Guild Wars 2

Sometimes, especially in PVE I get the feeling elementalist was originally designed to be similar to the other 7 classes. Like the devs planned for most elementalists to choose two attunements and stick in those two, but have much greater benefit for doing so.

Mainly because of some specific traits such as ‘one with air and one with fire’ requiring an ele to stay in certain attunements for 30+ seconds to gain the benefit, and even to some extent pyromancers puissance which requires ele to stay in fire for a lengthy time to gain max benefit.

If I imagine this ele, I also see arcana as the ‘middle ground’ where ele’s who wished to cycle through all 4 would stat, as it is mainly the only trait which provides bonuses for all attunements. This would explain why its the most popular and most useful trait line today where stance dancing is required.

It may also account for the unusually high CC we are given, each attunement picked would need its own.

I am actually glad that the ele has changed if this WAS the original concept but it may explain why I sometimes feel this class is so broken, especially in PVE.

Maybe I’m just imaging things

you are imagining things. the eles were nerfed too much in the beta, and because nobody likes admitting they were wrong Anet is taking the their sweet time in rebuffing the ele. Anet has to eventually fix this problem because it has become to apparent

A lot of people assumed the same during beta, and actually it was quite viable to do so before the nerfs started… the fact that each attunement is described as having a role further supports that concept as you were probably supposed to use earth and water when required to for defense or healing respectively. Instead earth is now generally cycled purely for blast finishers and water is used for a miserable amount of healing to help us scrape by.

The profession got nerfed so badly that the only way to get our damage back up was to cycle all four attunements to use the ‘burst’ skills in each and chain their combos for might stacks. I’m pretty sure it was never intended for us to be REQUIRED to stack might just to have competitive damage.

I’d say the fact some of our traits are entirely counter to our forced playstyle makes it quite obvious the current ele was never the intent and purely the result of badly thought out nerfs.

Now I agree, the current playstyle is much more active and engaging, but the result is we’re a complex profession that has to do more for less compared to the other seven. That’s just bad game design however you look at it.

I dunno guys…I can’t really agree that Elementalists were over nerfed, or are underpowered or whatever. I don’t feel weak at all when I play in WvW.

If you don’t believe me, then watch some of these videos of me in WvW…I don’t see how this class can be considered “weak.”

http://www.youtube.com/user/Creslin321/videos?flow=grid&view=0

Ele’s insane learning curve ticks people off, that much is true, but it is prolly the most rewarding class of all. Reason? Once you can play it on a good level, it shines.

IMO, eles were meant to attune dance to be effective, regardless if you take 10 in arcane or 30. 20 spells instead of 10? Hell yeah I’ll switch constantly.

Eles have been balanced slihtly around PVP so they are viable and pretty effective for that. especially staff in WVW. In PVE though….well they suck. You can play an ele solo fine, its fun and can take on any challenge. But switch to ANY other class and you find it can kill faster, easier and with so much less effort. Warriors and guardians can take 5-6 mobs without losin any HP and kill them in 5 seconds. Ele is liekley to drop to 20% HP and takes twice as long. Its just wrong.

My level 10 ranger can kill veterans twice as fast as my level 65 ele in the same area.

@zombyturtle

Can’t really agree with you on the PvE thing either. I play dagger/dagger Ele, and I think I do great in PvE. I can’t kill a mob as quickly as a frenzy/100B warrior in full glass cannon build…but I don’t really perceive that as a problem. I still kill mobs pretty quickly, and I’m a more balanced build, that favors tankiness.

Also about the losing HP…that is not an issue for a good Ele. We have an extreme amount of self healing capability…arguably the most in the game. In a long PvP fight, my health may drop to near empty, to only become completely full in a few seconds, many, many times. Same applies to longer PvE fights. So I don’t really see what health you finish the fight at as a problem…if you want to see an example of this, watch those videos I posted earlier in the thread. They are PvP, but the point stands.

In addition, I think Ele is a class that can really shine as a great “sustained” PvE class. Because if you play it right, you will keep granting yourself might stacks throughout the fight…so you just get stronger and stronger as the fight goes on. This is not true of a frenzy+HB warrior, or a thief that basically is at their strongest at the beginning of ht fight.

Creslin.1758:

I dunno guys…I can’t really agree that Elementalists were over nerfed, or are underpowered or whatever. I don’t feel weak at all when I play in WvW.

If you don’t believe me, then watch some of these videos of me in WvW…I don’t see how this class can be considered “weak.”

http://www.youtube.com/user/Creslin321/videos?flow=grid&view=0

lol, all classes should be balanced around WvW……………

Weapon X.5163:

Creslin.1758:

I dunno guys…I can’t really agree that Elementalists were over nerfed, or are underpowered or whatever. I don’t feel weak at all when I play in WvW.

If you don’t believe me, then watch some of these videos of me in WvW…I don’t see how this class can be considered “weak.”

http://www.youtube.com/user/Creslin321/videos?flow=grid&view=0

lol, all classes should be balanced around WvW……………

I’m not really sure what you mean by this…

It’s pretty common knowledge that “fair” fights in WvW are rare, but regardless, one elementalist that can take down 3 or 4 other players, some of which are level 80, should tell you something about the class balance.

My point is that if Ele were underpowered, I really don’t think that I would perform so well in WvW…or anywhere for that matter.

Creslin I disagree with you to a certain extent… Your reaction/reflex’s are very good above average and that alone is what makes you good at the Ele class.. People who do not have your reaction/reflex’s are not going to be able to compete at the top and this is where the problem arises.

There are people who can take ANY class and make them look like a Demi-god, but just because a few people can doesn’t mean the class is ok.

I also agree that the class was NOT meant to be a attunment swapping fiend, but more like strong in one attunment while the other 3 provide support but not being as strong as your main attunment.

Creslin. To me PVE is a big part of how fast an enemy can be dropped, particularly as I play solo. The fact that it takes me 2x as long to kill an enemy as another class and I have to utilize twice as many skills indicates there is a problem. If we are statting full glass, then we should be dropping mobs faster than balanced builds of other classes. The fact that this does not happen means, at least to me, that we are relatively ineffective in PVE.

Hoenstly, Id prefer if other classes were nerfed to our level. Where they also had to use BOTH weapon sets to actually manage to kill something effectively. This will never happen but I can dream

Please dont tell me you think ele in water is balanced. If you do I wont know what to say lol…

Anyway…this thread wasnt about how good ele is now, more about whether the design of the class changed during development/beta. Derailed my own thread :P

Did they overnerf the Ele?… Yes, in some area’s. Without any doubt.

Is the class description innacurate?.. Yep. Big time!

Are the attunement’s misleading and hard to synergize while you learn them?.. Oh you know it!

Does it take a loooooooooong time to learn how to play this classes many builds effectively?.. Not yes, but OMG YES!!11!!

So, where does that leave us with this post?…………………………………………

LTP!!!!

Maybe my initial post isnt clear. I do NOT want elementalist to become a 1/2 attunement class nor do I want it to be easier to play.

I actually love the mechanics of attunement swapping and having so many skills at my disposal.

I just believe that originally the class was designed differently to the current outcome of the elementalist profession. I also thought that the great difference in concept design and outcome may explain why we have useless traits and skills.

I am quite happy with most features of my ele, I have my own issues about balance when they are directly compared to other classes but overall I find them a fun and interesting class and I hope they stay that way.

Creslin.1758:

Weapon X.5163:

Creslin.1758:

I dunno guys…I can’t really agree that Elementalists were over nerfed, or are underpowered or whatever. I don’t feel weak at all when I play in WvW.

If you don’t believe me, then watch some of these videos of me in WvW…I don’t see how this class can be considered “weak.”

http://www.youtube.com/user/Creslin321/videos?flow=grid&view=0

lol, all classes should be balanced around WvW……………

I’m not really sure what you mean by this…

It’s pretty common knowledge that “fair” fights in WvW are rare, but regardless, one elementalist that can take down 3 or 4 other players, some of which are level 80, should tell you something about the class balance.

My point is that if Ele were underpowered, I really don’t think that I would perform so well in WvW…or anywhere for that matter.

I mean, WvW is littered with bad players and anyone thats Lvl 80 and fully geared will have a field day in there. Its not hard to beat a Lvl 30 in leveling greens and 20 triat points…amiright?

The true test is Spvp and for the most part its not even fun on an Ele.
Not saying i dont bring mine in there, but when i start getting stomped by bads playing thiefs…i join them. I’ve played to many underpowered classes in other MMO’s to just “deal with it” on this one. you have to be a whooping Level 1 to get to the heart to pvp. There is no reason to not play multiple classes, and some of the classes(guard, thief, warr, Mes) are light years easier to play and it will show on the score board. (i said easier to play, not master)

but whateva….its all been said 10,000,000,000 times….just dont compare WvW to Spvp or Tpvp. They are not even close to being the same.

zombyturtle.5980:

Maybe my initial post isnt clear. I do NOT want elementalist to become a 1/2 attunement class nor do I want it to be easier to play.

I actually love the mechanics of attunement swapping and having so many skills at my disposal.

I just believe that originally the class was designed differently to the current outcome of the elementalist profession. I also thought that the great difference in concept design and outcome may explain why we have useless traits and skills.

I am quite happy with most features of my ele, I have my own issues about balance when they are directly compared to other classes but overall I find them a fun and interesting class and I hope they stay that way.

Same here, i want ;

A non-crap elite….i dont want a pet thats going to die from clusterbombs and i dont want a sword that makes my root abilities unusable and tornado is just bad unless your underwater…because thats happens all the time in tpvp

Well, I think that because Elementalists are the most complex class, it makes them the most fun class, at least for me.

The design definitely feels off. It almost feels like you were suppose to either focus strongly on one or two elements and receive a lot of benefits from them and have 2 weaker elements or focus on attunement swapping. Unfortunately the design is bad, and theres little use in Fire or Air, and 20 into Arcana is nearly mandatory. I’d actually love to see a trait redesign for Elementalists, but theres no chance of that happening.

Zorik.2150:

The design definitely feels off. It almost feels like you were suppose to either focus strongly on one or two elements and receive a lot of benefits from them and have 2 weaker elements or focus on attunement swapping. Unfortunately the design is bad, and theres little use in Fire or Air, and 20 into Arcana is nearly mandatory. I’d actually love to see a trait redesign for Elementalists, but theres no chance of that happening.

I will completely agree that some of the traits are off, and it DOES feel like I am forced into a fairly specific build (Arcane, water, air) to be very effective. And like everyone else, I would like more options.

However…I don’t really agree that there is little use in any element, with any spec/weapon. All the elements have great skills…and even if you have 0 in arcane, you should be utilizing them.

It’s just how the class was designed…our mechanic is switching between our attunements to maximize our effectiveness. If you try to focus on one or two to the exclusion of others, it’s just not going to be as effective.

Weapon X.5163:

Creslin.1758:

Weapon X.5163:

Creslin.1758:

I dunno guys…I can’t really agree that Elementalists were over nerfed, or are underpowered or whatever. I don’t feel weak at all when I play in WvW.

If you don’t believe me, then watch some of these videos of me in WvW…I don’t see how this class can be considered “weak.”

http://www.youtube.com/user/Creslin321/videos?flow=grid&view=0

lol, all classes should be balanced around WvW……………

I’m not really sure what you mean by this…

It’s pretty common knowledge that “fair” fights in WvW are rare, but regardless, one elementalist that can take down 3 or 4 other players, some of which are level 80, should tell you something about the class balance.

My point is that if Ele were underpowered, I really don’t think that I would perform so well in WvW…or anywhere for that matter.

I mean, WvW is littered with bad players and anyone thats Lvl 80 and fully geared will have a field day in there. Its not hard to beat a Lvl 30 in leveling greens and 20 triat points…amiright?

The true test is Spvp and for the most part its not even fun on an Ele.
Not saying i dont bring mine in there, but when i start getting stomped by bads playing thiefs…i join them. I’ve played to many underpowered classes in other MMO’s to just “deal with it” on this one. you have to be a whooping Level 1 to get to the heart to pvp. There is no reason to not play multiple classes, and some of the classes(guard, thief, warr, Mes) are light years easier to play and it will show on the score board. (i said easier to play, not master)

but whateva….its all been said 10,000,000,000 times….just dont compare WvW to Spvp or Tpvp. They are not even close to being the same.

When I get a chance to play again, I will make an sPvP video.

I don’t really like sPvP because I don’t like conquest, but I tend to do fairly well in there as well with my ele…and ele is actually one of the more preferred classes in high level sPvP play.