Guild Wars 2

Hey guys I main a mesmer and post periodically there, I’d like to think I have a good grasp of game mechanics and definitely mesmer mechanics at this point even though compared to most of you I’m still pretty new. I see a ton of QQ on every forum I go to (except mesmer) but most of it derives from pvp situations.. So anyway I’ve been leveling an ele alt and I’m loving it right now, though I do feel like I’m not killing things as fast as my guard, I don’t think it’s too terribly slow either? So my question for the ele forum is this, how are else at end game content? I do a lot of dungeons on my mes and I’d like to think I could on the ele too, but if I have to run around with a Lh and Fgs 24/7.. Then I might as well not run an ele you know? Just completely takes out the class mechanic

As long you understand that ele (like all other classes) isn’t all about damage, and you know how to make use of all your utilities that an ele has to offer, then you’re good to go :P

My staff ele can kill just as fast as my warr with the right rotation of skills…

Elementalists are op in this regards.

There are other classes besides Ele? o_O

The are some people that are going to tel you that the elementalist if fine and they are wrong. Endgame the flaws of the elementalist become significnatly apparent, especially if you plan on doing anything other than PvE and ZvZ (aka hide behind the zerg and spam aoe).

A lot of people are going to argue that the ele damage is on par wtih the best, but that is in fact a lie. The ele damage is high, but it requires that you use LH and a bugged FGS and in dungeon are have to be at the mercy of another class holding aggro or you get turned into shreds and those 2 things pretty much undermine the purpose of playing the ele. If you are going to lock yourself out of all your utilities then why bother playing the elementalist in the first place?

tl;dr
if you are PvEer non of the Ele QQ should really be a problem for you. Gw2 PvE is easier enough that you can be the worst and still be effective. but understand that they are other classes that do higher dps with better support, higher toughness and Hp or are just better overrall with less work.

Don’t roll an ele unless you like dying to noobs. The class is garbage ever since some player who works at Anet got owned and decided every patch thus forth would be an ele nerf patch.

Good eles don’t die against noobs, they have a fair chance to die against an average opponent We may be squishy but not as useless as that ^^

ele’s are rediculessly weak compared to other classes. only wasted your time if its becouse you just HAVE TO play a elemental mage type class, else i wouldn’t bother, there is way more fun to have with other classes “power wise”…

Eles are good for stacking might and fury and abusing fiery greatsword/walls, they just suck in PvP.

MyPuppy.8970:

There are other classes besides Ele? o_O

Ranger in GvG, WvW zerging.

But other than in that specific instance, no.

ele is bad at spvp but good at everything else

DUUUDES, dying to noobs ? I wonder how you blow up all your spells in every single attunement… xD I’ve survived against high ranked players 2v1 and held points for win even sometimes downing one of them, well I get trouble playing against ranger and warrior. I can assure you, the ele is not broken it is only in bad position right now comparing to other classes that benifit from the meta. But trust me ! A good ele can wreak chaos and confusion on the battlefield … and still sustain himself and hold points efficiently.

Lina.9640:

MyPuppy.8970:

There are other classes besides Ele? o_O

Ranger in GvG, WvW zerging.

But other than in that specific instance, no.

ranger pets in WvW zerg, but they great roamers. The elementalist are barely functional outside of Zergs. While the ranger provides a lot of great buffs to his team meats and has spirits to rez players.

reikken.4961:

ele is bad at spvp but good at everything else

FIXED

ele is bad at spvp but mediocre at everything else.

LIke said above, ele is useless in Spvp, only used for support in WvW, and in PvE you can make it work, but it’s nothing someone can’t do better.

Talindra.4958:

i love shocking aura! :P i dare you to hit me when i have tht on
spreading shocking aura on allies, is GG

also frost aura – chills foes and reduce damage — great skill

And fire aura! Oh wait…

Fire aura can be fine for might stacking when you’re still under some protection. But I agree the skill itself is pretty weak, and I never understood why it has so long cd compared to other auras.

silvermember.8941:

if you are PvEer non of the Ele QQ should really be a problem for you. Gw2 PvE is easier enough that you can be the worst and still be effective. but understand that they are other classes that do higher dps with better support, higher toughness and Hp or are just better overrall with less work.**

if you are a “player” playing PVE you should be the first to complain.

Since you get the most fun profession with 20 skills reduced to spam autoattacks or be useless.
If you ever played Pve you know how bad is to fight to do more dps than a mob regen….
unless you use conjured stuff.

While leveling my ele, 1-70 was fun, fast, and I had a blast. But now at the endgame, I feel as though we are lacking. It is more difficult to walk around orr with my ele than say my necro or guard. Damage seems subpar. But as long as you’re not doing endgame content, its all good!

LordByron.8369:

silvermember.8941:

if you are PvEer non of the Ele QQ should really be a problem for you. Gw2 PvE is easier enough that you can be the worst and still be effective. but understand that they are other classes that do higher dps with better support, higher toughness and Hp or are just better overrall with less work.**

if you are a “player” playing PVE you should be the first to complain.

Since you get the most fun profession with 20 skills reduced to spam autoattacks or be useless.
If you ever played Pve you know how bad is to fight to do more dps than a mob regen….
unless you use conjured stuff.

you misunderstand, i m am now mostly stuck doing PvE, so I get what you are saying.

Most people are, however, not going to be aware of the limitations of the ele doing most of the PvE in this game, hence why a lot of ele do not switch out of the fire based on what the developers have said.

But most of the time you will never encounter most of the ele weakness or you will just get carried by your team.

If u know to dodge u will be ok in PvE. If u dont like LH use Staff fire 1 2 spam. Use berserker gear and forget arcane traitline.

It’s funny how those few that can actually play the ele to the point where ‘dying to noobs’ doesn’t apply anymore are instantly ‘wrong and delusional’.

LordByron.8369

If you ever played Pve you know how bad is to fight to do more dps than a mob regen….
unless you use conjured stuff.

What kind of weak build is that? Or what mob has a regen of 1000+ per second?

ThiBash.5634:

LordByron.8369

If you ever played Pve you know how bad is to fight to do more dps than a mob regen….
unless you use conjured stuff.

What kind of weak build is that? Or what mob has a regen of 1000+ per second?

Many fractal trashmobs.

Many bosses

Talking about zerker D/D that is not so bad.
If you use scepter things get worse maybe….burst is nice…but when the cds arrives and your target has stil 100.000 HP :/ you are quite sad.

I see. I’ll admit I never cared to go high level fractals. Mostly because at some point the only way to get past stuff is through gimmicks like stacking where mobs can’t hit you and such. I didn’t know the regen would get that high, but I suppose that’s only natural in fractals. :-)

ThiBash.5634:

I see. I’ll admit I never cared to go high level fractals. Mostly because at some point the only way to get past stuff is through gimmicks like stacking where mobs can’t hit you and such. I didn’t know the regen would get that high, but I suppose that’s only natural in fractals. :-)

No ….

Dungeons = skip and stack.
Fotm are mostly played legit…there are many cheat but requires usually more effort that doing it legit.

>Fotm are mostly played legit…there are many cheat but requires
> usually more effort that doing it legit

…really?
since ascened wapons and ar 45+ is possible the noob wave finally started to do the 48+ daily runs and this is how my last 48 daily lokked like:
1. party found in 3 min – great!
2. we cycled/started swamp (as usual – ArenaNoob pls do something about it)
3. we failed bringing the wisps 4 times – even with mesmer portal which in this encounter should be disabled for obvious reasons
4. we get mosman and whole party stay in the watter pool and started to autoattack bugged mosman, after 5 min and boss10% hp down I said – lets just mele him and I got out of the watter to mele – 2 plyers immediately left the party saying I am a noob who have no ida how to play this game
5. we found 2 new players, and one ele reloged to guard (cuz one of those 2 who left was a guard) – reloging to other profession is cheat
6. after swamp we get dredge, to place the bombs on the door one player reloged to thief (shadowRef) and with mesmer portal we put all the bombs without aggroing/fight even a single mob, then he relloged back to guard – reloging to other profession just to faceroll some encounter and then logging back it cheat
7. middle boss was killed using ranged autos while whole party stayed on the ladder in safe spot, it requires absolute no skill at all and can be done by those who cannot even manage to kill that boss using “pipe stack” bug
8. then we get ascalon, after killing dulfy we skipped (thief) all the mobs and get to the arena
9. arena mobs were killed using stairs bug

so imho all points except point 1 was a bug/cheat. We finished this run only because of those bugs, without those bugs this party would stuck raight at the beggining – bringing the wisp cores would be not possible for them without a mesmer portal.

LordByron.8369:

No ….

Dungeons = skip and stack.
Fotm are mostly played legit…there are many cheat but requires usually more effort that doing it legit.

Guess I’m playing with the wrong players then. I cringe everytime a group wants to run around the cage in the Dredge fractal and try to activate the console from the other side.

Or worse, skip the fractal entirely. I would love to go along on a fractal with one of your teams someday.

I’ve played ele to 80 twice, it is my favorite class. In my opinion eles are bad in spvp and difficult to play in wvw but in all other aspects if you are having a hard time playing an Ele you just don’t know what you’re doing. Elementalists are finicky because as someone said earlier you will get tipped to shreds by most foes you let reach you. The point us to not be reached in the first place which is why pvp and wvw is difficult for the class.

Admittedly eles are not suited to all play styles due to skill and trait limitations but there is a decent variety and with so e know-how your eek can be just as good as any if your other characters though they may not be good at the same things. Eles cannot mass condition like your necro can but they can mass burst dmg for example.

ThiBash.5634:

LordByron.8369:

No ….

Dungeons = skip and stack.
Fotm are mostly played legit…there are many cheat but requires usually more effort that doing it legit.

Guess I’m playing with the wrong players then. I cringe everytime a group wants to run around the cage in the Dredge fractal and try to activate the console from the other side.

I forgott about that … of course my party also used the bug with the console, the resing ouside the cage bug there are many bugs there but resing bug requires absolute no skill at all.

The key problems with the Elementalist really becomes apparent in the end game.

For example because they have the lowest HP pool, you will need to gear for Vitality on top of the standard Toughness every class has to gear for. This is compared to your Mesmer who has enough base HP (15000) to not need to worry about Vitality. You don’t really notice that till you starting to decide what gear choices you make for your Ele to get “proper” stats (2000 AP, 45% crit, 75% crit dmg, 1600 Tough, 15000+ HP).

On a whole for PvE DPS, you won’t really notice your DPS lacking because no one has a damage meter. You have a lot of theoretical DPS people who run theoretical DPS number crunchers but fact is if you’re crushing it or slacking you’ll never really be able to tell. Theoretical DPS ignores things such as boss mechanics and DPS downtime (such as when you have to move or stop DPS for whatever various reasons) and won’t ever be 100% accurate without actual in game meters. As I said once and stand by, you could wave your arms around like a maniac and look busy yet being doing no DPS and people don’t care. I’ve never been kicked from a group for low DPS in the last year.

The one area Elementalists excel is in WvW group fighting. While various other classes can bring our advantages to the table there’s no single class that can bring it all in one tidy package. This, more than anything, is why I keep playing my Elementalist. Elementalists are in many ways the backbone of any group force providing a large number of fields to blow up for AOE boons (Swiftness, Might) and AOE Healing.

Lavadiel.6231:

>Fotm are mostly played legit…there are many cheat but requires
> usually more effort that doing it legit

…really?
since ascened wapons and ar 45+ is possible the noob wave finally started to do the 48+ daily runs and this is how my last 48 daily lokked like:
4. we get mosman and whole party stay in the watter pool and started to autoattack bugged mosman, after 5 min and boss10% hp down I said – lets just mele him and I got out of the watter to mele – 2 plyers immediately left the party saying I am a noob who have no ida how to play this game

takes ages ….. also you had a mesmer so he was wrong <.< you should have fought mossman to store axe projectile.

6. after swamp we get dredge, to place the bombs on the door one player reloged to thief (shadowRef) and with mesmer portal we put all the bombs without aggroing/fight even a single mob, then he relloged back to guard – reloging to other profession just to faceroll some encounter and then logging back it cheat

I would like players to stop thinking that using skills as they are supposed to work is cheating…

Its “tactic” and its situational….also fully legit.

7. middle boss was killed using ranged autos while whole party stayed on the ladder in safe spot, it requires absolute no skill at all and can be done by those who cannot even manage to kill that boss using “pipe stack” bug

Pipe stack is not a bug….its called positioning…its also extremely bad since you can t see/evade Attacks… wall is way better.
A tactic that works everywhere is not a bug….. (notice how 4-5 tactics are viable here each one with his drawbacks)

stacking on structure is indeed a bug…and 9 times out of 10 it results in a wipe since once you aggroed dredge minions they get in mass Killing you with ranged Attacks.
A cycle of antiprojectile can prevent this…..

At that point just go on the wall and play legit saving minutes……
Oh mesmer can stop champion Attacks with skills that stops Attacks…is that also a bug for you?
requires skill, timing and tactical play….

8. then we get ascalon, after killing dulfy we skipped (thief) all the mobs and get to the arena

skipping is not cheating….but really few players skip ascalon mobs…since they are:
Lure them to NPC => help NPC to kill them…

9. arena mobs were killed using stairs bug

its not a bug again…..
Its a way to prevent a BUG if you refer to warrior longbow stuff.
NPCs are not supposed to suicide in center.

And you are supposed to pull one Group at a time…
Thing that infact you still do.

so imho all points except point 1 was a bug/cheat.

Imho they are not….gw2 wiki would suggest also they are not…

Is swirling winds ability to destroy projectiles a bug?

You have infact described what i love of fractal….versatility and tactical play with multiple choices……

Each thing you said is usually done in at least 5-6 different ways so each fractal run is a new experience every time (reason why i played fractal so much).

How many tactics do exists for coe, cof, TA 2.0 etc?
1 each -.- and its Always the same….

P.S. if you talk mesmer vs ele in pve…mesmer have way more than HP….blurred frenzy, teleports and support while dps.
Ele needs more than everything sustained dps comparable to conjured weapons but without giving up rotations and stuff.
Also a strong reduction in cooldowns.

LordByron.8369:

Lavadiel.6231:

>Fotm are mostly played legit…there are many cheat but requires
> usually more effort that doing it legit

…really?
since ascened wapons and ar 45+ is possible the noob wave finally started to do the 48+ daily runs and this is how my last 48 daily lokked like:
4. we get mosman and whole party stay in the watter pool and started to autoattack bugged mosman, after 5 min and boss10% hp down I said – lets just mele him and I got out of the watter to mele – 2 plyers immediately left the party saying I am a noob who have no ida how to play this game

takes ages ….. also you had a mesmer so he was wrong <.< you should have fought mossman to store axe projectile.

6. after swamp we get dredge, to place the bombs on the door one player reloged to thief (shadowRef) and with mesmer portal we put all the bombs without aggroing/fight even a single mob, then he relloged back to guard – reloging to other profession just to faceroll some encounter and then logging back it cheat

I would like players to stop thinking that using skills as they are supposed to work is cheating…

Its “tactic” and its situational….also fully legit.

7. middle boss was killed using ranged autos while whole party stayed on the ladder in safe spot, it requires absolute no skill at all and can be done by those who cannot even manage to kill that boss using “pipe stack” bug

Pipe stack is not a bug….its called positioning…its also extremely bad since you can t see/evade Attacks… wall is way better.
A tactic that works everywhere is not a bug….. (notice how 4-5 tactics are viable here each one with his drawbacks)

stacking on structure is indeed a bug…and 9 times out of 10 it results in a wipe since once you aggroed dredge minions they get in mass Killing you with ranged Attacks.
A cycle of antiprojectile can prevent this…..

At that point just go on the wall and play legit saving minutes……
Oh mesmer can stop champion Attacks with skills that stops Attacks…is that also a bug for you?
requires skill, timing and tactical play….

8. then we get ascalon, after killing dulfy we skipped (thief) all the mobs and get to the arena

skipping is not cheating….but really few players skip ascalon mobs…since they are:
Lure them to NPC => help NPC to kill them…

9. arena mobs were killed using stairs bug

its not a bug again…..
Its a way to prevent a BUG if you refer to warrior longbow stuff.
NPCs are not supposed to suicide in center.

And you are supposed to pull one Group at a time…
Thing that infact you still do.

so imho all points except point 1 was a bug/cheat.

Imho they are not….gw2 wiki would suggest also they are not…

Is swirling winds ability to destroy projectiles a bug?

You have infact described what i love of fractal….versatility and tactical play with multiple choices……

Each thing you said is usually done in at least 5-6 different ways so each fractal run is a new experience every time (reason why i played fractal so much).

How many tactics do exists for coe, cof, TA 2.0 etc?
1 each -.- and its Always the same….

P.S. if you talk mesmer vs ele in pve…mesmer have way more than HP….blurred frenzy, teleports and support while dps.
Ele needs more than everything sustained dps comparable to conjured weapons but without giving up rotations and stuff.
Also a strong reduction in cooldowns.

generally we have diferent definition of tactic and bug/cheat.
If you can faceroll or even skip whole enounter while using one specyfic skill or safespot “tactics” then it is obviously a cheat – typical example would be to store mosman agony and use it against a middle boss in the next fractal. I know that Anet does not call such nooby behavior cheating that is why I call them ArenaNoobs
Almost every encounter in fractals can be done by brain disabled naps who use bugs, otherwise those could not finish fractals.

You can do insane dps with eles and bring ton of support without using LH and FGS, your damage will be as much as a warrior’s dps, LH and FGS just do more damage. but, at the end of it all, you’re strongest attacks will be just spamming 1 and maybe 2, lightning whip, fireball and lava, scepter 2-3-4 combination.

Bismuth.3165:

but, at the end of it all, you’re strongest attacks will be just spamming 1 and maybe 2, lightning whip, fireball and lava, scepter 2-3-4 combination.

I love the Dagger/Staff/Scepter set. Extra arms in upcoming patch.

Lavadiel.6231:

generally we have diferent definition of tactic and bug/cheat.
If you can faceroll or even skip whole enounter while using one specyfic skill or safespot “tactics” then it is obviously a cheat – typical example would be to store mosman agony and use it against a middle boss in the next fractal. I know that Anet does not call such nooby behavior cheating that is why I call them ArenaNoobs
Almost every encounter in fractals can be done by brain disabled naps who use bugs, otherwise those could not finish fractals.

Just to prove you wrong…
Its already being asked if storing mossman axe was a cheat or not.

Was answered its a smart way to use skills.

And Your issue is that you don t see the big picture….
Anything in fractal comes at a cost.

You store the axe?

Have fun trying to get to next boss with 1 less utility and without being downed in a high level fractal…….
And that for a mid boss that is usually not that hard….

risk/reward…..but as Always on the forum everyone solo fotm 80 solo naked :|…..

>Its already being asked if storing mossman axe was a cheat or not.
>Was answered its a smart way to use skills.

I dont care what AnrenaNoobs thinks… killing a middle boss in 2 seconds using one skill is a cheat for ME.
As I said almost all fractals encounters can be skipped or bugged. Example from my yesterday run – Uncategorized, 2 pll relogged to thief and we skipped first harpies using shadowRef (even one thief is enought to skip here), to disable the electric puzzle 1 player is enought (not 3), for oldTom someone relogged to ele and we had 4 FGS/Rush where 2 were combined with LF = Tom insta dead , no need to enable the fan. Relog back to thief to skip next harpies. And the most fun part is that if I would decite to relog to my mesmer at the begginning we colud skipp all this using portal

2-3 weeks ago I played fotm48+ with a certain guardian who maniacally covered my fire fields with his fields preventing the party from having perm 25 mights. It turned out that he had no idea about combo starter and finishers and after we explained it to him he said – OK, but what does those mights stacks actually do?
Fotm 48 player, fractal capacitor on the back, legendary, fractal skins on wapons, 8k+ anrea points, no idea what migts are…. this perfectly reflects who can play/finish fractals 48.

Technically, you can’t cover combo fields.

@lavadiel 400+ fotm full runs and NEVER happened to me….
Do you Always get parties with 2 thieves alt?

or you ar etrying to say an exception is the rule?

You had a party with access to multiple professions for each player?

99,9% fractal run are not like this.

>Do you Always get parties with 2 thieves alt?

yes, often you do not need those alts to have level 80, as for skipping for thief you need shadowRef to be unlocked, for mesmer you need to have portal unlocked, both toons can be level ~30 and without a gear, even naked. Their puprose is only to skip content using 2 skills shadow ref/portal.

>You had a party with access to multiple professions for each player?

yes, personaly I have 3 full geared 80 toons (ele, war, thief) and mesmer only for bugging/skipping with portal and mimic unlocked. Many ppl have many alts and reloging during fractals just to bug/skip/faceroll certian encounter is common practice.

>99,9% fractal run are not like this

last time I did full fotm run without using any bugs was I think last year with my pvp guildmates (all of them quit this game by now) … but as I said we have different definition of bug/cheat so according to your standards I play the fotm legit

1st thing:
You don t decide what is a cheat and what is not….ANET does ….so unfortunatley is not about definition…..
Some players in WWW thinks that portals are always a cheat…….well they are wrong…its not an opinion.

Its annoying….expecially since some of those actually require skill.

If fotm is Always like that for you, there are really few things to do in this game….
Since every single dungeon is far worse…..

Luckily my experience is completely different…….i don t know how many runs you did, but if in 400+ it never happen me a single time, i doubt is frequent.

>You don t decide what is a cheat and what is not….ANET does

yes, ofc I do decicde what I THINK is a cheat, I dont care about ANoobs.

>If fotm is Always like that for you, there are really few things to do in this game….

indeed, that is why I play a lot less than I used to in the first 2-3 months after the release

>Since every single dungeon is far worse…..

ofc it is, I do not run standard dungs anymore… not since the beggining of this year I think

>Luckily my experience is completely different……

no it is not, you just define a bug/cheat as anet does so according to my standards you cheat the content

> don t know how many runs you did, but if in 400+

I got my 500+ fractals achevement months ago. There is no other counter so it is hard for me to tell but up to now I would probably hit this achievement ~3 times.
There was a period of time (3-4 months) when I got 3 dailies (18,28,38,48) each day on daily basis.

OP, don’t listen to too many of the complaints. Ele isn’t bad for pve. It just isn’t meta, but min-maxing for gw2 pve just feels like a waste of time. If you’re competent, you don’t need to min-max to do things in an easy, timely manner. Any properly built ele from glass to bunker has uses and a place in pve. A bunker ele can pretty much solo anything in pve. Just make sure to have some actual precision and crit damage to make your damage respectable. I bunker ele can still stack might/fury and use a bloodlust sigil to make up for low power. I can actually do some things faster on my bunker ele than other classes with dps builds just because eles have such good aoe. Other classes and builds are better at burning down lone champions though. I use a bunker build for fractals because I don’t like dying instantly, and the aoe defense is appreciated by the party.

Glass eles work better for dungeons. You can stack a lot of might and fury for your team while dealing good damage yourself. I know two people that use zerker eles for dungeons and they do well enough. If multiple dungeon runs are planned, I’ll occasionally switch to zerker gear and damage traits. The only reason I don’t just use my ele for everything in pve is because it feels too busy at times, and I don’t like the idea of switching gear and traits a lot. As a warrior, I just drop banners and spam damage skills on cooldown, and I just sit on healing signet. A zerker ele is still blasting fields, dodging more and switching attunements.

Kodiak.3281:

The one area Elementalists excel is in WvW group fighting. While various other classes can bring our advantages to the table there’s no single class that can bring it all in one tidy package. This, more than anything, is why I keep playing my Elementalist. Elementalists are in many ways the backbone of any group force providing a large number of fields to blow up for AOE boons (Swiftness, Might) and AOE Healing.

Agreed, but I say ele is still good for any wvw play from solo to zergs. If you’re alone, you can build yourself to not have any glaring weaknesses. A lot of builds can be hard countered by something very simple. There isn’t any one thing that is going to kill me without some amount of effort or trouble. My guildmates don’t ask me to roam WvW in small groups to be nice, use me as bait or relegate me to siege. I am legitimately very useful in fights because I literally do everything.

Tei.1704:

Agreed, but I say ele is still good for any wvw play from solo to zergs. If you’re alone, you can build yourself to not have any glaring weaknesses. A lot of builds can be hard countered by something very simple. There isn’t any one thing that is going to kill me without some amount of effort or trouble. My guildmates don’t ask me to roam WvW in small groups to be nice, use me as bait or relegate me to siege. I am legitimately very useful in fights because I literally do everything.

This one speaks the truth.

The glaring issue is group roaming. My friends prefer warriors and thieves so if I play ele they’d have to pointedly not use their mobility skills or I’d get left behind while we navigate around the map.

Which was almost the opposite case before RtL nerf where I’d be the one going too fast and leaving the group behind…

zencow.3651:

The glaring issue is group roaming. My friends prefer warriors and thieves so if I play ele they’d have to pointedly not use their mobility skills or I’d get left behind while we navigate around the map.

Which was almost the opposite case before RtL nerf where I’d be the one going too fast and leaving the group behind…

In these situations I use glyph heal. Not ideal, but you’re not left behind.

Tei.1704:

OP, don’t listen to too many of the complaints. Ele isn’t bad for pve. It just isn’t meta, but min-maxing for gw2 pve just feels like a waste of time. If you’re competent, you don’t need to min-max to do things in an easy, timely manner. Any properly built ele from glass to bunker has uses and a place in pve. A bunker ele can pretty much solo anything in pve. Just make sure to have some actual precision and crit damage to make your damage respectable. I bunker ele can still stack might/fury and use a bloodlust sigil to make up for low power. I can actually do some things faster on my bunker ele than other classes with dps builds just because eles have such good aoe. Other classes and builds are better at burning down lone champions though. I use a bunker build for fractals because I don’t like dying instantly, and the aoe defense is appreciated by the party.

Glass eles work better for dungeons. You can stack a lot of might and fury for your team while dealing good damage yourself. I know two people that use zerker eles for dungeons and they do well enough. If multiple dungeon runs are planned, I’ll occasionally switch to zerker gear and damage traits. The only reason I don’t just use my ele for everything in pve is because it feels too busy at times, and I don’t like the idea of switching gear and traits a lot. As a warrior, I just drop banners and spam damage skills on cooldown, and I just sit on healing signet. A zerker ele is still blasting fields, dodging more and switching attunements.

Kodiak.3281:

The one area Elementalists excel is in WvW group fighting. While various other classes can bring our advantages to the table there’s no single class that can bring it all in one tidy package. This, more than anything, is why I keep playing my Elementalist. Elementalists are in many ways the backbone of any group force providing a large number of fields to blow up for AOE boons (Swiftness, Might) and AOE Healing.

Agreed, but I say ele is still good for any wvw play from solo to zergs. If you’re alone, you can build yourself to not have any glaring weaknesses. A lot of builds can be hard countered by something very simple. There isn’t any one thing that is going to kill me without some amount of effort or trouble. My guildmates don’t ask me to roam WvW in small groups to be nice, use me as bait or relegate me to siege. I am legitimately very useful in fights because I literally do everything.

Nice post. People underestimate how good it is to have an ele nearby, no matter his spec. Solo pvp play, however IS our glaring weakness. As a high-threat-low-hp an ele is the most likely target for focus, especially in tpvp. And our ability to flee has gone down a lot. ‘Kill the ele quick’ works too good. As far as i’m concerned, thats the only big issue with eles.

Ele is the king of WvWvW in my opinion, a couple of good eles can hold a keep or tower for ages, until they drop siege outside of your AoE range and guard it with too many numbers, but then you need to call the zerg ball over. Also they just drop bombs on the zerg and it melts (sometimes. It depends on how much the AoE limit gets reached during meteor storm)

I’ve held the upper keep completely solo when the enemy zerg had an alpha siege golem. They got through the first gate before I was able to completely kill the siege golem and they had to set up rams. if I had just one or two more eles with me they would have never gotten in without taking a bunch of time to set up ballista siege out of our range.

edit: as far as PvE go they’re decent I suppose, they clean up trash mobs fast, and provide really strong blast fields for allies. Personally I never saw a reason to use conjure builds and do a little bit more dps (except for FGS trick which is ridiculous anyways) when you can just have warriors without locking them out of their utility spells.