Guild Wars 2

I have been playing staff elementalist since release, I have put all my time, effort, gem items, work on legendary, map completition, dungeons, fractals, laurels, ascended items, reputation on my ele through the last 12 months. 90% of my playtime has been on them.

It wasnt until recently that I decided to roll a guardian and a mesmer to have alts just in case, and I have come to the sad realization, that; there is nothing an ele can do that a guardian can do way better. The only thing that an elementalistscould ever hold over a guardian is the wall siege on WvW, and even then I would rather have a guardian 90% of the time in WvW.

1. Healing; guardian is better
2. Boons; guardians have beetr upkeep, more at disposal and there isnt a single boon that eles give that guardian have available on call and lasts longer.
3. Aegis
4. Damage Sure, ele may have some good damage, but guardian will bring close to the same damage while still providing 15 stacks on might team-wide on his own every a few seconds. Also, a sword/focus guardian will out damage most eles on long fights
5. Support If you think staff ele is on a good spot or even acceptable spot, then I dare you play it. Eles hold absolutely nothing on guardians on supports, there is no way around that one.
6. Fun factor Eles have this, due to their mechanics, but fun is relative, some people have fun knowing they are not a drag to their team and being a valuable asset to their party.

Eles have only been given nerfs lately whereas everyother profession has gotten some beefy buffs. The staff buffs were a good start but that weapon is not near viable yet. I was able to faceroll Liadri with my guardian and had to struggle SEVERAL times with my ele. Sadly I dont think this has to do much with “skills” , while I might not be the best ele in the world, I can hold my ground, and many eles agree with me when I see eles are MEH to not say underpowered.

Thoughts?

Let me list somethings you forgot to add:

1. If guardian traits to be a bunker, they do no damage.
2. If guardian traits for healing they do no damage.
3. Their boons are gained via utility, meaning they have lengthy cds.
4. Guardian has no mobility compared to ele.
5. Guardian lacks the diversity of ele.

Sounds like Guardian is the class for you.

Fortus.6175:

and many eles agree with me when I see eles are MEH to not say underpowered

Elementalists are a “jack of all trades, master of none” profession. Even the concept art which first revealed the elementalist, years ago, claimed their main trait was the fact they are adaptable. Everything an elementalist can do, other professions can do better, but no one is as versatile as an elementalist.

In WvW, elementalists have water fields which are always blasted for burst heals, lightning fields blasted for swiftness and fire fields blasted for might which don’t have to be shoehorned in to your builds like a guard’s fire fields would in WvW.

Damage-wise, well you musn’t be familiar with lightning hammer elementalists, it’s practically the best damage in the game.

Aza.2105:

Let me list somethings you forgot to add:

1. If guardian traits to be a bunker, they do no damage.
2. If guardian traits for healing they do no damage.
3. Their boons are gained via utility, meaning they have lengthy cds.
4. Guardian has no mobility compared to ele.
5. Guardian lacks the diversity of ele.

The first two apply to ele as well. For the third, guardians also have their virtues, and have boons on weapons skills as well, not just utility slots. Fourth, though faster thanks to lightning flash, ele’s aren’t really very mobile, that’s just an afterimage from pre RTL nerfs.
5. Explain?

There’s also the huge matter of which game mode OP is talking about though, but I assumed mostly pve based on the activities mentioned and some wvw (which I agree we’re good at).

Aza.2105:

Let me list somethings you forgot to add:

1. If guardian traits to be a bunker, they do no damage.
2. If guardian traits for healing they do no damage.
3. Their boons are gained via utility, meaning they have lengthy cds.
4. Guardian has no mobility compared to ele.
5. Guardian lacks the diversity of ele.

1. Same for eles.
2. Same for eles.
3. Granted.
4. Guardians have better offensive mobility than Elementalists because of lower cooldowns. Guardians rarely need escape mobility; Elementalists need it all the time because they are sub-par.
5. False. Both classes are fully capable of performing all roles in the same build at roughly the same efficiency – except that Guardian has the same diversity within fewer skills. Elementalist “diversity” is spread out over twice as many skills, with each having about half the benefit.

Navzar.2938:

Aza.2105:

Let me list somethings you forgot to add:

1. If guardian traits to be a bunker, they do no damage.
2. If guardian traits for healing they do no damage.
3. Their boons are gained via utility, meaning they have lengthy cds.
4. Guardian has no mobility compared to ele.
5. Guardian lacks the diversity of ele.

The first two apply to ele as well. For the third, guardians also have their virtues, and have boons on weapons skills as well, not just utility slots. Fourth, though faster thanks to lightning flash, ele’s aren’t really very mobile, that’s just an afterimage from pre RTL nerfs.
5. Explain?

There’s also the huge matter of which game mode OP is talking about though, but I assumed mostly pve based on the activities mentioned and wvw (which I agree we’re good at).

Virtues are utility with a lengthy cooldown.
No, ele has a passive run speed buff, guardian does not. Swiftness can be used via staff and retreat, but the damage is further degraded.
Guardian can’t be any role, they are mainly melee characters. While ele can be efficient at ranged and melee and transition seeminglessly between different attunements which gives them a array of versatile skills.

Ele can be effective in pvp while having a heal build, guardian however is stuck with mediocre damage and limited mobility.

Like a post noted, elementalist can do everything but excels at nothing. If the OP wants to specialize he/she should probably pick the class that meets his expectations.

Aza.2105:

Navzar.2938:

Aza.2105:

Let me list somethings you forgot to add:

1. If guardian traits to be a bunker, they do no damage.
2. If guardian traits for healing they do no damage.
3. Their boons are gained via utility, meaning they have lengthy cds.
4. Guardian has no mobility compared to ele.
5. Guardian lacks the diversity of ele.

The first two apply to ele as well. For the third, guardians also have their virtues, and have boons on weapons skills as well, not just utility slots. Fourth, though faster thanks to lightning flash, ele’s aren’t really very mobile, that’s just an afterimage from pre RTL nerfs.
5. Explain?

There’s also the huge matter of which game mode OP is talking about though, but I assumed mostly pve based on the activities mentioned and wvw (which I agree we’re good at).

Virtues are utility with a lengthy cooldown.
No, ele has a passive run speed buff, guardian does not. Swiftness can be used via staff and retreat, but the damage is further degraded.
Guardian can’t be any role, they are mainly melee characters. While ele can be efficient at ranged and melee and transition seeminglessly between different attunements which gives them a array of versatile skills.

Ele can be effective in pvp while having a heal build, guardian however is stuck with mediocre damage and limited mobility.

Like a post noted, elementalist can do everything but excels at nothing. If the OP wants to specialize he/she should probably pick the class that meets his expectations.

Ele’s do not have ranged damage. They have close range damage and melee range damage. Ele’s have ranged control, but don’t confuse that with damage.

This topic has been brought up before and it prompted me to make a Guardian and play it in WvW.

The amount of healing they could do seemed about on par with a Support spec’d Elementalist. There really wasn’t much extra here and in fact faced a bug when spreading the healing from Virtue of Resolve to nearby allies (since it’d tick faster then it’s replace timer meaning it’d clip itself and not heal always). The ONLY compelling argument I’ve heard for Guardian healing is their easy access/fast cool down (5s) to Blast Finishers with a Hammer to AOE Blast finish heal on Ranger…or Ele. Since Staff is the other forgone conclusion, this gives them effectively zero range which leads to…

The one area they were definitely weaker was during keep sieges and a Staff Ele’s innate ability to reach very, very far onto a Wall. Even with Greater Symbols it’s just not the same reach as Meteor Swarm which, while random, can still usually is reliable enough to hit an area in the back at least once. Their AOE CC was also severely lacking compared to the utility of Frozen Ground or Static Field both of which have massive radii compared to just Line of Warding.

However the one area I did feel the Guardian superior on was sources of Boons. They have a lot of AOE shouts which work really well but ultimately end up taking up Utility slots. The Stability every 30s was unbelievably awesome.

Guardian was pretty good, no two ways about it. They are like the jeep of this game and no matter what activity you are doing they are a solid class and worth bringing. However to say that the Elementalist has no unique roles that the Guardian can’t fulfill is incredibly misleading an inaccurate.

Fortus.6175:

I have been playing staff elementalist since release…

I’ve played staff almost exclusively since I started and I always seem to come back to it.
I think the reason I like staff better than anything else is because it provides the best group support when compared to our other weapons.

I recently ran a dungeon with 4 staff Eles and we had everything locked down in almost permanent CC—our dps wasn’t that bad either. I think a lot of players forget that they are allowed to dps 5 targets at a time. A 1k tick from lava font becomes a 5k tick.

In PvP, standing back watching a team fight, if the staff Ele is able to take down 1/5 of each player’s health—that in and of itself is a very potent form of group support because you’re putting the other team at a 1/5 disadvantage.

There’s probably all kinds of flaws in that logic but I prefer to stick to it because it helps me appreciate staff.

In terms of healing, Guardian isn’t better. They can blast water fields using Hammer, sure, and heal others with staff 4, yeah. But what else? The dodge roll heal is miniscule and is still low when specced into healing power.

Elementalists Staff 3 is around a 2-3k heal for 5 people. Attuning to water is at least a 1.5k heal every 10s to 5 people around you. Dodge rolls in water are 1.5k heals when attuned to water, and cleanse a condition. Staff water 5 for elementalists is the largest water field in the game. Elementalists can also blast their own fields with earth dodge rolles, staff earth 2, and Arcane Wave.

Boon wise, guardians are better if they run shouts. However, an aura sharing ele would outclass guardians in that they can give allies permanent Fury, Swiftness, and PROTECTION. Unless I’m mistaken no other class can keep a 100% uptime on protection, and definitely not SHARED protection.

Now even with those up there, you could argue that a guardian can give more heals, and boons, and still provide CC. For example a shout hammer guardian.

However what an elementalist on a staff can do in a WvW fight is:
1. Provide support for their group while in combat (fire for might stacking, water for heals)
2. Provide support while out of combat to keep a whole zerg moving together (Static Field. Nobody else has this)
3. Provide crowd control through use of Unsteady Ground, Showckwave, Static Field, Frozen Ground, Gust.
4. Dish out massive AoE damage through the use of Meteor Shower, Lava Font, Eruption, Ice Spike, Showckwave, etc.

And they can do all of this from the backline, or even the front line. I personally run head first into enemys to lay down cc everywhere.

While a guardian is an excellent diver and CCer, they cannot compare to staff elementalists in terms of huge cc, support, and aoe damage. And no, I’m not saying guardians are useless, I’m saying that both classes are extremely useful, but the guardian can by no means replace an elementalist’s role.

Note: All of this is from a WvW perspective.

Eh.

Guardians are certainly the best support class in the game. Group stability is insanely strong, and Reflects break dungeon encounters.

However, to say Eles are a poor man’s Guardian isn’t really right. In particular, Elementalists provide a different sort of support that I think most people would actually be fairly surprised to realize.

Eles are better at removing conditions and granting boons. Seriously. Having had tons of hours on my Guard and Ele, I can tell you that an Elementalist actually has the best boon access between the two. Elemental Attunement and 30 in Arcana allows you to maintain a huge amount of uptime on Protection, Regeneration, and Swiftness. Eles often take these boons for granted, but when given to other classes, it hugely magnifies their effectiveness. A Guardian cannot provide these buffs in the same way an Ele can. A Hammer Guardian can provide Perma Protection provided they stick to autoattacking in Hammer but that’s a specific set pattern weapon choice.

Additionally, Eles provide insanely good might stacking. This is useful for dungeons but it’s also good for PvP formats too. No one in the game can match an Ele in terms of ability to stack might so easily. A simple Ring of Fire plus an Earth dodge roll and blast finisher or two, and you significantly up your team’s DPS. Guardians have Empower and Might-on-Crit, but it really isn’t the same effectivess in terms of Might Stacking.

Eles also have some of the best pure healing in the game. Their heal-on-dodge and their attune-to-water and their Dagger 5 all have 1:1 Healing Power ratios, meaning if you’re interested in playing a healing type of character (I assume in something like WvW), Elementalist does this way better. What a Guardian does better is providing proactive defenses: CC, wards, walls, aegis. These are in many ways “more useful” in certain given contexts, and I think that’s the real difference between Elementalists and Guardians. However, when it comes to the really obvious ways of providing support – healing and boons – Eles are actually much better.

One thing I will say, however. If you’re trying to play a Staff Ele in anything outside of WvW, then yes, Elementalist is going to feel really subpar. The truth is the class shines much more with almost any other weapon set combo in other formats than with Staff. And even in WvW, outside the context of a zerg, a D/D or S/D Elementalist is generally a better choice than Staff. Staff for Elementalist is just really bad and, in my opinion, having played a lot more of other classes lately, needs a huge buff.

Erasculio.2914:

Everything an elementalist can do, other professions can do better, but no one is as versatile as an elementalist.

I’m not gonna comment the rest of this as a rarely have any reason to play my ele, but this is directly wrong. Engineers are better suited to adapt and survive. Ele’s main thing comes from, I suppose, aura sharing now and “field” spam. That’s all we use it for anymore in GVG/WVW.

Aza.2105:

Let me list somethings you forgot to add:

1. If guardian traits to be a bunker, they do no damage.
2. If guardian traits for healing they do no damage.
3. Their boons are gained via utility, meaning they have lengthy cds.
4. Guardian has no mobility compared to ele.
5. Guardian lacks the diversity of ele.

I’d agree with you on most of those, but you’re completely wrong about 1 and 2. I can deal a fair amount of damage with my bunker guardian.

GoatCheese.2704:

In terms of healing, Guardian isn’t better. They can blast water fields using Hammer, sure, and heal others with staff 4, yeah. But what else? The dodge roll heal is miniscule and is still low when specced into healing power.

Recent changes on mace traits turn guardian into freaking monk and that’s ain’t no kidding. Anet buffs scalings for heal power on guardian skills virtually each update, so at this moment you can already make guardian that will heal tons of hp passively or actively with his each 3rd or even 2nd move while still doing his typical guardian job.
They also have far more than blasting water fields and staff4.

Eles have more conditions available (cripple, chill, bleeding).

Eles also have better combo fields. Combo fields are extremely powerful if used properly. Guardians have light fields and fire fields, which are ok, but eles get water fields, lightning fields and ice fields, which have much more powerful finishers.