsters as high as 3-4 levels above me, and I just did a skill challenge where I had to fight a veteran mob 2 levels above me, and somehow a 2nd veteran got aggro’d in, I killed both of them, with a bit of effort, but didn’t really come too close to dying.

The main thing I noticed, and maybe all classes arent meant to be this way, but for the necro, for either dagger or scept main hand, it does a good amount of damage for the #1 main attack, and the other skills help support that attack, whether it be to stack damage, place negative conditions, crowd control, etc… and well, the elementalist just doesn’t have that synergy within 1 attunement line, or between them. Also add in that I have ranged and close combat skills mixed in together, and with ele it seems like for the most part you just get 1 or the other (unless you mix a off/main dagger in with another weapon) where as, atleast with the necro, you get a mix of the 2 in pretty much any weapon line (minus staff) plus switching weapons is SO nice to be able to do.

I really would like to see a decent rework on the ele, because I love the class, and conceptually it’s amazing, and i’m fine with putting in more APM than other classes, but none of the skill’s really mesh together in a defined beneficial way, and it just makes playing seem a bit unrewarding.

my 2cent

Completely agree with ya, and I’ve had the same feeling while playing a few other classes.

Elementalist is still my love though.

Ele is the hardest class to play. It is known.

I rolled Ele from possibly the easiest class to level, the Guardian and what you say is very true, how ever it was not even close to being as fun as my Ele, I can’t even see myself playing another class I am enjoying it that much.

I also love my ele tried guardian wasn’t for me but the ele needs a fix regardless of my love for it

I have to lol with the main poster, since i did the same thing, play ele and necro and last night i finally deleted my thief (who i only use for name holder only) and made a mezmer… even without knowing how to play, I died ONCE in 6 games. and that was because I was bragging and got a head hunted.

playing an elementalist is like taking practice swings with a led pipe before you step to the plate in a whiffle ball game.

Ele is the GW2 equivalent of an 80s training montage. Once you suffer through it then reapply what you learned to another class suddenly you’re Rocky Balboa.

The problem is I love the ele I can’t be anything else but the ele I’m willing to do all the work involved with the class but it has so many faults you can’t help but bring them to attention because of what it takes away from the class

Arcane.4950:

Ele is the hardest class to play. It is known.

It is known Khaleesi.

That’s pretty much the way professions other than the elementalist are designed. Each weaponset is intended to be used on its own in circumstances that suit it (with the weaponswap being there for when circumstances change), with 2-3 skills that are intended to be used for damage and the rest intended to back those up.

I’ve seen a bit of criticism about other professions being ‘too easy’ because they can kill you using 2-3 skills, but the fact of the matter is that if you don’t do anything that requires them to use the more circumstantial skills on their bar, they’re playing as intended.

Early stuff from ArenaNet indicated that the elementalist was intended to play the same way – you give up the ability two choose which two circumstances you’re optimal for in exchange for being able to choose from a set of four. You can even see the residue of this on the Elementalist page on this site, which cites fire as the go-to element for area damage, air for targeting “specific foes with focused, high-damage attacks” and so on. Instead (as, incidentally, was called a long time back) we have the ‘grand piano’ – and instead of this being a technique that rewards advanced players, it’s something that’s pretty much required to be on par. YMMV on whether this is for better or worse, but it’s not what a new player coming into the game is going to expect.

Changes to the level 80 elementalist may or may not be required, but if possible I think some buffs to lower-level elementalists might be useful – the ele has a really steep learning curve, and survivability improvements early on will give players more of an opportunity to learn how to get into ‘grand piano’ mode (I wonder how many of the people who are saying the ele is fine now are people who started in BWE1 and got the hang of it before the nerfs hit – there’s going to be less and less people with that benefit, proportionally speaking, as time goes on). Second, the website should possibly be updated so as to accurately reflect the elementalist playstyle so new players know what they’re signing up for when they make one.

I’ve leveled 5 professions to 30+ now: guard, warrior, mesmer, thief and lastly elementalist.

So I feel confident saying that for at least the first 30 levels, the weakest in PVE by a good margin was the elementalist.

I read through various forum posts here and at other sites and researched build options and the whole deal. I learned to dance through the diff attunements to get to the skills that actually do anything, but even so, the class is still sub-par by a pretty fair margin in PVE.

By sub-par I mean specifically that those other classes can take do more dmg with less risk, and therefore plow through PVE more efficiently.

Let me also add. With doing a d/d build on both classes for close range combat. My necro I have geared 100% power and precision, my ele is geared almost all vit and toughness. My ele drops health so quick compared to my necro, despite how I build the stats up, and my necro does much more damage.

So the problem isn’t just what’s harder to play. The ele is infinitely squishier, and at the same time does less damage despite attunement swapping and combos.

Xhaiden.3891:

Ele is the GW2 equivalent of an 80s training montage.

I love you.

Attunements have become more of a a class defining penalty than a bonus.

well its not completely true we cannot kill many mobs at once….
Problem with ele is lack of versatility…
If yu go for a staff damage build or balanced build you can kill 4-5 lvl 60 (my current) enemies at once.

(I just use earth elemental, earth 2-4, water 4, fire 2-5-4, lightning 5-2 etc ….
If i recall correctly while using some glyphs).

Then you are almost unable to enter dungeon story modes not to talk about spvp or story mode (where 3 enemies spawns near you and you don t have time to prepare)…..

i don t want to say what they should do, they probably have enough data to decide themselves, i just don t want to be THE healer in most social occasions mostly because Anet promised us we wouldn t be forced to do that.
Still waiting with hope because i think they will patch us someday.

Started with ele. Made a mesmer. What a joke. After half an hour only one thought crossed my mind.. phantasms are training wheels. It felt like i just used some abilities that i would have used anyway, which also summoned three ele’s to fight for me.

One of the major issues at the moment is that most people will be forced to go with specific builds as an elementalist just to remain viable in either PvE or PvP. I’m not against a class having a steeper learning curve than others, but there’s a problem when some abilities still do very little in the hands of a competent player compared to what other professions can get away with through simple button mashing.

I recently rolled an Ele. Was a Thief and Ranger main prior, but I must say I love the complexity of the class. It’s extremely fun, but the problems are glaring. The effort put in to kill anything is orders of magnitudes more than other classes, and it’s still weaker. Really makes my mind boggle how this class made it out of beta like this. I remember Eles killing me in 2-3 seconds during BWE 1 and 2, then suddenly they got beaten to near-death with the nerf bat. kitten shame.