Guild Wars 2

Speaking from a spvp/tpvp standpoint ele just have no place in the current meta. Low health, low armor, either no damage or no survivability (other glass cannons have some control or evades or stealth or something ele has at most 2 hard controls with very long cd), very little support (the most support-ish thing u can do is go aurashare which has very limited range and leaves u with very small damage).

Little time ago reading the forums eles were lamenting their uselessness in pve.

Which leaves us with WvW. Staff buff made them possibly viable but then again arent around better aoe damage dealers (cd on meteor shower is looooooooooong, isnt it better to have granades or cluster bomb or something else?).

Pretty sure about the spvp part, is the pve/WvW correct? Before anybody jumps at my throat: i know ele can still kill an attrition battle with somebody else but that requires A LOT of concentration and skill compared with other classes. One mistake and u are down FAST (and i dont play glass cannon) which in the end made me switch to warrior.

Well they’re still the generally most-complained-about class for WvW purposes due to vapour form. I don’t mind it at all personally, but somehow people can always rage about it. :S

In PVE you can go L. Hammer build is pretty effective and u can support ur party with offensive boons (might stacking – fury and vulnerability too if traited). In DGs damage is king, and this build is very strong. However, u have to be pro at dodging and know well the encounters.

For WvW elem are pretty useful in organized zergs, static fields and water fields (that u can blast with earth or arcane wave) are always in demand in zergs fights.

In PvE every and anything goes. In WvW, other players in a zerg become nothing more than loot to us. Just drop a meteor and watch the bags drop.

In sPvP you are zerging to the left and right.
in TPvP and soon to be soloPvP, ahahahahahaha. We are not bad, we just are worst compared to everyone else.

We have low armor, low damage to do a decent amount of damage you have to become a human macro or use a macro, before had active defense but no Arenanet hates it when the elementalist is decent. They might throw us a bone or 2, just long enough to keep us complacent. look at a mesmer that guy has invulnerable every 9 seconds and can reflect damage AND can spawn auto dps.

Honestly, I m getting tired of this game. I hope blade and soul cn open beta is f2p.

Ele has a place. If you are twice as good as the enemy team and have ridiculous dodge luck. AND if you either macro or (whats my case) can burn thru your burst combo so fast people insult and report you for macroing.
Ele just cant make any mistakes in this meta. Everyone else can. So the perfect ele might have a place. But a human one wont. At even skilllevel you are toast. If your far superior have a nice meal.

Gosh when I remember the times everyone said burst ele isn’t viable and I instagibbed a top mesmer by surprise because he didn´t expect me to…
Now it hasn’t been improved but is the best thing you can do.
What does this tell you?

Blimm.5028:

Now it hasn’t been improved but is the best thing you can do.
What does this tell you?

That nearly a year and a 3 months after nerfing the elementalist to the ground they added ONLY 1 new build?

Fiery Lily.8046:

i know ele can still kill an attrition battle with somebody else but that requires A LOT of concentration and skill compared with other classes. One mistake and u are down FAST (and i dont play glass cannon) which in the end made me switch to warrior.

I do agree that ele is no longer the easy to play, button smashing profession it used to be with the previous god mode build. It does require a lot of reading towards your opponent next move and being able to avoid and counter. Even our own skills can’t be used as carelessly as we used to (example Ride the Lightning, Mist Form). This is the reason why many experienced players fail now. Players grew accustomed to the previous playstyle and now that it requires more combat skills to actually perform very well, many just quit or simply can’t adapt.

By the way, I doubt you will find the warrior any better than the elementalist unless you are playing a very bunker/healer stun lock build for solo encounters. Let me know if I’m wrong with that assumption. I play warrior and mesmer too and honestly aside of 1v1 encounters I just can’t find myself to be as good with them as I am with my ele for the other type of battles. Leveling a gurdian now and I have high expectations towards this profession as well for WvW.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Fiery Lily.8046:

i know ele can still kill an attrition battle with somebody else but that requires A LOT of concentration and skill compared with other classes. One mistake and u are down FAST (and i dont play glass cannon) which in the end made me switch to warrior.

I do agree that ele is no longer the easy to play, button smashing profession it used to be with the previous god mode build. It does require a lot of reading towards your opponent next move and being able to avoid and counter. Even our own skills can’t be used as carelessly as we used to (example Ride the Lightning, Mist Form). This is the reason why many experienced players fail now. Players grew accustomed to the previous playstyle and now that it requires more combat skills to actually perform very well, many just quit or simply can’t adapt.

By the way, I doubt you will find the warrior any better than the elementalist unless you are playing a very bunker/healer stun lock build for solo encounters. Let me know if I’m wrong with that assumption. I play warrior and mesmer too and honestly aside of 1v1 encounters I just can’t find myself to be as good with them as I am with my ele for the other type of battles. Leveling a gurdian now and I have high expectations towards this profession as well for WvW.

Speaking strictly about tpvp/spvp here.

I find warrior really fun. I tried ranger spirits and it’s so op i refuse to play it (unless my team doesnt have a ranger and the other one does, in this case i equalize things). Not even funny, just button smashing. Thing is war is not button smashing, u have to time your things right but mistakes can be forgiven.

I never button smashed my ele (except in the beginning) but now i’m really really angry cause one mistake and u are down. And on the other side if u dont make mistakes it’s a 50/50 win loss ratio. Most likely since it will be an attrition battle the encounter will be decided by other members of the team. And in exchange for this do we get an edge somewhere? No. Damage: anybody can do better. Survivability: guardian, ranger can do better. Support: guardian, spi rangers are better again. Which is the advantage of ele? Cause i dont see any.

One of the problems imo is that our utilities are either defensive (cantrips with the exception of lightning flash which can be used offensively) or offensive (arcane). I wont even mention signets (which are a decent choice if u go condition but condi ele is not a decent choice) and conjures (please just remove these from pvp: the add more complexity to ele in exchange for nothing). Most of time for other professions utilities can be used both ways.

The glory grind in quick-join feels like work.
Knocking guardians and engies off points to cap takes forever.

There are so many terrible thieves, that they aren’t our number 1 enemy anymore.
Our biggest threat for awhile now is necromancer. Good God. Was torment really necessary? Do I need a triple bunker cleanse, plus cantrip, plus heal ability to survive now? It sure feels like it. If you’re glass, just forget about it. You’ll be dead before you get that insta-gib off.

For the map with the laser I use tornado, because it seems like every other class in there has unlimited knockbacks on much shorter cds. If you don’t have one, you’re probably the one falling to your death.

After necro, I’d say mesmer is the most annoying thing because they can easily play glass, while doing more burst than the common thief. You’ll be fighting a close match on a point and a necro or mesmer show up, and you know it’s time to bail.

In quick-join, on a fair class vs class setup, I do not find it difficult to have most points for both teams. That is only because of the ranking system. Anet pits rank 3s vs 50s sometimes, and that’s hardly fun for anyone.

After some patches, I felt the ele class get progressively weaker due to the buffs of other classes, more than the nerfs of our own. But I can’t really say for sure. For instance, I have problems with some rangers. lol And longbow warriors, wow. Some of those guys really know their stuff. Ranger is a metric ton of interrupts and pet healing, with high burst, and get this, stealth. The warrior spams a huge AoE burn, then adds torment, and you really can’t stand in that aoe to burst him down.

Staff is the utmost slowest damage still, unlike longbow range skills, and every other ranged ability of the other classes. You really cannot play with that on your own unless you’re support, and then what’s the point? I do not play staff, I’m just making another side point on the class. I’ve tried it maybe 4 times in spvp.

Why did we all fall in love with Eles in pvp? Because of dagger/dagger. That remains to be the most used setup, because everything else is 1s away from being 1 shotted. We want to be bunkers that can kill, just like the other bunkers: Ranger, Guardian, Engineer, whatever else. You need to be able to hold a point vs more than 1 person at a time. I’ve seen an engie keep 5 people off a cap an entire match. For us to fight 2 people at once, you have to constantly cleanse, and dodge every lockout the enemy throws at you. Meaning, you can’t eat an 8s guardian chain-knockdown up against a wall where the camera becomes your worst enemy. You need to have that 90s(72s? with cd reduction) armor of earth, or mist form available. You can’t accidentally ride the lightning back into your opponent. You can’t get pulled right before a dodge cleanse. You can’t do any combo burst at all with confusion on. Basically to win, you need to be able to break a stun, cleanse, dodge, and negate damage from an aura at all times, or you’re dead, because you’re not going to kill the person without using any of those. Most likely you will use all of your cds to kill someone, then someone else shows up and you have to try to get a stomp and get out of there, or just run away somehow while they get rallied.

This is an average day in spvp: Stomp scrubs, then next match get rolled, making you question your build, runes, sigils, weapon set, and class.

If I had a nickel for every time I clicked “trait reset”…

Speaking only in terms of med-large scale WvW fights, Eles are one of the most in-demand and useful classes in the game. Sure their AoE might not do quite as much damage as a necro, but water fields, fire fields, static fields and meteor showers? Amazing. Even D/D is used very commonly by organised guild groups in WvW, for the on the move healing (water 5 and evasive arcana) and aurashare.

They will probably never be the most damaging class in the game, and I’m perfectly ok with that. But a a support class they are completely invaluable. And hey, if you want damage, try casting Tornado right after Meteor shower :P

Ele’s are the ultimate class in combining all the factors of your engagement with a tactical mindset to provide advantage. Providing combo fields for yourself and your group is essential to any situation(staff), as well as the finishers required for other’s providing them(s/d). This means it’s most likely the most difficult class to play at an impressive level. Not only do you have to know at least 3x as many skills in your tool belt as most other classes, but you must be able to use them effectively in conjunction with each other at the proper time, both for you and your opponant(s) AND knowing exactly how long your cooldown time will be to use them again(d/d(f)). Not a simple task.

This of course means you’ll encounter a myriad of difficulty compared to other classes, but it also provides opportunity to be unexpectedly effective. I acknowledge that few have managed to master this, and it needs to be addressed to some degree for the masses who are carried by meta, but make no mistake. Ele’s are far from useless in any situation.

I also still firmly believe that Ele’s are the highest DPS output classes in the game, but only slightly more so than warriors.

silvermember.8941:

We are not bad, we just are worst compared to everyone else.

exactly.
Still the most fun thing to do in GW2 is to 1v1 eve vs ele. If the builds are similar (not staff glass vs dd tank) then this is the best skills test in the game, ofc unless it is 100% tank/heal vs other 100% tank/heal where both player will have their hp 75%+ all the time.

Since we’re comparing Ele to other classes, imo, staff makes us the very best within certain roles. I run staff everywhere in all game modes. The secret is sticking to your role and not trying to be an x/d Ele that uses staff. PvP in this game in a team sport; if you are doing your job and your team is still losing—you need a better team.

Lavadiel.6231:

silvermember.8941:

We are not bad, we just are worst compared to everyone else.

exactly.
Still the most fun thing to do in GW2 is to 1v1 eve vs ele….

Honestly not really i play hybrid (classic valkyrie+berserker jewel) and when i see an ele i avoid 1v1 cause i know except in the case of BIG mistakes on 1 side or the other we’ll just stay there for ages till one of my friends or his solves the stall.

What i see from the posts in general is ele seems to have a place in WvW cause of damage and support with staff. Unfortunately staff in spvp is way not viable cause the control is decent but not fantastic and u r gonna go down FAST if targeted. Again like somebody said it’s not that ele is bad, it’s that other classes are way better.

As for the damage of the ele being fantastic maybe on par with war: no, just no. As a war now u have the stuns to land a 1h blades, u have blocks u have other utilities. As an ele if u go glass cannon to have a damage to rival any other glass cannon u have a big fat nothing to defend yourself. If u wanna deal damage u have to leave every defense and die miserably while thieves have stealth, mesmers have clones, rangers (and thieves again) have evades… Just the ele have a big fat nothing if they want to deal damage. They do have controls on LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG cds which just dont cut it compared to the war 4 sec stun every 10 secs or so. Not to mention the low health and low armor again….

You summed it up yourself, if you are skilled you will be fine…warrior on the other hand, press 1 button than mash #1 till dies, rinse repeat

Jack of all Trades always end up having an identity crisis if they don’t excel at any route.

Unfortunately the biggest thing we excel at is AOE Group Support with a staff. We combine the powerful ranged AOE of a Necro with the powerful AOE healing support of a Guardian. If that’s what you’re looking for, then really there should be no complaints because no one else can do that better. Really now that I think about it, these seem to be the people most happy with the class.

However in any other scenario you end up better off playing other classes. I mean people around here argue about optimal this and optimal that but after getting my warrior to 80 and geared our “optimal” isn’t even on the radar of a Warrior for PvE. I don’t really see any reason to not just give into ANet’s kittened design and make the optimal class for each element of the game.

This is not to say you can’t pull off an Ele. It’s just to say every other class does it better and in a game where leveling is beyond trivial (thanks Pavilion!) and gearing them out in exotics is easy (thanks changes to dungeons to encourage other dungeons being ran!) it’s hard to find a reason not to just level and gear a character that’s ideal for your scenario and just play the right tool for the job. It’s like attunement swapping on a character level (haha).

The only place where we seem to belong is WvW with a staff. While the elementalist if good with in a dungeon group with providign support, it is simply better just to bring in a guardian for higher support and damage.

Yesterday, it became crystal clear that the elementalist simply sucks or maybe the design for the Queen’s Gauntlet does not it favor it or maybe I suck (which is more probably). I was trying to do Ragmaw with 5 gambits on my mesmer, all I did was simply summon the gun shooting phantasm switch to my gs and summon the berserker BAM a few seconds (36 seconds) later 6 bags of money. On my elementalist did my best but it wasn’t sufficient. Obviously I don’t want the ele to be that ez, but I don’t want to be a human macro to do something others can do with 3 buttons.

In WvW, staff is pretty good for heals + combo fields. I have been testing out 6x runes of perplexity with a condi build. Wrecking some people with mass confusion on static field, so much so that I take lightning hammer too! You can put 5 stacks of confusion (10s) on more than 5 people, and watch them do tons of condi dmg to themselves. It doesn’t kill many, but weakens them quite a bit while you dish out your support.

I just want to add that because of the current design of the elementalist (low damage) people have to compensate for by spamming their skill as soon as it leaves CD instead using their skills tactically.

Fox, The current air fresh builds relies on simply using up your blind (air 2) with no regard to whether the target can hit you or not. This design runs counter to the whole tactical gameplay we were suppose to have and more like a buy a high powered keyboard and simply let the macros do their jobs.

Elem DPS isn’t low, but u have to be total berserker to see this (yes, forget arcane traits). Our effective dps is higher than mesmers one. Mesmer is valuable in DGs for their reflects, portals and time warps.

In Spvp Elem feels lackluster due the meta and contraditory class design (low health and low toughness but always forced in meele range – we dont have pets or clones as meatbags, neither invisible tricks).

Tupi, you can go full arcane and still instagib stuff with ele
However, your point is valid^^
Except ofc if your talking pve. From your description it sounds like that. In Dungeons noone wants eles. Except if they know you can do your Firegreatsword burst thing.

We’re only good at 2 things right now. Gimmicky burst build, which although fun as hell can still be outdone by any other class with their burst build with a fraction of the effort, and being everyone else’s boon monkey. That’s all we can do right now. We are not jacks of all trades, that would be engineer. We do 2 things that can be done better by other classes for less effort. We’re wanted for fire and water fields in wvw and that’s about it, but warriors can make fire fields as well, and rangers and engineers can make water fields, so we can be replaced there too. And necro always has been and always will be better at controlling zergs, even more so now with their fear wall and their gigantic marks. Guardians can buff as well as we can with shouts. And I don’t know where the rumor came from that we had the best burst healing, it is simply not true. That would be warrior. I’ve tested both ele and warrior in full clerics gear and warrior outdoes it by a long shot in burst healing. My shouts can heal for over 3k each and I can put 3 of them on my slot bar. That’s an over 9k heal all of which are on pretty decent cooldowns compared to us swapping to water and then dodgeing and healing for a little over 2k twice.

Tupi.2967:

Elem DPS isn’t low, but u have to be total berserker to see this (yes, forget arcane traits). Our effective dps is higher than mesmers one. Mesmer is valuable in DGs for their reflects, portals and time warps.

In Spvp Elem feels lackluster due the meta and contraditory class design (low health and low toughness but always forced in meele range – we dont have pets or clones as meatbags, neither invisible tricks).

I can go on a mesmer full dps spec sand guardian and I will still have a lot of survivability (hp wise), cheap stuns/daze (mantra), invulnerbility every 12 seconds on sword AND every 90 seconds for 3 seconds depending on amount of clones, EZ and cheap reflects most of them provide not only damage but also reflect.

Elementalist on the other hand needs a cheap mechanic that contradicts our class mechanics. most of our defensive skills are on a long CD, if for some dumb reason we want to be full dps spec we give up the ability to ultilize our core mechanic to it’s fullest. Finally, let say you want to run arcane build we give up ALL our defensive skills which are on an extremely long CD.

The point being that the elementalist simply sucks or is bad compared to everyone else. There is no class worst than the elementalist because we constantly punished simply for existing. We get punished for our class mechanics by having 15 secs CD, we get punished for our defensive skills by having low,defense hp and high CD on all our defensive ability WHILE they are other classes that have better defensive abilities, high hp or defense. All of these doesn’t include the fact that our trait sucks.

added: you get the little problem of having to play like a macro in a game where you are suppose to think (initially anways I think arenanet gave up on that concept months ago) before using skills instead of just button mashing or relying on muscle memory.
Tl;dr
Technically you speak the truth except for the fact we get extremely punished for everything classes take for granted.

Nikkinella.8254:

We’re only good at 2 things right now. Gimmicky burst build, which although fun as hell can still be outdone by any other class with their burst build with a fraction of the effort, and being everyone else’s boon monkey. That’s all we can do right now. We are not jacks of all trades, that would be engineer. We do 2 things that can be done better by other classes for less effort. We’re wanted for fire and water fields in wvw and that’s about it, but warriors can make fire fields as well, and rangers and engineers can make water fields, so we can be replaced there too. And necro always has been and always will be better at controlling zergs, even more so now with their fear wall and their gigantic marks. Guardians can buff as well as we can with shouts. And I don’t know where the rumor came from that we had the best burst healing, it is simply not true. That would be warrior. I’ve tested both ele and warrior in full clerics gear and warrior outdoes it by a long shot in burst healing. My shouts can heal for over 3k each and I can put 3 of them on my slot bar. That’s an over 9k heal all of which are on pretty decent cooldowns compared to us swapping to water and then dodgeing and healing for a little over 2k twice.

This is a pretty over the top view on things.

For one Necros have their own crosses to bear, specifically around Stability. Stability usually means life or death in Zerg play because getting stopped by Fear Walls, Static Fields, Hammer Jammer warriors and all the other crazy amounts of CC means you’re pretty much dead. Also without the Zerg providing it, they have non existent mobility or have to take up one of their precious Utility slots (precious because they have a huge number of amazing options for Utilities) for a Signet to keep their speed going. It’s these kinds of little realities you don’t pick up on till you actually play one.

As for burst healing the general burst healing combination goes from Earth → Eruption → Water (Area Heal, Area Regen) → Geyser (Area Heal) → Arcane Wave (Area Heal) → Eruption Finishes (Area Heal) → Dodge Roll (Evasive Arcana Area Heal)…and Soothing Mist. Most of these contribute greatly from +Healing gear (they get nearly full effect) meaning it’s all fairly potent and all on a relatively short cool down. If you really wanna get more situational from there I’ve dropped a Healing Rain then did Tornado while spewing out Healing Bolts to nearby friendlies as well.

Staff Eles are actually a super solid choice for WvW game play and any serious group pretty much brings 1-2 of them. You might have good healing on that Warrior and good CC on that Necro but Ele combines the two pretty smartly.

silvermember.8941:

I just want to add that because of the current design of the elementalist (low damage) people have to compensate for by spamming their skill as soon as it leaves CD instead using their skills tactically.

Fox, The current air fresh builds relies on simply using up your blind (air 2) with no regard to whether the target can hit you or not. This design runs counter to the whole tactical gameplay we were suppose to have and more like a buy a high powered keyboard and simply let the macros do their jobs.

Small correction: Air #3 is the blind, and fresh air builds make it available twice as often, giving more opportunity to use it tactically. The damage skill that gets spammed is #2 and it’s cooldown matches fresh air’s pattern anyway so there is no waste.

Fiery Lily.8046:

Speaking from a spvp/tpvp standpoint ele just have no place in the current meta. Low health, low armor, either no damage or no survivability (other glass cannons have some control or evades or stealth or something ele has at most 2 hard controls with very long cd), very little support (the most support-ish thing u can do is go aurashare which has very limited range and leaves u with very small damage).

Little time ago reading the forums eles were lamenting their uselessness in pve.

Which leaves us with WvW. Staff buff made them possibly viable but then again arent around better aoe damage dealers (cd on meteor shower is looooooooooong, isnt it better to have granades or cluster bomb or something else?).

Pretty sure about the spvp part, is the pve/WvW correct? Before anybody jumps at my throat: i know ele can still kill an attrition battle with somebody else but that requires A LOT of concentration and skill compared with other classes. One mistake and u are down FAST (and i dont play glass cannon) which in the end made me switch to warrior.

at the games current state.. staff eles shine in WvW organized group play/comp’d groups the most.. they control the fights w/ fields since the wars/guards should be looking for the fields to blast/hammerstorm.. the only big problems as staff ele in wvw is having to watch your positioning, having 2+ heart seeking thieves on you, and watching where you lay down your fields/not overlaying other fields… 1 good staff ele can basically carry an entire fight if rotations are on point..

as for spvp/tourny.. i gave up on it when every game i joined had at least 2 necros.. -.- but i do think staff eles could have a place there w/ a good team..

really, though, i dont think eles need a buff.. necros, thieves and rangers just need to be fixed.. and anet really needs to stop trying to balance all 3 game modes together..

Nikkinella.8254:

We’re only good at 2 things right now. Gimmicky burst build, which although fun as hell can still be outdone by any other class with their burst build with a fraction of the effort, and being everyone else’s boon monkey. That’s all we can do right now. We are not jacks of all trades, that would be engineer. We do 2 things that can be done better by other classes for less effort. We’re wanted for fire and water fields in wvw and that’s about it, but warriors can make fire fields as well, and rangers and engineers can make water fields, so we can be replaced there too. And necro always has been and always will be better at controlling zergs, even more so now with their fear wall and their gigantic marks. Guardians can buff as well as we can with shouts. And I don’t know where the rumor came from that we had the best burst healing, it is simply not true. That would be warrior. I’ve tested both ele and warrior in full clerics gear and warrior outdoes it by a long shot in burst healing. My shouts can heal for over 3k each and I can put 3 of them on my slot bar. That’s an over 9k heal all of which are on pretty decent cooldowns compared to us swapping to water and then dodgeing and healing for a little over 2k twice.

now take that healing power with a few other wars/guards and blast a waterfield..

Blimm.5028:

Tupi, you can go full arcane and still instagib stuff with ele
However, your point is valid^^
Except ofc if your talking pve. From your description it sounds like that. In Dungeons noone wants eles. Except if they know you can do your Firegreatsword burst thing.

Hi, Blimm,
yes i’m talking about Dungeons. I dont agree that nobody wants elem in DGs thou, we can do good without FG.

But i agree with some critiques, we should question Devs on contraditory profession design. I cant understand the ultra low health for example, even with our healing i think it’s too low.

If in doubt re:Warriors, search the youtubes for Jathres.
There`s another warrior that posts, forgotten his name, but has Mike somewhere in it.

Tupi, our profession design is not contraditory. Its “jack of all trades”. You have healing, some defense, more or less single target damage and aoe damage in every possible build.
Dagger mainhand and Staff don´t have that much single target, but thats not my point right here.
Low health pool is totally ok at the moment, atleast PvP wise. There we only need a nerf to the condition meta and ele will be top of the foodchain. In PvE the only thing is you have to be a little skilled to be efficient with ele, and even then warriors are just better. But every profession has that problem in PvE at the moment. Ither buff the warrior or be the warrior. Or go home. Warrior has way too much damage for PvE at the moment.

My toughness/healing ele brings a lot to the table in dungeons – the continuous regen etc. provided ensures that the party remains topped-up on health.

Summoned weapons are an effective counter for that compromise, especially flaming axe, lightning sword and, of course, flaming greatsword – once in a while I am able to contribute to the DPS quite nicely. Most eles only really take notice of frost bow, which has [by my experience] much less damage than the other summoned weapons – so if you are feeling that your tankier build isn’t really doing any damage experiment with the other summoned weapons (not to mention the awesome mobility they offer).

Blimm.5028:

Tupi, our profession design is not contraditory. Its “jack of all trades”. You have healing, some defense, more or less single target damage and aoe damage in every possible build.
Dagger mainhand and Staff don´t have that much single target, but thats not my point right here.
Low health pool is totally ok at the moment, atleast PvP wise. There we only need a nerf to the condition meta and ele will be top of the foodchain. In PvE the only thing is you have to be a little skilled to be efficient with ele, and even then warriors are just better. But every profession has that problem in PvE at the moment. Ither buff the warrior or be the warrior. Or go home. Warrior has way too much damage for PvE at the moment.

Sure!

You mean the bunker build? or the give everything you got build and hope someone saves your butt build?

Ultimately, even in tPvP all those so called things the ele brings is outweight or outplay by other classes. But what I do know.

I feel mostly comfortable with elementalist in most game modes. Although 20 water and 30 (or 20) Arcane is required to be tough to kill, I feel like we can do a lot. The Lightning hammer might/fury stacking builds are fantastic for PvE, and can outDPS most other classes barring glasscannon warrior. Meanwhile in WvW roaming the burst from S/D is very good when on the move, and I love how using firey greatsword 3 and 4 can be a lifesaving technique. All in all the only thing I don’t like about the elementalist is that the scepter autoattacks are very bad, other than that I enjoy playing ele as a bursty DPS class.

nearlight.3064:

I feel mostly comfortable with elementalist in most game modes. Although 20 water and 30 (or 20) Arcane is required to be tough to kill, I feel like we can do a lot. The Lightning hammer might/fury stacking builds are fantastic for PvE, and can outDPS most other classes barring glasscannon warrior. Meanwhile in WvW roaming the burst from S/D is very good when on the move, and I love how using firey greatsword 3 and 4 can be a lifesaving technique. All in all the only thing I don’t like about the elementalist is that the scepter autoattacks are very bad, other than that I enjoy playing ele as a bursty DPS class.

The problem with the ele is you alway either have to be put something in water and or arcane to stand a chance at surviving. Other classes could not bother with their 4th and 5th trait lines and still be viable or at least strong enough to survive.

silvermember.8941:

Other classes could not bother with their 4th and 5th trait lines and still be viable or at least strong enough to survive.

Have you ever seen a Guardian build?

Naab.4301:

silvermember.8941:

Other classes could not bother with their 4th and 5th trait lines and still be viable or at least strong enough to survive.

Have you ever seen a Guardian build?

Other classes. I never implied ALL classes. maybe i should read up on the guardian, I havent played mine in a very long time.

LightningBlaze.4913:

silvermember.8941:

Naab.4301:

silvermember.8941:

Other classes could not bother with their 4th and 5th trait lines and still be viable or at least strong enough to survive.

Have you ever seen a Guardian build?

Other classes. I never implied ALL classes. maybe i should read up on the guardian, I havent played mine in a very long time.

I just gotta say your signature made me smile because it is so true. "People hate change, they want the exact same thing but different”. That’s exactly what happened to the elementalist.

I like to think most of the problem of the elementalist can be traced back to the time between it was announce and release. The idea the elementalist embodied was each attuement represented a different style, but as you can see the implementation is bad.

Then you have the first beta where most of the players were still getting used to the game and to the majority of players the elementalist was too “OP” and so Arenanet over corrected and ever since then the elementalist has never been the same. I mean they already admitted that the staff is not a PvP weapon, so I guess they win.

They just need to reverse all the changes they made since beta and we’d be fine. But I don’t think they have the balls to admit that they made a mistake and own up to it, so we’re just going to keep getting worse and worse when they could just easily fix all the problems with the class easily.

Nikkinella.8254:

They just need to reverse all the changes they made since beta and we’d be fine. But I don’t think they have the balls to admit that they made a mistake and own up to it, so we’re just going to keep getting worse and worse when they could just easily fix all the problems with the class easily.

OFC not they are going to claim “we are watching the meta, blah blah not trying to dictate it”.

I`d be shocked if they ever admitted their mistakes.
But as we`ve seen, they nerf ele tank build & at the same time screw over every other variant & by variant, I mean weapons, because there wasn`t much of an option in the past.
Now that they`re added fresh air you get a mix of that &/or tank, but now tank isn`t anything like a tank these days.
Yet warriors, guardians, rangers & even the odd mesmer can still tank, yet they have much more options then ele has traits wise, yet those tanks never get touched.

Edit: Almost forgot engie, they`re good tank, just hit 80 on mine & wow, easy life & so many trait options, I feel spoilt.

Nikkinella.8254:

And I don’t know where the rumor came from that we had the best burst healing, it is simply not true. That would be warrior. I’ve tested both ele and warrior in full clerics gear and warrior outdoes it by a long shot in burst healing. My shouts can heal for over 3k each and I can put 3 of them on my slot bar. That’s an over 9k heal all of which are on pretty decent cooldowns compared to us swapping to water and then dodgeing and healing for a little over 2k twice.

Using 0 healing power to prove a point because the disparity just gets bigger as the healing power increases.

Warrior shout heals (traited for reduced cd):
2x 20s cd
1x 24s cd

All 3 heal for 1192 hp at 0 healing power, and scale at 8 extra hp restored for every 10 healing power added. To be getting “over 3k heal each” you would need to have a minimum of 2260 healing power, which is physically impossible.

Burst is 3576 at 0 healing power. Averages 169 hp/second (rounding up).

Elementalist (anything/dagger, no cd reduction on water skills trait):

Attuning to water, 9s cd
Dodge roll, 10s cd
Cleansing wave, 40s cd

All 3 heal for 1302 at 0 healing power, and scale at 10 extra hp restored for every 10 healing power.

Burst is 3906 at 0 healing power. Averages 307 hp/second (rounding down).

Considering both main-hand options have an additional heal, one of which has an even higher base heal than the 3 already listed, with the same scaling (water trident), and you can trait to reduce the cooldowns of all 4 heals a */d ele has… they pretty much blow warrior out of the water for both burst AND sustained healing.

The “rumor” that elementalists have the best burst healing came from the fact that it’s true. Math.

tl:dr: I gave the warrior cd reduction. didn’t give the ele cd reduction. ignored regen. ignored soothing mist. ignored the ele’s main hand weapon. and the ele still has 330+0.2*healing power more burst healing than the warrior, and obliterates them on prolonged healing.

^I don’t particularly care whether you believe me or not. My shouts do in fact heal over 3k, so something about your math is wrong.

Nikkinella.8254:

^I don’t particularly care whether you believe me or not. My shouts do in fact heal over 3k, so something about your math is wrong.

Thats like: “Yeah, your mathematical proof means nothing, compared to my own completely unbacked claims…..” or “It’s true, because I said so…”

^That’s forum “debate” 101. All facts, math, screenshots, videos, official dictionary definitions, scholarly texts, common sense, etc. are rendered null and void because the internet.

Unless the wiki’s formula for shout heals is way, way off (the source is an anet post so that’s unlikely, even if it is 8 months old) shouts can’t heal for 3k each, because you’d need more healing power than is physically possible to obtain.