Guild Wars 2

A new article today shows us the elementalist is the 3rd most created profession tied with thief. Mesmer is actually the least. This surprises me because I see a lot more mesmers in game. I think a lot of eles have been benched recently. I hardly see RTL used in WvW since the nerf. No burning speed lines in Clockwork Chaos. Please don’t post why this is. Most of the forum says that. Share your thoughts on the profession distribution.

Link? Probably cause we’re flashy.

Staff ele in WvW is meta, S/D is meta in spvp.

I think it is one of the fewest actively played classes. The class is simply not what people expect and want to continue to play.

This is, however, not learned by people until after they create their character. Then the player recognizes the charactger is nothing near to being what they imagined the Elementalist to be. It is not remotely similar to the original D&D powerhouse all magic casters are compared to, whether people consciously know they are doing that or not.

vinceftw.5086:

Link? Probably cause we’re flashy.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/

Bottom of article.

Baladir.2736:

I think it is one of the fewest actively played classes. The class is simply not what people expect and want to continue to play.

This is, however, not learned by people until after they create their character. Then the player recognizes the charactger is nothing near to being what they imagined the Elementalist to be. It is not remotely similar to the original D&D powerhouse all magic casters are compared to, whether people consciously know they are doing that or not.

Exactly, People come into the game expecting the usual mage from other games, so they initially create an elementalist. Sooner or later they eventually learn the truth, personally I think it is around level 30 or so when they realize it doesn’t play like the standard mage and it is weak until higher levels.

& I bet Moonkin was the third-top most created class in warcraft, but guess what.
They were a rarity in bgs/arena/rbgs & more so in open world & some never levelled after realising how bad things could be.

Them stating it is third most created means sod all.

Tried finding the poll where someone created it to find out classes created & played etc, but this forums search…..

P.S. Most lethal creature: Risen Thrall.
Why isn`t he in Org`!?

With all these stats, where are the real ones for WvWs?

characters created <> character’s activity

As you can easily create five different characters, these numbers don’t count anything. They don’t say anything about the amount of active elementalists. I’d even guess, that at least for spvp elementalists are the least played class.

Does it track how often the character is deleted? I’ve personally rolled and deleted my Ele about 6 or 7 times.

well I’m playing my ele more, it’s more fun in the invasions :p

I was surprised that Mesmer was tied for last. Overall though, its a pretty even distribution. I guess I understand Warrior being tops, people like to be a big bad tough warrior – although I deleted mine ‘cause I didn’t like it and made a Guardian.

On the Ele, I just got my Ele to 80 and love it. You have more skills to use than the other classes so its fun to play.

Johje Holan.4607:

On the Ele, I just got my Ele to 80 and love it. You have more skills to use than the other classes so its fun to play.

More skills mean nothing when the class just isnt strong enough, the health is un called for, i still cant figure out why its so low. The damage isnt to bad but i have seen better, the utilities are pretty meh as well

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Johje Holan.4607:

On the Ele, I just got my Ele to 80 and love it. You have more skills to use than the other classes so its fun to play.

More skills mean nothing when the class just isnt strong enough, the health is un called for, i still cant figure out why its so low. The damage isnt to bad but i have seen better, the utilities are pretty meh as well

Well I only play WvW and Staff Ele is great in organized large group WvW. Now if I meet someone alone running across the map I’m pretty much toast but hey, that’s part of the thrill of being squishy in a PvP zone.

Then get ready for more repair bills, because even as a squishie D/D or the rare time i use S/? I still target the ele first as they`re more often then not a guaranteed kill, even if they`re mid zerg.

Johje Holan.4607:

I was surprised that Mesmer was tied for last. Overall though, its a pretty even distribution. I guess I understand Warrior being tops, people like to be a big bad tough warrior – although I deleted mine ‘cause I didn’t like it and made a Guardian.

On the Ele, I just got my Ele to 80 and love it. You have more skills to use than the other classes so its fun to play.

It’s not even -that- many more skills when you consider our F1-4 doesn’t add anything, and also when considering our auto attacks dont do damage worth using.

Fishbait.6723:

Then get ready for more repair bills, because even as a squishie D/D or the rare time i use S/? I still target the ele first as they`re more often then not a guaranteed kill, even if they`re mid zerg.

Are you sure you don’t target the Ranger first? I die more on my Ranger than I do on my Ele in WvW. Even when I was leveling my Ele in WvW and my Ranger was 80. People seem to target the Ranger above all else.

What kind of Ranger were you? A Ranger has a lot of mobility and survival based in their weapon skills. An Ele’s survivability is tied mainly to their trait spec.

Johje Holan.4607:

Fishbait.6723:

Then get ready for more repair bills, because even as a squishie D/D or the rare time i use S/? I still target the ele first as they`re more often then not a guaranteed kill, even if they`re mid zerg.

Are you sure you don’t target the Ranger first? I die more on my Ranger than I do on my Ele in WvW. Even when I was leveling my Ele in WvW and my Ranger was 80. People seem to target the Ranger above all else.

You are probably a bad ranger or don’t spec well. Rangers unless zerged have great surivability, not only in traits but in weapons skills. The sword has a lot of built in dodges + high endurance regeneration if you trait for it + high health regend.

The point being rangers are hard to kill if you choose to spec for it. Their sword has a lot of built in dodges and they are generally only killed if they zerged or 3v1.

Matt H.6142:

A new article today shows us the elementalist is the 3rd most created profession tied with thief. Mesmer is actually the least. This surprises me because I see a lot more mesmers in game. I think a lot of eles have been benched recently. I hardly see RTL used in WvW since the nerf. No burning speed lines in Clockwork Chaos. Please don’t post why this is. Most of the forum says that. Share your thoughts on the profession distribution.

this just means they get created, lvled a bit and people find out how weak they are and give it up. could be created as well to test out if they really are as weak as people say and when they find it out they stop using it.

Johje Holan.4607:

Fishbait.6723:

Then get ready for more repair bills, because even as a squishie D/D or the rare time i use S/? I still target the ele first as they`re more often then not a guaranteed kill, even if they`re mid zerg.

Are you sure you don’t target the Ranger first? I die more on my Ranger than I do on my Ele in WvW. Even when I was leveling my Ele in WvW and my Ranger was 80. People seem to target the Ranger above all else.

Definitely, in past RRR build could heal just as much if not more then an ele, combined with some pets are very strong damage.
Rangers also have better dps then ele as standard & combine that with them now having stealth…..

P.S. anet, get rid of this broken stealth kittene!

I know my friend has rerolled his ele around 10- possibly 20 times. Something to do with casting animations not looking right.

I still play my ele when I get time to play. My original main was a Ranger. And the only reason I made an ele was to run a stupid power build with one of my friends. 2x S/D could drop nearly anything. Then he went staff and I went d/d. Been playing since. Put the ranger aside in the end (still at level 50ish) due to the annoyance with the pest and their inability to hit anything not immobilised. Was a shame, my GW1 character was a R/Me, though I didn’t have to deal with a pet. Traps, echo, arcane echo. So many traps.

I like my Ele lowbie, but Mesmer was and is my first love. I think the reason why it is so ‘low’ along with Engi is it is a slightly weird/unusual theme compared to the usual fantasy roles. Hence why Warrior is #1 always regardless of power almost.

Don’t think it says much about class power at all!

Yea, most players that come to games don’t go too far from their comfort zones. That usually makes Human Warriors / Hunters the top race / class setups.

And in this game …. warrior has been built well to handle pve, so it is a good solid starting profession

I see Eles all the time. I think you guys don’t actually try to look for Eles and selectively forget when you do see them.

Easily recognizable archetypes are always the most played in mmos completely regardless of current balance. The vast majority of players are casual pve’ers who really couldn’t care less about whether or not what they are playing is strong as long as they can feel immersed in the character.

The article was old. That blog post just re-ran a compilation of old post statistics and the one about which class was played/created the most/least was about the first statistic shown when the game went live last year.

I’d venture to say that, pre-nerf, eles were about 18-20% of the population’s classes in-use at any given point in time. You’re not going to get that kind of stat now though, they’re no longer OP.

Most created, and most dropped.

dreztina.4820:

Easily recognizable archetypes are always the most played in mmos completely regardless of current balance. The vast majority of players are casual pve’ers who really couldn’t care less about whether or not what they are playing is strong as long as they can feel immersed in the character.

^^This. I attest to being a casual pve-er who cares more to be immersed in my character than the theorycraft behind the class.

Should represent that chart with hours played on each class.

Redscope.6215:

The article was old. That blog post just re-ran a compilation of old post statistics and the one about which class was played/created the most/least was about the first statistic shown when the game went live last year.

I’d venture to say that, pre-nerf, eles were about 18-20% of the population’s classes in-use at any given point in time. You’re not going to get that kind of stat now though, they’re no longer OP.

Source?

Avatara.1042:

Most created, and most dropped.

Source?

Kodiak.3281:

Should represent that chart with hours played on each class.

Agreed. The Infograph was interesting but didn’t give enough context.

Like all professions, it has to click. Warrior may be uber and the answer to all things PvE, but I couldn’t play them well even if I’d practice for months. The same goes for eles…a lot of people made them when they were overpowered, and when the nerfs hit only the dedicated players remained to play them.

For those players, the Ele is much more powerful than their warrior. For the rest, the ele is just a place to store their leftover gear.

Fishbait.6723

P.S. Most lethal creature: Risen Thrall.

that makes that data unreliable

We all know that dredges are the most lethal creatures mostly because you can find more dredges in a single istance than risen in the Whole open world

P.s.

The same goes for eles…a lot of people made them when they were overpowered, and when the nerfs hit only the dedicated players remained to play them.

This is easily confutable.
The playerbase playing PvP is so tiny that doesn t have any impact on stats.
Since ele have OFFICIALLY only been OP only in PvP since release (beta doesn t count) its obvious its not the reason.

When ele was considered the worst class in the game, was still in the top 3.

The reason is probably tied to being the “mage class” of gw2 expecially for new players.
And mages are really popular in games.

Don’t forget there are a lot of casual, PvE players. Those might be very satisfied with the profession, regardless of game balance. The class is flashy, makes dragon teeth and meteor fall from the sky, and it is good enough for most casual use. So I think ele could very well be the third most played (not just created) profession. It would still mean nothing regarding game balance, though. Like “risen thrall” as the most dangerous creature is a joke: most casual won’t visit high level fractal or farm champion karkas or whatever. But they still go to Orr for personal story, for ori/omnom, and there are a lot of thralls there. The high risk exposure compensate the low threat level.

LordByron.8369:

This is easily confutable.
The playerbase playing PvP is so tiny that doesn t have any impact on stats.
Since ele have OFFICIALLY only been OP only in PvP since release (beta doesn t count) its obvious its not the reason.

When ele was considered the worst class in the game, was still in the top 3.

The reason is probably tied to being the “mage class” of gw2 expecially for new players.
And mages are really popular in games.

A fair point. Probably correct too. However, there was a time when D/D eles were very popular, and I suspect we still lost a share of active players when RtL was nerfed. Your post makes more sense though.