Guild Wars 2

Ele is strong, If your having trouble Please dont complain about the class being weak because you cannot figure it out. Seek help, Then cry if none is given :P

Here, hope this helps people here like it helped people before.

@Developer I cannot beat Top tier Guardians (still a close fight) in 1v1. I cannot Beat top tier Illusion damage based build mesmers (Cant beat most Dull witted ones either) but mesmer other than that style of build is a close fight. I beat Condition necros But Power necros are a good counter to this build. I beat the other class’s (Engi, Thief, warrior etc…) Top tier players generally good fights but ele comes out on top for 1v1 while still being an extremely good class for group fighting. Staff ele is not viable 1v1 but hands down the best support in the game.

This class seems fine right now, hard to tell till the meta game shifts a lil more and new builds are discovered.

here is the build before someone asks xD

How many more glass cannon build videos do we have to watch?..no offence but we get that few people like to play Rambo, but the profession wasn’t made to be played only in that way….

How is that glass cannon? He’s showing you a roaming and bunker build, neither of which fit the glass cannon profile. Did you even read his builds or watch the video?

On Topic: I think a lot of your success is owed in part to making a great use of the S/D toolkit, not spamming moves, and making good use of attunement swaps to your benefit, and not just to get access to another round of 5 skills. So many Ele I see either sit in one attunement or swap wildly and spam. Kudos for sharing your success.

It actully looks like a pretty neat build – i will deffinatly give it a try.

Ele is clearly nice to have in teams, but one has to remember that the complaints are not solely in the realm of sPVP tourneys. You have the luxury of running with teammates and work off of each other like well oiled machines, therefore showing the class’ potential, but the same can be said for many other classes as well. It’s a strong case against the exclusion of Elementalists, but it doesn’t touch on situations where you are alone, 1v1s, nor the frustrations of PVE.

This was an enlightening video about an Elementalist’s role in tourneys and I think the community can benefit from watching this and getting inspiration from it. Thank you for addressing the potential of the class in one aspect of the game, there are many aspects though, each with their own share of concerns. I’m looking forward to seeing other people in the community who regularly condescend to their peers to put up videos demonstrating their abilities or kindly stay classy in the absence of proof.

Kyros has my respect for this video.

I want to have the class how it is supposed to be each element is a different kind of play style! Fire is damage aoe/conditions, air is single target damage control abilities, Water is support/heal, and earth is defensive abilities. The difference in weapons should be just weapon range. Ex. Daggers should be more damage then staff but not have nearly the same range.

I agree with you, but it takes a lot more skill then other classes do!

I’ve given Kyros’ DPS roaming build a try. It can definitely hold its own in 1v1 as well, although Mesmers remains an (universal) issue. I’ll continue to familiar myself with it more deeply tomorrow, since it’s 2 AM EST and my ability to hold off my enemies might be due to the decent ones already being in bed.

This is promising though. The information he has provided is indeed helpful, unlike the condescending and inflammatory post that’s lacking of substance done by Ayame Yoshimoto. Thank you, Kyros.

@OP’s video. On multiple occassions you use dragons tooth and phoenix right before using ring of fire, using ring of fire first would be giving you and nearby allies 3 stacks of might each. This is basic stuff man.

What i see here is a very very good player.. Nobody on that battlefield reacts as quickly and decisively as you are.. Simply nobody else really is always on the move while still casting complicated stuff (With emphasis on being a hard target to hit)… But the elementalist is not changing the battles still.. She’s just another player on the field in terms of affecting the outcome…

Yet a similarly quick warrior can destroy groups of people and change the battle with similarly clever play-style…

Most people here are not saying elementalists are unplayable.. It is playable, and when played optimally it is just as effective as any other average joe playing another profession… But this means: it is subpar…

And this build/playstyle is one of the optimal ones.. Scepter (with being mediocre at eveything, but able to do everything an elementalist can possibly do with some support/dmg/cc) is optimal if you want to use every aspect of the profession… Conditions simply melt the elementalist and you have taken care of that.. Vs direct damage you simply keep mobile by your own timing/fast reaction skills… You rarely go solo, which would exhaust your defensive options quickly, instead you use your less mobile companion as bait, by being a harder target than him/her..

So the choices are more than ok… But i don’t see the “what the hell is she/he doing, this is great” outcome, which is the case with other skilled players doing all the right things with their non-elementalist professions… The outcome should be better than this is most people here are saying…

And when you consider less-skilled people trying to emphasize some aspect of the elementalist instead of trying to cover its obvious weaknesses.. You get an unplayable profession… Which is not the case with half-of the other professions (I cannot think of warrior build that i cannot possibly do anything useful with).. The other half has less unplayable builds than elementalist..

zafery.6784:

What i see here is a very very good player.. Nobody on that battlefield reacts as quickly and decisively as you are.. Simply nobody else really is always on the move while still casting complicated stuff (With emphasis on being a hard target to hit)… But the elementalist is not changing the battles still.. She’s just another player on the field in terms of affecting the outcome…

Yet a similarly quick warrior can destroy groups of people and change the battle with similarly clever play-style…

Most people here are not saying elementalists are unplayable.. It is playable, and when played optimally it is just as effective as any other average joe playing another profession… But this means: it is subpar…

And this build/playstyle is one of the optimal ones.. Scepter (with being mediocre at eveything, but able to do everything an elementalist can possibly do with some support/dmg/cc) is optimal if you want to use every aspect of the profession… Conditions simply melt the elementalist and you have taken care of that.. Vs direct damage you simply keep mobile by your own timing/fast reaction skills… You rarely go solo, which would exhaust your defensive options quickly, instead you use your less mobile companion as bait, by being a harder target than him/her..

So the choices are more than ok… But i don’t see the “what the hell is she/he doing, this is great” outcome, which is the case with other skilled players doing all the right things with their non-elementalist professions… The outcome should be better than this is most people here are saying…

And when you consider less-skilled people trying to emphasize some aspect of the elementalist instead of trying to cover its obvious weaknesses.. You get an unplayable profession… Which is not the case with half-of the other professions (I cannot think of warrior build that i cannot possibly do anything useful with).. The other half has less unplayable builds than elementalist..

I have to say, I totally agree.

Good Video, good explanations + playstyle… I don’t completly agree with your build, but I guess that doesn’t matter^^

zafery.6784:

Yet a similarly quick warrior can destroy groups of people and change the battle with similarly clever play-style…

Most people here are not saying elementalists are unplayable.. It is playable, and when played optimally it is just as effective as any other average joe playing another profession… But this means: it is subpar…

I don’t agree with this. You can’t really compare Warrior and Elementalist, cause they serve different roles. And if you do: I’d usually take an Elemtalist over a Warrior for my team.

Why do people react negatively to any form of help…

I doubt we are going to see any changes before all bugs are ironed out.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

And yet another “it isn’t weak, you just suck” post. /ignored

Because posting in the thread you’re supposedly ignoring just to say you’re ignoring it is the very definition of ignoring…

@OP: cool builds, gj in those vids.

Nice video

I do agree that the class is fine for the most part.The only exceptions are attunment cool downs being way too long. and skills like dragon tooth,shatterstone,comet and eruption take way to long to hit.

I find that it’s harder to win duals with 30 in water instead of 30 in arcane.The atunement cool down is just too long without 30 in arcane.I used to run a build like yours but I quit using it after trying 30 points in arcane and 15 in water.

I just don’t feel like an extra 1.4k and 200 extra healing on skills is worth the 3 second lock out and loss of damage/cc.I died more to being locked out of attunments and not having blind/chill on arcane skills than I did from not having enough health/healing.I Guess it comes down to personal preference.

The air rune is pretty nuts and I’ll be using it from now on.

Its also good to know I’m not the only person struggling with mesmers I can’t figure how to beat them 1v1.Bad mesmers are no problem to beat but the good ones are pretty much impossible unless they make mistakes.

Very intriguing video and nice explanations

I wouldn’t so much say elementalist is strong but they are competitive, and i’ve said that much a few times.

But i rarely put that many points in arcana, but the way you build is pretty much the same type of build i go with.

I try to have at least 20 points in water, only because we have low HP as it is and while Fire would be nice to put points into, it’s just the reality of the matter that you have to stay alive as long as possible.

It’d be nice to put out high damage but the elementalist has to sacrifice health and armor so in order to offset that, a person has to have high health and armor and then just use their attacks wisely and break their opponent down.

Good thread and videos though Kyros, because a lot of people who say, “elementalist is fine”, doesn’t give anything to support their reasoning such as video or whatever.

Another thing is it’s just so hard for me to stick to being a support character but maybe that’s just the way it is and i’ll have to come to grips with that.

I do strongly agree that if the elementalist sticks with another character, then yea the elementalist is an incredible companion, but when it is 1v1 then that’s an entirely different story

To those that have issues with Elementalist and don’t like this guys build, you might also consider a variation of a condition damage build. As long as you build your condition damage up (30 points in Earth which also gives a nice amount of toughness) on your armor and traits it does over 110 bleed damage per tick per second. Not to mention if you roll scepter/dagger you get a ranged bleed which I’ve found can bleed some out quickly, especially warriors and the like that enjoy running around with their melee only builds. If they get close you have a varity of ways to handle them. The Earthquake is an easy knockdown if they aren’t running stability, then you have the signet of Earth, which not only improves your toughness by a few hundred, it gives you a nice immobilize. Other utilities are really up to choice, but I definitely suggest something like Armor of Earth, Cleansing Fire, or other such stun breakers in PvP (Not needs much in PvE).

To those of you complaining about Elementalist in PvP, yeah, it isn’t the best, it can be squishy, USE YOUR UTILITIES AND DODGE. I strongly suggest Glyph of Storms against Melee opponents. In Earth it does a sandstorm that blinds and bleeds opponents. To those of you complaining about them being weak in PvE…you guys are nuts. I have NEVER had an issue at ANY point in PvE, not in Ascalonian Catacombs explorable or any other dungeon. I have noticed bosses tend to really like targeting me, likely because of light armor, but I pay attention, if I pull aggro I get it off me however I have to. YOU ARE NOT A TANK. The toughness off my traits and being in earth attunement, combined with Carrion armor that gives Power, Vitality and Condition Damage does make me much more durable, but I can still go down, it happens, but not often.

@OP – Definitely a nice build, not one I had thought about, not much of my playstyle though either lol.

I really appreciate your explanation of tactics and strategy thank you.

I’d be curious to know your decision making in fights a bit more, why and when you use certain spells in a little more detail.

Very use video, thanks again.

Sisho.5431:

To those that have issues with Elementalist and don’t like this guys build, you might also consider a variation of a condition damage build. As long as you build your condition damage up (30 points in Earth which also gives a nice amount of toughness) on your armor and traits it does over 110 bleed damage per tick per second. Not to mention if you roll scepter/dagger you get a ranged bleed which I’ve found can bleed some out quickly, especially warriors and the like that enjoy running around with their melee only builds. If they get close you have a varity of ways to handle them. The Earthquake is an easy knockdown if they aren’t running stability, then you have the signet of Earth, which not only improves your toughness by a few hundred, it gives you a nice immobilize. Other utilities are really up to choice, but I definitely suggest something like Armor of Earth, Cleansing Fire, or other such stun breakers in PvP (Not needs much in PvE).

To those of you complaining about Elementalist in PvP, yeah, it isn’t the best, it can be squishy, USE YOUR UTILITIES AND DODGE. I strongly suggest Glyph of Storms against Melee opponents. In Earth it does a sandstorm that blinds and bleeds opponents. To those of you complaining about them being weak in PvE…you guys are nuts. I have NEVER had an issue at ANY point in PvE, not in Ascalonian Catacombs explorable or any other dungeon. I have noticed bosses tend to really like targeting me, likely because of light armor, but I pay attention, if I pull aggro I get it off me however I have to. YOU ARE NOT A TANK. The toughness off my traits and being in earth attunement, combined with Carrion armor that gives Power, Vitality and Condition Damage does make me much more durable, but I can still go down, it happens, but not often.

@OP – Definitely a nice build, not one I had thought about, not much of my playstyle though either lol.

I gave you a +1 and i really like your post because it explains both sides of the argument.

I do have to say i’m part of the group that believes the elementalist does need some fine tuning. But I do believe that the elementalist can be competitive

The only issue i have and am seeing now, is that the elementalist is better off as a support class. While the elementalist is capable of being a single damager, it seems that’s just not the optimal way to use the character.

But that just doesn’t seem right to me, and I feel that, that is not what Anet intended with this character. Every profession in this game should have an even playing field as far as 1v1, etc.

I agree, it has some tuning and things that do need to be fixed. Several classes do actually, the Elementalist needing a bit more than the others, but it can hold its own if people actually stop and think of different builds. Currently they are awful glass cannons, they really are. I tried it, I could barely stay alive, it just doesn’t work for them unless they are specced with extremely mobile and survivable utilities.

Oh, and I almost forgot, everyone says the Ele is broken underwater…….Wow lol…just wow. Do you have ANY idea how much CC the elementalist has underwater? Here I’ll just list some…off the top of my head. Rock Anchor weighs an opponent down sinking for 2 seconds. The number 4 in air attunement makes then rise for 2 seconds, we can use our Signet of Earth for an immobilize, number 5 in air is an area stun field, now that we have our elite we can use it to suck opponents in for damage. Oh it also has lovely evasion too that is amazing. Ice attunement does insane amounts of damage underwater when comboed correctly. Ice wall makes you evade backwards for one, which you can promptly detonate for a nice area chill, and then you can use number 5 (Which does tons of damage by the way) which makes you charge forward through the water, and your number 4 makes enemies fall helpless down for a couple seconds as well. Oh…did I mention all of this is while I’m specced into condition damage? So the damage I’m doing underwater isn’t even as powerful as is possible. Also…fire attunemnt underwater sucks, just don’t use it, if you are only using that and complaining about underwater ele then yeah, you’d be right, but you need to use your other attunements. I can gather up and kill Barracudas (Who for those of you that don’t know spawn up to 2 more for each original mob) in groups of 10+…easily.

OP plays very well, but the opponents were sub par enough to sit inside the loltastic churning earth and to deal <= 2.8k hits (except a thief, once).

Gelrod.1295:

Good Video, good explanations + playstyle… I don’t completly agree with your build, but I guess that doesn’t matter^^

zafery.6784:

Yet a similarly quick warrior can destroy groups of people and change the battle with similarly clever play-style…

Most people here are not saying elementalists are unplayable.. It is playable, and when played optimally it is just as effective as any other average joe playing another profession… But this means: it is subpar…

I don’t agree with this. You can’t really compare Warrior and Elementalist, cause they serve different roles. And if you do: I’d usually take an Elemtalist over a Warrior for my team.

what role did you have in mind? in a game where apparently every class should be able to take on similar roles in one form or another (with different play styles, etc), what specific role should we the elementalist be playing?

That’s what i was going to say.. But i already figured-out the answer.. Support… Something i will never spec into.. There seems to be a stereotypical role emerging for this profession, which is not right at all…

In any typical fantasy world or mmorpg it is the offensive magic users that control the battlefield.. That is their primary job… They can destroy a single target quickly, and if they are left alone (not under pressure) they decimate the opposing force with aoe attacks.. But since they are flashy, they are primary targets for any enemy force.. Combined with their squisheness they are much more prone to being overwhelmed..

That’s what a magic user primarily is… The basic mechanics to support this type of playstyle already is built into the profession.. The problem is…. Well there are a lot of problems with the practical usage of these aspects…

I dont understand why people think an elementalist should not, and can not go toe to toe with an equally matched force.. Because they can and they should… Active defenses are supposed to be awsome against a small number of enemies.. Think of any fantasy world you can think of, one on one a ready magic user is really deadly… One that has been caught of guard is an easy kill.. One that is already battling with another opponent can and has to escape to save his/her life… 3vs1 you get a blown up mage in seconds.. That is the definition of a typical magic using glass-canon…

If we need a support character… We should be thinking of a guardian first.. Which is pretty silly because even for guardians their primary objective is not to support, it just comes naturally with their attacks and virtues.. Elementalist does not have that much multi-effect abilities, aside from a bunch of combo fields, so (s)he may really support if they choose to… So can a warrior.. The only difference is, a warrior has to spec for that whereas an elementalist can do a tiny amount of support on the fly (Which is generally just a small push to overcome the obstacle they are facing, not a sustained effort)… If an elementalist is built for only support, well that’s as great as a warrior built for support in my eyes… It’s just a choice you can make, but not many will choose to do so… It has its usefulness, where there’s a team bond, and a lot of communication..

Even as a full on support build, elementalist is useless..My personal opinion is: You cannot change battles with healing or buffing in this game.. Because the numbers you get are tiny, compared to offensive abilities.. By supporting you give your team an edge over others (that is you contribution).. Which could also be given as more offensive capabilities and field control..Since those are practically non-existant, it seems like elementalist is good for support roles only.. This is completely wrong though, and i do not believe for one second this is what the game-designers had in mind….

Well the video shows an almost healthy balance of what support/control/dmg ratio should be.. The problem is, the control and damage aspects are not as strong as they should be (even though mostly those aspects are used).. That’s why there’s no wow-factor even in a great elementalist video… And there are those, who would only emphasize the damage or control aspect, and it is their right to demand to do so, since it is an option for all the professions that are out there… And also that is what this game is all about..

This sPVP build works in terms of providing slight utility and granting some survivability(support-survivability build)– and that’s great for those that want to fulfill that role..but not all want to. If utility is primarily what you’re looking for play a staff Mesmer. Some us would like to play other roles such as glass cannon(pure DPS with low utility and survivability). After reading numerous posts and from my own experience, most everyone agrees that the glass cannon build is not viable. The DPS for a glass cannon – well..there’s no cannon attached. I can’t imagine Anet wants to limit us to one or two support/survivability roles in sPVP. Also, it seems as though the video shown is a premade team, try pickup.

Experience with this build in sPVP:

Match against a guardian: I won but it took about 3 minutes. My damage was incredibly low- Same exact spec as shown in the video. Imagine if the guardian knew what he was doing or if another team member came to help him out?

Experience playing a thief: I rolled a thief. Initially I had no clue what I was doing but added much more value: I was top player 4/5 matches; damage 600, 800, 1k, 5k,+ etc…(vs extremely low DPS on my elementalist); and of course – survivability. In fact there was one match against an elementalist-she threw out all the stops-knocked me down, snared me, made her self invulnerable, her damage was too low..after using my 4 dagger ability and saw her trying to limp away, I felt bad and let her go.

I played quite a few matches – only encountered maybe 2-4 elementalists..there are many matches in sPVP without elementalists I would think this is a clear indicator that something is broken/wrong with the class. GW2 is an amazing game, the Anet team did an amazing job, the spells and overall class design are solid but there needs to be some changes/buff to dps! Im sure they’ll look at the numbers(win/loss ratios; number of elementalists that play sPVP, damage output, etc…) and make a decision based on factual evidence. Or who knows, it’d be great if they just jumped into the fray in pickup SPVP as an elementalist and posted a live feed for everyone to see. That would awesome!

I just wanted to say thanks to the OP for throwing out viable builds for those that are in premade teams that want to play support/utility.

zafery.6784:

Even as a full on support build, elementalist is useless..*My personal opinion is: You cannot change battles with healing or buffing in this game.. *Because the numbers you get are tiny, compared to offensive abilities.. By supporting you give your team an edge over others (that is you contribution).. Which could also be given as more offensive capabilities and field control..Since those are practically non-existant, it seems like elementalist is good for support roles only.. This is completely wrong though, and i do not believe for one second this is what the game-designers had in mind….

Well the video shows an almost healthy balance of what support/control/dmg ratio should be.. The problem is, the control and damage aspects are not as strong as they should be (even though mostly those aspects are used).. That’s why there’s no wow-factor even in a great elementalist video… And there are those, who would only emphasize the damage or control aspect, and it is their right to demand to do so, since it is an option for all the professions that are out there… And also that is what this game is all about..

Spot on-you posted right before me-many of your points echo mine.

well the op is a decent player who knows how to play an ele well. I gotta give him credit for posting an instructional video to try to help the community but let’s be honest….this is afterall a pvp video.. You’re seeing clips of the “good” moments where the op was successful….Maybe 50 percent of the time you’re successful? It’s obvious that the op would not show any clips where he was getting stomped left and right. not to mention the fact that mots of the time, the op wasn’t the target they’re focusing on…he’s usually “late to the fight” kinda moments. That and his opponents are not smart enough to sit in the churning earth. When I was playing tourney, ppl are too smart for that. Having said that I still think one needs to do way too much work as an ele just to be as competitive as any other classes….we still need to get buffed.

“ok build” but works only with your teammates.

First thanks for the appreciation.

For those of you saying its a low damage build or a support build Or it only works with your team or you cant 1v1 good players with it etc….

IDK what to tell you, your wrong. go practice xD
As for the 30 points in arcane vs the 30 points in water. It is a bit of preference, but more so that i could not 1v1 my fellow guardian with 30 in arcane, while i was able to beat him with 30 in water.

The build is “Stable” and consistent. and is supposed to be used as a Damage dealer type role while if you get focused you have the ability to play defensive.

I’ve done extensive testing with this build and the ele in general. I know its hard to believe but i do actually know what I’m doing >_<. Which can’t be said for a lot you, based on the comments you have said.

@DreadShinobi If i used ring of fire first, You will miss dragon tooth without them having to use a dodge. “Its basic stuff” bro.

Once the average joe gets better at “Understanding” the mechanics of the game more so than just mashing buttons better than the next guy. Then maybe you will see where I’m coming from.

P.S. Every warrior uses a greatsword because the class is “Unplayable” without one. Mesmers use the Illusion damage build because It is nearly “unplayable” without one. Many people just chalk their lack of success up to it being a balance issue and always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. With that said, Ele is not the only class having issues and in many ways it has more options or playstyles than other classes atm.

Sorry if i come off harsh. I just dont want to see Anet listening to the majority of you and make major balance changes based on what the average joe QQs about. Recently a Dev posted something about a Necro getting a Power buff to bring the class more in line with its condition damage specs because most people are QQing that condition spec is the only viable option for necro. Shame that the necro i run with uses a power build and it doesnt need a buff. So now necro gets to be flavor of the month when it gets buffed Because some people decided to QQ about something they know very little about and put just as much effort into learning. Thats some Heart to heart ^

Sad fayce (strictly Business)

what role did you have in mind? in a game where apparently every class should be able to take on similar roles in one form or another (with different play styles, etc), what specific role should we the elementalist be playing?

That’s what i was going to say.. But i already figured-out the answer.. Support… Something i will never spec into.. There seems to be a stereotypical role emerging for this profession, which is not right at all…

Imho Elementalist is most effective as support (staff etc) or roamer. I don’t like playing support Elementalist, but roamer is really fun and works pretty good.

The advantages over Elementalist as a roamer compared to other roamers:

Thief:
Elementalist can defend a point longer than a thief if he has to. Also since Thief is a pretty common roamer Elementalist works great as counter, cause he usually wins 1v1’s vs a Thief.

Engineer:
Ye… Engineer is a bit stronger than Elementalist :/ Only advantage of an Elementalist over Engineer is the better speed (rtl)

Mesmer:
Mhh… dunno. Every team should have a Mesmer imo. Mesmer is stronger in 1v1 than any other class + OPortal. But I feel like 1 Mesmer is usually enough for a teamcomp, since other classes do better in teamfights.

(Warrior:)
Warrior isn’t that strong when it comes to 1v1’s. His strengh is teamfighting, thus he should always play with at least one ally. Elementalist is better when it comes to soloing (when capturing points, killing enemy treb etc.). Also Elementalist is faster cause of rtl.
(just listing warrior cause I said, I would take an Elementalist over a Warrior, wouldn’t use a Warrior as Roamer)

So… roamer Ele is cool

I watched your video, and I wasn’t impressed. All I saw was you adding damage to someone already engaged in combat, not to mention this is a mini-montage that consists of only your kills. To be fair, that other team doesn’t look like it has a clue what it’s doing.

If you really want to make a video that backs your claims, just do a run from start to finish, and commentate over it, that way no one can say anything. When anyone actually does focus on you, you take insane amounts of damage.

I’m not saying you’re a bad elementalist at all, I’m just saying that even with what you’ve said and how you’ve chosen your selected clips, you’re still only “supporting” and avoiding combat. If they had any sense, you’d be the first target and you’d drop like a fly with minimal effort.

I really wish guys would stop assuming everyone that complains is an average joe with no skill.

Elementalists certainly are not weak beyond all means, but they aren’t good as other classes. Of course, videos as this aren’t going to be great help when we’re talking about skill levels either. Just because you’ve beaten this (to be honest fairly weak / random team) doesn’t mean elementalists are strong.

(Ps, finally great to see someone actually using their attunements, and who tactically thinks about what skills they’re using and why.)

My favorite line from OP:
“I just dont want to see Anet listening to the majority of you and make major balance changes based on what the average joe QQs about.”

So you want Guild Wars 2 a game whose design philosophy is to be accessible to everyone (YES that means the average joes) to throw that out because a group of “hardcore” players mastered the class and deem it “good as is”?

Hahahahaha, Oh you.

I may not be “Pro” like you, nor do I sPVP, but I shouldn’t struggle in PVE fights because my D/D doesn’t put out enough damage for the high risk/reward style it promotes being in melee range (yes I switch elements and I don’t just pop cooldowns). Also since it has no weapon swap you’re locked into melee-range, you have no fallback ranged weapon. Suuure I could go S/D or whatever combo or just use a staff but another real awesome feature of GW2 is CHOICE. I wan’t to use D/D, I love the skill set that comes with those weapons, and more importantly I like being able to use what traits I want too. Not being forced into a weapon-set or trait set because it works the best for survival or DPS or because a group of “hardcore” players say its the build you should use because, hey, look at this biased kill montage, its awesome right!?!

The majority of people are complaining for akittengood reason. Eles are decent, they need to be better.
Recently I picked up Earth shield. I figured, hey I like the earth skill set the best, maybe that shield will make me a tank temporarily. NOPE. It does nothing passively for defense and the only defensive skill is on a 45 second cd.

Yes, GW2 has a design philosophy of being accessible to everyone… Except explorable mode dungeons. And apparently elementalists. No-one’s forcing you to do either though, so it’s fine, 100% completion is achievable without either of those.

And yes, explorable modes aren’t accessible either:

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-NOT-nerf-please/first#post126835

THANK YOU, KYROS!
Whenever I say I’m not the only one who thinks Ele is fine, Razarei shows up and starts whining at me. I swear, it’s like the only words he knows are “newb” and “roflstomp”. Don’t listen to him. Nothing will please him until Anet buffs eles with passive 20k power and perma-invulnerability.

I like your roaming build. I’ve been thinking it would be fun to try a water heavy build.
Anyway, kudos to you for not giving in. Just like explorable modes, the game is set up in a way that most players don’t understand yet. Before anybody starts screaming at me, IT’S NOT BECAUSE THEY’RE BAD!!!! It’s because the game is new (no matter how many times you say that you’re the best ele who ever lived or ever will and have somehow achieved that in less than a month, Razarei) and because the game is very different from the vast majority of other games out there.
I don’t think Anet will make any major changes to the profession. They’re not showing to be the kind of developer to give in that easily.

Just want to say I tried your build and I love it, it feels really good to play and I can 1v1 people for a decent amount of time, having alot of fun with it. Thanks

Razarei.2809:

I watched your video, and I wasn’t impressed. All I saw was you adding damage to someone already engaged in combat, not to mention this is a mini-montage that consists of only your kills. To be fair, that other team doesn’t look like it has a clue what it’s doing.

If you really want to make a video that backs your claims, just do a run from start to finish, and commentate over it, that way no one can say anything. When anyone actually does focus on you, you take insane amounts of damage.

I’m not saying you’re a bad elementalist at all, I’m just saying that even with what you’ve said and how you’ve chosen your selected clips, you’re still only “supporting” and avoiding combat. If they had any sense, you’d be the first target and you’d drop like a fly with minimal effort.

I really wish guys would stop assuming everyone that complains is an average joe with no skill.

Elementalists certainly are not weak beyond all means, but they aren’t good as other classes. Of course, videos as this aren’t going to be great help when we’re talking about skill levels either. Just because you’ve beaten this (to be honest fairly weak / random team) doesn’t mean elementalists are strong.

(Ps, finally great to see someone actually using their attunements, and who tactically thinks about what skills they’re using and why.)

Agreed with this. Just because we think eles needs a little buff doesn’t mean we’re an average joe player. I could say the op is an average joe player but it’s all a matter of opinion.

to OP, as Raz said if you really want to prove a point, make a video of you doing two of three different tourney games from start to finish (no cutting the bad parts) and then we’ll see what happen. I want to see what you’re going to do when you’re getting focus….I did not see it anywhere in your video. I mean we know that you’re a decent player but you should not use your current video to say that there’s nothing wrong with eles because it’s clearly a bad example.

If you make another video about your builds could you also explain why you chose certain traits and why do you think they are better than other options?
That would help a lot in understanding the build.

soysauce.1246:

Razarei.2809:

I really wish guys would stop assuming everyone that complains is an average joe with no skill.

Elementalists certainly are not weak beyond all means, but they aren’t good as other classes. Of course, videos as this aren’t going to be great help when we’re talking about skill levels either. Just because you’ve beaten this (to be honest fairly weak / random team) doesn’t mean elementalists are strong.

to OP, as Raz said if you really want to prove a point, make a video of you doing two of three different tourney games from start to finish (no cutting the bad parts) and then we’ll see what happen. I want to see what you’re going to do when you’re getting focus….I did not see it anywhere in your video. I mean we know that you’re a decent player but you should not use your current video to say that there’s nothing wrong with eles because it’s clearly a bad example.

Average Joe’s Complain when something isnt easily played like a thief (1 button). And the only classes i Lose to in 1v1 vs good players are gaurdians power necros and mesmers. The rest of the classes i beat. So I dont understand how you can sit there and say its weaker than the other classes when in reality its only weaker than the 2 really strong classes and a power build necro that few people have caught onto.

The video is a basic understanding of how I try to play ele and if you take it for that it will help the majority of people out. Stop trying to deflect it to Skill level when i practice with and make builds based on my experiences with my team who I consider some of the best players in the game right now.

Here is a video of us vsing 1 of the best teams in the world… BTW this was my 2nd day on ele so the build im using is a silly hybrid build and I did not finished tweaking the build yet.

Anyways im done with the negative nancies. As stated before
“I know its hard to believe but I actually do know what im talking about. Which cant be said for a lot of you based on the comments you have made.”

I’ve nothing more to say to the “Non-Believers” lol

Kyros.5682:

soysauce.1246:

Razarei.2809:

I really wish guys would stop assuming everyone that complains is an average joe with no skill.

Elementalists certainly are not weak beyond all means, but they aren’t good as other classes. Of course, videos as this aren’t going to be great help when we’re talking about skill levels either. Just because you’ve beaten this (to be honest fairly weak / random team) doesn’t mean elementalists are strong.

to OP, as Raz said if you really want to prove a point, make a video of you doing two of three different tourney games from start to finish (no cutting the bad parts) and then we’ll see what happen. I want to see what you’re going to do when you’re getting focus….I did not see it anywhere in your video. I mean we know that you’re a decent player but you should not use your current video to say that there’s nothing wrong with eles because it’s clearly a bad example.

Average Joe’s Complain when something isnt easily played like a thief (1 button). And the only classes i Lose to in 1v1 vs good players are gaurdians power necros and mesmers. The rest of the classes i beat. So I dont understand how you can sit there and say its weaker than the other classes when in reality its only weaker than the 2 really strong classes and a power build necro that few people have caught onto.

Stop trying to deflect it to Skill level when i practice with and make builds based on my experiences with my team who I consider some of the best players in the game right now.

Here is a video of us vsing 1 of the best teams in the world… BTW this was my 2nd day on ele so the build im using is a silly hybrid build and I did not finished tweaking the build yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVXn_QtqJpU

Clearly, you cannot read well. You and every other person that defends this class always contradicts themselves. Skill is out of the question when it comes to balance, ease of use should always be the priority.

There will ALWAYS be players playing poor characters and facerolling people. This is what you and every single godkittensupposedly elite player forgets. Just because someone manages to face roll with a low tier character, doesn’t make it OP. That’s like comparing Metaknight in SSBB to Ganondorf. Opposite ends of the tier list, but there are great ganon players, and great MK players. The bad MKs lose to Ganon, and the bad ganons lose to MKS. The difference here is that the Average MKS will beat the good ganons too.

You guys, seriously make me laugh. As for your video, still proves nothing. Another boring video. Tactical awareness can be applied to any class, not just elementalist.

What you dont understand is that the 1 button builds “Heartseaker. Pistol whip, Crossfire, Hundred blades” are builds that should not be viable in competitive play yet are. To me it sounds like you are complaining because ele isnt a 1 button class.

And to clarify I did not say that ele was OP. You’ve obviously already made your mind up that Ele is weak and you wont hear what I or others have to say. Just brushing it off as elitest crap.

I Practice and make my builds with what i consider some of the best players in the game right now. I base 0 of my opinions off of Spvp and base 0 of my opinions of off steam rolling bads. My videos come from a poor selection of pug stomping videos I cant control the quality of teams I’m pit against. As for my opinions and Posts about how strong an ele is etc….. It comes from practicing with the best players I know.

You dont know what your talking about.

Skill is everything when it comes to balance…… How else can you utilize the Potential of a class if you herpkittenthe whole time. I think what you want from Anet is a Fireball spam spec.

Kyros, I’m afraid that you are going to need to post more videos. Those videos need to feature different builds. Those builds need to be successful, as well. That’s the only true way you can build a case on the belief that the “Elementalist is strong.” Right now, your one build only features one play-style which cannot possibly defend every aspect of the Elementalist.

kyros. your recent video is an epic fail. all i saw was you getting stomped everytime you got focus or just die to aoe. you need to do a better job pro if you wanna make your case believable

Keep in mind that they have 4 Elementalists on their team so If im getting stomped then good maybe that helps to show something.

@Kyros

WTF is a vid against an obvious TROLL squad going to show us? They had 4 Eles and heck, it failed. Whoop de whooping doo, I could’ve told you before, that it wouldn’t go well. It probably is fun, but you can hardly take a match like that serious.

Well I guess that last fight did show us one thing. At least Ele vs Ele is VERY balanced, neither is ever gonna die.

Don’t worry kyros, you have emboldened me to play better then the rest of thekitten here ranting and raving that ele’s suck. I will not let you down!

So much anger and outrage surrounds this topic, it’s almost as if we were talking about religion or something…Yikes.

wow. there’s no pleasing this crowd.

thanks for the info Kyros. Just rolled an ele yesterday and was looking for a starting point for a PvP build.

Cheers

Kyros.5682:

What you dont understand is that the 1 button builds “Heartseaker. Pistol whip, Crossfire, Hundred blades” are builds that should not be viable in competitive play yet are. To me it sounds like you are complaining because ele isnt a 1 button class.

And to clarify I did not say that ele was OP. You’ve obviously already made your mind up that Ele is weak and you wont hear what I or others have to say. Just brushing it off as elitest crap.

I Practice and make my builds with what i consider some of the best players in the game right now. I base 0 of my opinions off of Spvp and base 0 of my opinions of off steam rolling bads. My videos come from a poor selection of pug stomping videos I cant control the quality of teams I’m pit against. As for my opinions and Posts about how strong an ele is etc….. It comes from practicing with the best players I know.

You dont know what your talking about.

Skill is everything when it comes to balance…… How else can you utilize the Potential of a class if you herpkittenthe whole time. I think what you want from Anet is a Fireball spam spec.

Dude, you didn’t read my post? What did I tell you? Don’t listen to Razarei! He’s a whiner.

Pinkerton.5643:

Kyros.5682:

What you dont understand is that the 1 button builds “Heartseaker. Pistol whip, Crossfire, Hundred blades” are builds that should not be viable in competitive play yet are. To me it sounds like you are complaining because ele isnt a 1 button class.

And to clarify I did not say that ele was OP. You’ve obviously already made your mind up that Ele is weak and you wont hear what I or others have to say. Just brushing it off as elitest crap.

I Practice and make my builds with what i consider some of the best players in the game right now. I base 0 of my opinions off of Spvp and base 0 of my opinions of off steam rolling bads. My videos come from a poor selection of pug stomping videos I cant control the quality of teams I’m pit against. As for my opinions and Posts about how strong an ele is etc….. It comes from practicing with the best players I know.

You dont know what your talking about.

Skill is everything when it comes to balance…… How else can you utilize the Potential of a class if you herpkittenthe whole time. I think what you want from Anet is a Fireball spam spec.

Dude, you didn’t read my post? What did I tell you? Don’t listen to Razarei! He’s a whiner.

Again, you’re failing to read what I wrote. Tired of having to repeat myself because people don’t want to look at the bigger picture.

If you with all your knowledge of an elementalist invested just as much time in a guardian, you would faceroll with less effort. That is the point almost everyone is trying to make. You say I’m ignoring you, but it is you who is ignoring me. You, and many others think everyone who disagrees with you is simply bad at the game and needs to get better.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m really good at playing my class, and I’d be happy to prove it to anyone who asks, or seems to think they’re god. Unfortunately, none of there ele-heroes have actually accepted instead of resorting to excuses. I’m pretty sure the majority of people complaining here are at least competent with their build.

I honestly don’t give two kitten if elementalists don’t get changed, because it won’t affect me at all. I will still faceroll with elementalist, because that’s what I do. There are people like me that take classes no matter what “tier” and exploit the kitten out of it to show they can do great things.

Does it make it OP? No it does not, because every class can do it, and better.

No, I don’t mean pressing more buttons than another class.

@Pinkerton – That’s rich coming from someone who dodges all my PvP invites. That’s all I’m seeing on these forums. Self proclaimed super awesome elementalists who refuse to back their claims.

Risk vs. reward.

Kyros, I think this is where you seem to have an issue in dealing with the community here. You shrug off this concept completely and I think that’s because you fail to grasp its meaning and how it relates to the way this and most other MMO’s are fundamentally designed – the risk vs. reward principle. The concept works as follows:

If you decide you want to have godlike dps, you will be paper thin and one hit will destroy you. If you decide you want to survive a long time, your dps will be like a toy gun and hit for very little. Risk vs. reward. Low risk = low rewards. High risk = high rewards.

Pro tip to you Devs of Anet, this is fundamentally what motivates Human Beings in general and drives several national and world economies. Why ever would you think that this fundamental principal would not apply to this game? Of course it does and on a global scale. If you fail to implement this design, people will leave GW2. Simple as that. Its a simple matter of fairness by design, and pro tip #2, when the Human Being perceives something to be unfair, it overrides all other emotional states and drives behavior to an extreme. This is what your seeing here on these forums now with this class. Obviously, I have some professional experience to know what I am writing about here. It may be wise to heed this advice.

The Elementalist, real or not, factual or not, is perceived to be very weak by the community overall. This is fact. It does not help that there is some strong truth to that statement. You can fix this by throwing out a statement of intent and some quick fixes to even some minor issues. I think you would be wise to heed this advice.