Guild Wars 2

My first character I played was an Elementalist, which I’ve gotten to level 80.
On my Elementalist, I found parts of the personal story incredibly hard and died many times.
After reading a bit on the forums and seeing some people saying they had the same problems as myself and others saying they had no problem with the personal story, I just put it down to the player’s skill.

However, now that I’ve put time into a new class, the Warrior, I’ve found it’s certainly not the player, but the class.

I’m currently level 48 on my Warrior and before I completed the level 50 personal story (1st Claw Island stage), I had not died once (during personal story). I’m sure that if I waited till I was level 50 to do that stage, I would not have died at all.

On my Elementalist, I was having trouble doing the personal story I was the right level for, on my Warrior, I can do stages a few levels above mine.

Elementalist has some serious balance issues, it can lay down a crap load of AOE damage, but that’s rarely useful outside of Vets and Champs. The survivability of Elementalist is kitten and it’s short range damage is rubbish when compared to the Warrior.

Elementalist is unique and squishy, and could use some balancing. That being said, working with the class and developing a build that isn’t glass canon, I’ve really come into a decent routine. (At least, I have in PvE. I really haven’t tried PvP yet.) It requires a lot of attunement shifting.

Usually I start with fire, which has excellent potential for burst damage, then switch to air and earth (one one or the other, depending on the situation) then to water for a bit of healing up. By that time, I can switch back to fire.

Does some decent damage. I really don’t die in my story missions at all anymore, although I have to do a looooot of kiting.

Indeed, switching attunements a lot are a key to victory. That may seem sad if you were keen on being a dedicated fire mage or healing waterfall, but that’s how it is.. It’s not a very forgiving class, so you have to pull out every drop of strength in it to just be mediocre. Unlike some other classes like warrior for instance, yes.

ChaosKirin.1328:

I really don’t die in my story missions at all anymore, although I have to do a looooot of kiting.

I found at about level 60, the personal story got significantly easier (the NPC allies actually became helpful). It wasn’t until ‘The Source of Orr’ that personal story gave me a headache, again.

Just as a side note… it’s amazing how having just one other person with you can change the experience.

Compared to the other classes I’m playing (Ranger, Mesmer, Thief, Engineer), soloing my Elementalist feels like a chore.

On the other hand, she’s the most fun to team with. Only the Engineer rivals her on that front.

So, I just don’t play my Elementalist unless there’s at least one other person to run around with. I’m much happier that way.

I’ll also echo the point about attunement switching. When I started, I wanted to be a specialist in one element. However, I quickly discovered that approach just wasn’t going to work.

So, to answer the question: no, I don’t think the Elementalist sucks. It’s viable as a class and has areas where it can shine.

Do I think its overall performance is comparatively sub-par when measured against the other classes? Oh, yes indeedy, I most certainly do. The class needs some hot dev love action.

But it’s not unplayable.

Hey now, there’s a slogan…

The Elementalist. It’s not unplayable.

…someone get marketing on that right away.

I have a 72 warrior which i did most of my gw2 learning on.
When i started with my warrior i was going for DPS but when i started doing dungeons i went mace/shield and generally more defensive and i got way better at overland content. DPS was not as effective as defense.

with my ele i went strait for defense with scepter/focus and went straight for higher level content. at 10-12 i could do L15+ mobs. not two at once but i could hold my own in events and could solo single mobs.

My first run through ac story at level 30 i died… once.
My ele is 36 and has done ac on exp as well. In pugs thats always pretty hit or miss but i can tell that the content gets easier when I am using my ele well even at level 30 and thats just going to get better as i understand the class more.

is my warrior easier to play… hell yes. My warrior can not be killed by single mobs 1 or 2 levels higher then it. his health regens faster than they do damage.
so stand there and auto attack works. not my style though. Ill take on higher level veteran mobs and their normal minions solo. Dragon Slayer!

The Elementalist. It’s not unplayable.

I can’t decide whether I really believe they want things where they are -or- whether they’re just working on it but not telling us because it’s a BIG SURPRISE!

At lower levels the Elementalist is very weak and the Warrior is very strong; only at about level 60-70 the Elementalist manages to catch up somewhat.
Also if you haven’t played GW1 and thus let yourself been fooled by the profession description and now want to play the Elementalist as a glass cannon you’re in a world of pain.

elementalist is going to be very underpowered for a very long time, developers in anything hate admitting they have done wrong and often will leave issues unchanged even if it comes to a cost for themselves

the fact is, arenanet said they wont do “kneejerk” fixes or changes, yet the elementalist bwe2 to bwe3 nerfs where exactly that, a panicked change in an attempt to bring the class inline with others despite still having so many issues like survivability, downed states and conjured weapons, the change should of never happened period and there is literally no actual proof outside of afew minor complaints that the original scepter dagger burst combo was remotely overpowered

there wasn’t even rerolls and the combo was still hard to pull off

I have to agree, the Elementalist is just badly implemented, After trying all the other classes and taking mesmer and warrior to 80, as well as trying nearly all the rest out through 30 to 40 lands.

Its just pale in comparison to the others.

also, its rather sad when my engineer can freely use weapon kits back and forth with only 1 second of delay, unlimited ammount of time left and unlimited usage, they are also not elite skills, the same could not be said about fiery greatsword for example, this class is clearly made for kids who thinks looking cool is the only thing that matters.

I will never understand these poor decisions and i will never understand why they think a proper elementalist wasnt good enough for the game.

mjharrison

Ele doesn’t suck it’s just that all the other classes are better.

madatom

that’s basically the same thing

No, it’s not.

When I played vanilla WoW, I picked druid and warlock. Of course they quickly resulted to be the most atrocious, UP classes. Those were bad made.
Then they rebuilt both. Warlocks became powerful, the post patch 1.7 druids were decent-ish.

In GW2 I picked Elementalist and Necro. Of course both resulted to be the UP classes (yes you see my pattern, I always pick the worst ).
But necros are just bugged if not broken, Elementalist are bugged and WEAK but fun.

If all the game was “foam padded”, classes all telegraphed their attacks and critted for 3k, then Elementalist would be the most fun and versatile class of all, a joy to play.

So, they are not “basically the same thing (as suck)”, they are just made for another game exactly like the first feral druids were so fun but just not made for WoW and it’s faceroll classes.

Nerf the other classes damage by half and then elementalists become really nice, with no further change than bug fixing them.

Only THEN nerf elementalist bunker builds, as they would not be needed any more as fixed and only competitive spec.

if everything is better, and our ability to compete in any environment is extremely limited, then the class literally sucks

its not like vanilla wow where every ultra niche hybrid had a place in a raid due to the buffs and utility it brought, thats still some viability

every elementalist build outside bunker and staff support is simply not competitive

that sucks

Everyone claiming that the profession is the problem when it comes to them not being able to compleate normal PvE content. That is, only world PvE and personal story. Are dead wrong.

Im running an elementalist thats soon lvl 30 and so far, no problems at all, i can take on everything in my level range without feeling underpowered or dying and if you cant, you are playing it wrong.

Although the elementalist seems to need some changes that will bring it up to speed with other professions. But rest assured we are not the only profession suffering from many issues and when it comes to just casually playing the game we are NOT underpowered.

No. I think they don’t suck, but…

- You need to work a lot to achieve results.
- AoE damage is not the cure to all evils.
- I think they are on the wrong side of the armor curve…if your stats are bad for your level, it’s much worse than a warrior whose stats are bad for their level.
- If you expected to have fun melting faces with fire (a laudable goal), you can’t.
- conjures are far too clunky. They should have been magical kits with cooldowns, not charges.

If I were the devs doing balancing, I would do the following:

- Make a trait pass. For example, adept(5) water is good; adept(5) earth is not.
- Simplify conjures – no charges, just a cooldown when you switch away from it (like 120s)
- Adjust lava axe. I haven’t played with the earth shield, but frost bow and lightning hammer seem to be in a good place.

Then sit back and watch. I think the people who are tired of doing so much work will pick a kit and run with it. Fixing adept(5) earth with help with the armor situation.

-Jeff

Battery.5930:

Everyone claiming that the profession is the problem when it comes to them not being able to compleate normal PvE content. That is, only world PvE and personal story. Are dead wrong.

Im running an elementalist thats soon lvl 30 and so far, no problems at all, i can take on everything in my level range without feeling underpowered or dying and if you cant, you are playing it wrong.

Although the elementalist seems to need some changes that will bring it up to speed with other professions. But rest assured we are not the only profession suffering from many issues and when it comes to just casually playing the game we are NOT underpowered.

jaif.3518:

- If you expected to have fun melting faces with fire (a laudable goal), you can’t.

by competitive content i mean people who are trying to do sPvP or dungeons

i anecdotal evidence by level 30 players demonstrates nothing on actual balance, and assuming our profession is only support/bunker is also wrong

im trying my hardest not to insult the 2 people above me but dam your just flat out silly

at level 70 things becomes more pinful….try to get to orr.

At level 30 everything is easy for every class in normal PvE

Battery.5930:

Who the kitten are you and why are you speaking to me? …

To be fair, what he said, that is:

anecdotal evidence by level 30 players demonstrates nothing on actual balance…

is 100% true (and what LordByron said).

That being said, to the OP, I don’t think the Ele sucks, they’re just a little lackluster compared so some other classes. PvE wise they’re pretty fine when specced/geared/played properly but still struggle in relation to a few other classes.
PvP wise, they can be very strong as a bunker/healing build, but they’re pretty much pigeonholed into this support role as going glass cannon in PvP is suicide (WvW wise, glass cannon works because you can get the drop on people in a numbers game).

I think just fixing the plethora of bugs the class has, as well as tweaking the downed state, would be enough to make the class more competitive and “fix” it for the most part (I’d also wish for a few reduced cooldowns, like say 30s instead of 45s for firegrab, but that’s probably just wishful thinking).

Elementalist is hard to play.

Warrior is easy to play.

Bad Player = Bad at elementalist, Good at warrior

Good Player = Good at elementalist, Good at warrior

Bsquared.3421:

To be fair, what he said, that is:

anecdotal evidence by level 30 players demonstrates nothing on actual balance…

is 100% true (and what LordByron said).

When concerning normal PvE gameplay and story missions i have found that the difficulty stays the same throughout the game, i have a lvl 69 ranger and unless those last 10 levels really ramp the action up… In any case elementalists do absolutely fine in normal PvE and story missions.

madatom.5218:

if everything is better, and our ability to compete in any environment is extremely limited, then the class literally sucks

its not like vanilla wow where every ultra niche hybrid had a place in a raid due to the buffs and utility it brought, thats still some viability

every elementalist build outside bunker and staff support is simply not competitive

that sucks

Agree, it is disappointing to say the least, poor DPS, poor survivability, poor down state.

Elementalists are the squishiest class in the game (lowest base hp and armor), and are relatively hard to play well, if you want to have a decent damage output and not die all the time. Basically, they’re most awesome if you love torturing your keyboard .

Ahdeeyah.1342:

Elementalist is hard to play.

Warrior is easy to play.

Bad Player = Bad at elementalist, Good at warrior

Good Player = Good at elementalist, Good at warrior

Well, you can’t argue with that logic.

tissue paper class. no cannon to go with the glass. thats basically it.

don’t worry though, ele nerfs aren’t done yet. apparently the bunker build is about to be debunked.

gl all.

I don’t really agree that elementalist sucks…

I have an ele that’s like level 43, and I’ve done a good deal of sPvP with her as well, but I’ve never found her to be underpowered, in fact I have actually found her to be pretty powerful. And since I have done sPvP a lot…you can’t really use “wait until you get higher level” as an excuse.

The one thing I will say is that there are a LOT of playstyles for ele that just don’t work. And I kind of think that folks who believe ele sucks tend to try to “force” these playstyles instead of using one of the ones that does work. This, in and of itself, may be a problem that needs addressing. Some of the weaker traits/skills could use some looking at.

But as a whole, I really think ele can be a great class. Another reason I believe this is that there are a few threads here from players that are absolutely dominating with their eles. Folks here tend to attribute their domination to them just being in the “.01%” of players…in other words, so good that their skill trumps the ele’s natural crappiness. But I honestly don’t think this is true.

I copied a build from one of these guys, and found it to be VERY effective. So instead of thinking that you can never be as good as them…just try copying them, you may be pleasantly surprised.

this is a pvp game, why are there so many topics about the pve?
my solution for pve “balance” is WHO CARES?? its pve! you play the class you want to because its what you want to play or what you want to look like. you are not competing against anyone else so why complain about the balance?
should I start complaining I dont get paid the same amount of moeny the VPs in wall street are making when I work as a casier at food lion in rural south carolina? NO!

now when its PVP, ya know… guild WARS.. not “slaying polygonal computer controled dragon” WARS, you are in direct competition with the other classes. when you are in direct competition is when you need balance.

BishopX.6453:

now when its PVP, ya know… guild WARS.. not “slaying polygonal computer controled dragon” WARS, you are in direct competition with the other classes.

Shows how much you actually know about the game, that you didn’t even know it’s named after PvE lore.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars

You’re welcome.

He has a point however.
PvE is dirt easy, to the point you can do it without gear.

PvP is where balance is at.

I recently have gotten my Level 80 Elementalist some gear. Missing trinkets / back item + exotic weapons. Besides that, I can now take out about 3 – 4 people at once in WvW**

However, we are still in need of some work. I for one would love to see exotic weapons / trinkets with the same stats as some of the dungeon gear. I cannot find a Toughness, Precision, Condition (main) trinket for the life of me.

**Depending on how good they are, my cooldowns, and how much damage they do.

although i agree PvP is a little more rubber on the road you can not do a dungeon with bad gear without feeling that pain. nor can you take on much higher level mobs with bad gear.

AND in PvP you have a whole other issue of a fair fight. WvW is supposed to be unfair. SPvP will make me feel like my character is terrible when im fighting in a PUG and the other side has a guild mates with voice chat.

It very difficult to judge that kind of thing.
I know between arcane shield and obsidian skin i can stay alive for a long time but i havent figured out how to really hurt people yet.

it’s hard not to find arena net are being ridiculous about the ele, they wanted all classes to be able to solo everything to some extent that’s why they keep going on about not having the holy trinity of tank dps healer as an individual class.

so why is it then that ele has such terrible defencive capabilities? and is not by any stretch of the imagination suitable for a game that doesn’t have tanks and healers.

they want they best of both worlds here, they want glass cannon but they don’t want the trinity of classes…well sorry but you can’t have your cake and eat it, either ele gets buffed in defence or it gets a freaking massive buff in offence to offset the absolutlely terrible defence.

one or the other arena net, you can’t nerf them both and expect ele to be remotely fun.

orlen.7810:

it’s hard not to find arena net are being ridiculous about the ele, they wanted all classes to be able to solo everything to some extent that’s why they keep going on about not having the holy trinity of tank dps healer as an individual class.

so why is it then that ele has such terrible defencive capabilities? and is not by any stretch of the imagination suitable for a game that doesn’t have tanks and healers.

they want they best of both worlds here, they want glass cannon but they don’t want the trinity of classes…well sorry but you can’t have your cake and eat it, either ele gets buffed in defence or it gets a freaking massive buff in offence to offset the absolutlely terrible defence.

one or the other arena net, you can’t nerf them both and expect ele to be remotely fun.

The ele has some very powerful defensive abilities. I can completely negate multiple spinning axes and other stuff pretty easily in spvp. my warrior can do that too but he cant move or fight. the ele can.

It is the dps and getting it to all work together that is hard for me. I can stay alive for a long while 1v1. but the rare solo’s that i have run into recently generally end up with me trying to dissect the information from the fight while the walk away with half health.

madatom.5218:

jaif.3518:

- If you expected to have fun melting faces with fire (a laudable goal), you can’t.

by competitive content i mean people who are trying to do sPvP or dungeons

i anecdotal evidence by level 30 players demonstrates nothing on actual balance, and assuming our profession is only support/bunker is also wrong

im trying my hardest not to insult the 2 people above me but dam your just flat out silly

What’s silly about what I said? In guild wars I, you could make a fire build and gleefully run around melting faces. Very straight-forward, lots of fun.

You can’t possibly be that effective with only fire in PvP, whatever the version. Elementalists are built to use many tools, not just fire, to be effective.

-Jeff