Guild Wars 2

Mindx.9610:

I only skimmed through this thread….people seem very angry haha I wonder if the people hating on ele right now would be saying the same things if they nerfed 1 button builds….I’ve seen very powerful ele’s out there just sayin…

I wouldn’t mind them nerfing all the other classes to bring them down to the ele’s state of terrible.

Kyros’ build helped me a lot. When I ditched the staff in wvw the game actually made sense again. The only thing I don’t like is that we can’t swap to staff in combat to AoE above gates and things. I forgot all about being able to swap weapons yesterday. lol I was thinking “I need to respec because no one is taking out the wall siege, and we’re getting owned.” Also, healing, and sometimes the sprint, are better with staff.

I found this video yesterday, and it made me lol. I’m not sure if it was posted here or not. It’s pretty accurate when describing thieves. http://youtu.be/Hh5zjK7ITpQ

I would like to know how people play each class 1v1 in WvW?
Especially since ALL of the gear is toughness, and your crit becomes 30% (while using the signet). It’s pretty harsh. I would like 50% crit. I’m using sceptre/dagger. Haven’t tried focus or DD.

I think eles can be viable but its just major effort having to switch attunments constantly, too gimmicky for me.

Razarei.2809:

Kyros.5682:

http://youtu.be/4QxI0V_RKUA

There is the video when it finishes uploading. That is everything I recorded, I didn’t get the fight where we just stop fighting and call it a draw when I’m sitting on a neutralized zone that i took from you. But you can deny that all you would like. In this video you can see who is chasing who.

Living in your own world again? Why would you not have the last 10 minutes if you claimed you recorded everything?

Video was removed before it even got a view.

:) nice some one else set this bambie in his place so others didnt have to wasted their time..

could this kyros now gtfo and stop claiming stuff which will be hurtfull for the overall balance of the classes -_-

well gj raza.

well every one that should pretty much conclude this thread of bogus have fun.
and anet kitten boost the ele to the other classes standard ;P

ps: and any vid can be split up in more then one part, youtube can upload 45+- min of fotage and yet its not there becouse it was too long and you couldnt split it in two parts.. sure sure.. -_-

is there anywhere i can watch the video posted?

This video has been removed because it is too long.
Sorry about that. -YouTube

What I still don’t understand is why anyone would say, “please don’t give us a boost.” Many players think we need a boost. If you are one of the “elite L2P” eles why not just keep your mouth shut and “dominate” even more if a boost comes? Guides are helpful and appreciated but saying we all suck and fighting against damage boosts makes no sense if you actually play and like the elementalist profession.

Truga.5897:

Kyros, you can confirm your youtube account (it’ll send you an SMS with a code you need to put in), and then you can upload videos up to 10h long, rather than just 15 minutes.

Do eet.

I second this request. This thread has 15K view and climbing. That should tell you something.

I m not complaining ele isnt a 1 button class.
im complaining I can be a top pvper in the last 5 pvp games I have played and always played the hard to use classes
and then I come to this game where every OTHER class i play is easy to use, this one is hard to use… i use 15 different spells in a combat and I die to a thirf and ranger who presses 1

you know how hard i raged all night last night from dying to the SAME TWO RANGERS and looking at my log and only seeing crossfire spam and a few “bites” ?

1 button beats me using 4 stances and 3-4 spells in each snance and using combo buffs to givemyself might and protection….

THATS what we are saying.

just because we have a black president dosent mean its EASY to succeed as a black man in america. I feel the same way playin my ele =/

Maybe this will lighten your mood.

A comprehensive guide.

I don’t really have enough experience to really say who is right or who is wrong, or whatever. But, if another class really can excel in PvP (or higher end PvE) just by staying in one weapon set and using at most 2 skills, then obviously, either one of those skills is overpowered or both of the skills are overpowered (in the case of thief, the initiative mechanic is the problem allowing them to spam one skill for high bursting.) I really hope that Elementalist never gets to the point where we can sit in one attunement and use just a couple of skills and excel. Same principle why I liked Warden in LotRO.

elchulo.3148:

What I still don’t understand is why anyone would say, “please don’t give us a boost.” Many players think we need a boost. If you are one of the “elite L2P” eles why not just keep your mouth shut and “dominate” even more if a boost comes? Guides are helpful and appreciated but saying we all suck and fighting against damage boosts makes no sense if you actually play and like the elementalist profession.

becouase his not…
his argument is that “it will get way overpowered and be the flawor of the month” which is just bullkitten.. every pro gamer knows that a flawor of the month is a specific combination of chars and abilities and this change constantly as new tactics and builds are made, actual balance changes have very little to do with that when we are talking the top tier players.

my guess would be becouse his main interest is not in the ele but in the currently stronger classes and having to fight players much better then himself on eles which actually is as strong point for point would get him destroyed.

SkyChef.5432:

Truga.5897:

Kyros, you can confirm your youtube account (it’ll send you an SMS with a code you need to put in), and then you can upload videos up to 10h long, rather than just 15 minutes.

Do eet.

I second this request. This thread has 15K view and climbing. That should tell you something.

+1. would like to see that movie at some point ^^

@erebus. I do love ele very much. I’m semi intrested in playing mesmer once they fix some things. I think that mesmer will be the hardest class to play in the future but for now im sticking to ele until mesmer gets toned down.

So you see my reasons for even picking up a ele is because When ever i Killed someone on the mesmer they would say “Mesmer OP” and I would get no credit even though I did a good job.

On the ele however, I kill people and people dont talk shet about ele being op. They might even ask for my build or just say good job your the first good ele I’ve seen. I enjoy playing Classes that people struggle to understand or play. I dont enjoy playing class’ that are easy to play and everyone dominates with.

I simply dont wish to see ele turn into a class that everyone can play and dominate easily. Its a hard class to play, and i would appreaciate it if it stays that way.

I thought he was saying that the “2 button Heroes” needed to have more complexity added to remove the 2 Button “I win” spam. As in, “make all professions as complex and difficult to master as the Elementalists”.

Which I would agree with

*nvm he beat me to it

Erebus.7568:

elchulo.3148:

What I still don’t understand is why anyone would say, “please don’t give us a boost.” Many players think we need a boost. If you are one of the “elite L2P” eles why not just keep your mouth shut and “dominate” even more if a boost comes? Guides are helpful and appreciated but saying we all suck and fighting against damage boosts makes no sense if you actually play and like the elementalist profession.

becouase his not…
his argument is that “it will get way overpowered and be the flawor of the month” which is just bullkitten.. every pro gamer knows that a flawor of the month is a specific combination of chars and abilities and this change constantly as new tactics and builds are made, actual balance changes have very little to do with that when we are talking the top tier players.

my guess would be becouse his main interest is not in the ele but in the currently stronger classes and having to fight players much better then himself on eles which actually is as strong point for point would get him destroyed.

SkyChef.5432:

Truga.5897:

Kyros, you can confirm your youtube account (it’ll send you an SMS with a code you need to put in), and then you can upload videos up to 10h long, rather than just 15 minutes.

Do eet.

I second this request. This thread has 15K view and climbing. That should tell you something.

+1. would like to see that movie at some point ^^

Gelrod.1295:

Erebus

-_- wouldn’t prove kitten, already told you several times and can see that soy did the same that i would take any fight with you if it is possible to do so on a max geared char (not a ele vs ele ofc).

Pls… visit the mists just once. Until then stop commenting on anything related to PvP.

Could you?

elchulo.3148:

What I still don’t understand is why anyone would say, “please don’t give us a boost.” Many players think we need a boost. If you are one of the “elite L2P” eles why not just keep your mouth shut and “dominate” even more if a boost comes? Guides are helpful and appreciated but saying we all suck and fighting against damage boosts makes no sense if you actually play and like the elementalist profession.

Because winning because your profession is too strong isn’t as much fun as winning because you’re playing better than the enemys.
Also fears are: If they overbuff the elementalist and realize it they could nerf it worse than it was before the buff (happens in balancing).
Before Elementalist gets any buffs all skills + traits should be working… that would already help a lot.

I’m not sure if any of you played rift, but when that game first came out the EXACT same thing was said/thought about the mage class. I’m not sure if its group thinking or ppl brought up on crappy games but I really couldn’t get it because I thought it was great. So it was kind of crazy to see all the noobs cry again.

to be honest, I kind of wish you wouldn’t share so much info :p

I’d rather see other classes changed to require the same work needed to play an elementalist instead of making the elementalist just another faceroll class like in most games.

kzzz.7694:

I’m not sure if any of you played rift, but when that game first came out the EXACT same thing was said/thought about the mage class. I’m not sure if its group thinking or ppl brought up on crappy games but I really couldn’t get it because I thought it was great. So it was kind of crazy to see all the noobs cry again.

to be honest, I kind of wish you wouldn’t share so much info :p

I did play rift, I ran a top ten in the world Guild at the time. Its name was and still is, Terrible Idea. Mage class was weak at launch i remember but in beta i still managed to find ways to “Dominate” people if you know what i mean. here’s a link. For those of you who dont know, Keep an eye on the level of my opponents. they are not standing still, Im controlling them.

Budg.3064:

I’d rather see other classes changed to require the same work needed to play an elementalist instead of making the elementalist just another faceroll class like in most games.

100% agree. I think that ele should and could be a central point for developers to balance the other classes. As I’ve stated before. ele is fine fix the other classes.

kzzz.7694:

I’m not sure if any of you played rift, but when that game first came out the EXACT same thing was said/thought about the mage class. I’m not sure if its group thinking or ppl brought up on crappy games but I really couldn’t get it because I thought it was great. So it was kind of crazy to see all the noobs cry again.

to be honest, I kind of wish you wouldn’t share so much info :p

The difference is, a Defilemancer Mage in Rift, while being the hardest spec of all classes to play, will also net you the highest DPS possible. That’s how it should be: difficulty must be rewarded. Elementalist’s reward for being the hardest profession to play is lowest DPS and survivability.

Kyros.5682:

On the ele however, I kill people and people dont talk shet about ele being op. They might even ask for my build or just say good job your the first good ele I’ve seen.

-_- and you still don’t see the issue…kittenyou must be thick as a door….
if you where that amazing you would get A LOT more credit on a very strong class since you solo handedly would be able to take out full groups.
the main reason ele can ever kill something is that no one takes them serious, its like meeting a chanter in aion (so easy kill that whenever it actually even does dmg to you, you are in chock and almost about to fall of your chair which in return makes you fight horrible and still you will win 9/10)

the fact people are going “kittenman a elementalist that actually is a challenge when i am half a sleep” should be more then a clear indicator that the devs seriously did something wrong.. if you still assume its simply people being too bad then as the very minimum you should have the brain to admit that the devs kitten up the accessability of the class (note i said should, i know you don’t -_-)

PS. and Gelrod.1295 kitten man, i did do tons of spvp in the beta and yes i have barely touched it in release becouse i think its badly balanced and badly made, not very enjoyable at all, but even so i am still at a good handfuld of fights there not in the houndreads but getting up towards a number where i can see i wasted too much time there. (why i do it i really don’t know, i keep dreaming of a fun scenario pvp system but its just dissapointing to play in it.. personally i found WAR to have the best scenario pvp for pug types as well as organized groups.. and only wow actually had pvp tournaments worth mentioning without asian (eu/na doesnt really have much in terms of pro gamers when not talking fps and rts games.) and never really played wow, graphic killed me before i could get into it l2 and eve-online was more me back then)

Erebus.7568:

PS. and Gelrod.1295 kitten man, i did do tons of spvp in the beta and yes i have barely touched it in release becouse i think its badly balanced and badly made, not very enjoyable at all, but even so i am still at a good handfuld of fights there not in the houndreads but getting up towards a number where i can see i wasted too much time there. (why i do it i really don’t know, i keep dreaming of a fun scenario pvp system but its just dissapointing to play in it.. personally i found WAR to have the best scenario pvp for pug types as well as organized groups.. and only wow actually had pvp tournaments worth mentioning without asian (eu/na doesnt really have much in terms of pro gamers when not talking fps and rts games.) and never really played wow, graphic killed me before i could get into it l2 and eve-online was more me back then)

How can that be true, if you don’t even know, that everyone gets max gear + lvl in sPvP?

That how2 warrior video was hilarious.

BishopX.6453:

just because we have a black president dosent mean its EASY to succeed as a black man in america. I feel the same way playin my ele =/

I’m not an American but this comment cracks me up! I do feel that Ele takes more effort to play as compared to a Guardian. I don’t know if this means the Ele is slightly under-powered or if this means that I am just not suitable to play the Ele.

Straight up if I was a mod I’d seriously consider banning Erebus from posting in the Elementalist forums. His attitude is awful for the community, is very often baseless, and demonstrates a distinct lack of intellectual effort.

Having said that, Kyros has had it right from Day 1. Elementalist is incredibly strong in tPvP, and even though the 8v8 clusterduck of sPVP is more suited to 1 trick ponies (GS Warriors, Illusion Mesmers, Minion Bomb Power Necros, HS Thieves, Retal Guardians etc) Elementalist surely has a strong place and a wide breadth of playstyles and roles that it can fulfill and be viable in the 8v8 setting. In that sense, Elementalist is one of the better balanced classes.

No one is arguing that Ele doesn’t need some QoL changes on cast animations (Shatterstone is a big one) across all weapon sets and improvements on skill interactions, but to say that Ele is a weak class hints at a fundamental lack of understanding of GW2 PvP – which is fine, the game hasn’t been out very long and the PvP scene is still in its infancy. I don’t expect everyone on the forums to understand how the whole thing works, yet. But people… for the sake of the community, please don’t act like a guru when you’re very obviously not. Spend time learning the class, and instead of confronting every obstacle (perceived or real) with, “omg worst class NA kitten <insert other class here> has it SO MUCH EASIER WOE IS US” use the obstacle as an opportunity to learn and grow as an Elementalist and as a gamer. Trust me, if you actually sit down and play Ele and figure out how to use its weaknesses as strengths you’ll dokittenwell.

No you won’t.

There is no doing well when your biggest nuke (Churning Earth) hits a Warrior for 2k, the Warrior can remove all the bleed and other conditions you put on him with one click and Eviscerate yourkitten for 8.5k.

No offense, but saying the Elementalist is strong is the same as saying our down state is fine. Oh wait, for a lot of you our down state is fine. Nuff said.

Also, you realise you’re doing exactly what you’re accusing the other side of? But hey, if we say Elementalist isn’t up to the challenge we’re nubs and need to L2P, when you say the Elementalist is strong you’re a guru on the subject. Yeah, totally legit.

PS: Now watch people say I need to get more power and I’ll do dmg with Churning Earth and need to be less glass cannonish and I won’t get hit for 8.5k. And be expected to somehow manage doing both at the same time.

Churning earth is the hardest hitting skill we have maybe besides fire grab. However Keep in mind Churning earth is a very large AoE. Also applying 8 stacks of bleed. If your hitting a warrior for 2k Im going to guess you didnt crit, and im going to assume he has a high amount of toughness. You’re creating a perfect scenario saying that he would just remove the bleeds. I can tell you right now that if I hit a thief with churning earth, I win that fight 100% of the time. Anyway a lot of the arguments that have been posted by the People saying that ele is weak, often include perfect scenarios where the opposing player has exactly what he needs, when in reality its not always true. You win some you lose some.

Again I agree it is easier to jump on a warrior or a guardian (which i did today) and own. But at no point did I feel like any of these classes were able to do something that I couldnt on my ele. And in many ways I have more options and am more useful in different situations where a warrior or guardian would not be. Some classes are Good at everything and not great at anything. Ele has many manyhard hitting AoE atks that quickly divide that battle field. what other class has that kind of power? Everyone is always afraid of getting 100blades by a warrior, but when that warrior jump on the person next to you, you think “Phew” dodged a bullet there and carry on. When i drop a dragon tooth on the guy next to you, you both go running for the hills. Thats power.

As for our down state. In team fights it is extremely strong. Our 2 roots someone in place, I often mark a target and say burn this guy hes rooted for hella days. And in a downstate vs downstate war I win vs all classes except a ranger. Our 3 heals resets our downstate health and allows us to reposition?! thats like the best 3 in the game for downstate. I Like the trade off of not having an interupt on my 2 for having 1 of the strongest 3’s and having a team oriented 2 that can mean the death of someone who downed me. And again, having that kind of power in my downstate abilities means that Im risking an early stomp and having to rely on my team to keep people from stomping me. Im fine with that, again you win some you lose some.

Before watching OP’s video I had ~25% win rate in sPvP after around 60 matches. After watching the video and practicing for a few days, I’ve gotten the win rate up to 55% after around 140 games (I’m top kills/skirmisher and/or top neutralizer around 50% of my recent games). So I think it’s rather obvious that I’ve majorly improved my own play.

That being said, I still feel weaker than the 5 signet warrior and heartseeker spamming thieves. In general, I can’t even compete with mesmers and guardians.

I feel like the drastic increase in my win rate is due to me (sometimes majorly) outplaying enemies in skirmishes.

Today, even after I dodged a hundred-blade warrior’s bull rush and subsequent spin and kited them for the majority of their health bar, getting hit 3 times by auto attacks left me at 20% health. While I was dodging nearly everything, hitting combo chains correctly and generally staying out of reach, all the (awful) warrior player did was walk towards me, heal, and spam auto attacks. And that warrior player nearly won the skirmish.

And god forbid I face somebody that’s playing better than me. When I outplay a warrior, thief, or mesmer, I survive with 20%. When a guardian, thief, or any class for that matter, outplay me, they skip away with over 50% of their health.

I’m open to improving my play further, testing different things out, and just becoming an overall better player. I recognize when I make mistakes and constantly try to avoid making them again. But I can’t help but feel limited by playing an elementalist.

Before I watched OP’s video I also rolled a mesmer to try it out. With no major mesmer experience beforehand (I leveled ele to 80 before trying pvp out for the first time), and as the worse player I was pre-OP’s video, I achieved a 50% win rate after 24 games. That’s a 50% win rate on a no-experience mesmer vs. a 25% win rate on an ele main. I understand there’s a higher skill floor for eles, but ouch.

One last thing – if they’re going to do anything immediate to eles it should be fixing ride the lightening. I die once every other match because it keeps me suspended in the same spot for a second while I take free damage and lose any positional advantage I had.

Freakiie.8940:

No you won’t.

There is no doing well when your biggest nuke (Churning Earth) hits a Warrior for 2k, the Warrior can remove all the bleed and other conditions you put on him with one click and Eviscerate yourkitten for 8.5k.

No offense, but saying the Elementalist is strong is the same as saying our down state is fine. Oh wait, for a lot of you our down state is fine. Nuff said.

Also, you realise you’re doing exactly what you’re accusing the other side of? But hey, if we say Elementalist isn’t up to the challenge we’re nubs and need to L2P, when you say the Elementalist is strong you’re a guru on the subject. Yeah, totally legit.

PS: Now watch people say I need to get more power and I’ll do dmg with Churning Earth and need to be less glass cannonish and I won’t get hit for 8.5k. And be expected to somehow manage doing both at the same time.

Your first mistake is assuming my argument hasn’t any substance when I’ve yet to make one. You’re trying to simplify the PvP down in to very simple if/when scenarios and that’s not how this PvP works. Everything is a conditional upon a conditional, if a Warrior uses his heal to clear the bleed stacks from the Churning Earth he just stood in then he is opened up to uncleansable blinds and stuns from Air, Chill from Water, Burning from Fire, and easy Bleed application in Earth. And that doesn’t even cover it.

Your Churning Earth doesn’t do enough damage, yet no matter what amalgamation of stats you try you can’t add more power to the skill without sacrificing too much defense? Change your perspective on the skill. It’s not a nuke. It’s a Graveyard wide mega-snare with healthy parts direct damage and damage over time components. Elementalists aren’t about nuking competent players from 100-0 (neither are Thieves or Warriors), they are about outputting more pressure than your opponents can heal. If you land Churning Earth be it a bunker build, power build, or condition build, you are most likely going to do exactly that – unless it’s a specific Guardian or Necro build.

And whereas you’re making end statements about a topic with more factors than you could probably account for, I’m telling you to try playing your class a different way – none of this crap is cut and dried. There are issues with Elementalists that need to be fixed, Lightning Rush and our downed state pre-mist form is a huge one, but that isn’t to say that Elementalists need help. The problem exists between keyboard and chair, not in the class mechanics. One trick ponies currently rule sPvP, learn their trick and suddenly you aren’t wasting all of your cooldowns to get out of one bull rush or a hasted HS spike. If you play Dagger/Dagger (like I do, primarily), you have 5 (potentially 6, if you’re good at the Earth immobi) get out of jail free cards not counting correct use of dodges or utilities.

150 tournament games played on my Elementalist, 120 wins. Top of TWL/CAL ladders in two different FPS, 2700 on BG9, Elementalist main since Guild Wars 1 in HA/GvG, been playing the GW2 Elementalist since the first BWE. I’m no guru yet, and neither are any of you. Look at what people post subjectively and follow their reasoning to its conclusion instead of coming in to a thread with your own (misguided, in this case) prejudices and conclusions and trying to force them on the OP. Kyros provided some great content, and hating on him for it is ridiculous. You should feel bad.

Kyro,

I tried out your build and I really liked it. I used to run dagger/dagger but felt it was too squishy for the hectic gameplay (although it’s still great fun) this one brings more utility and has allowed me to be first many games in a row.
I want to thank you, I altered it a bit but all in all you helped my build out massively!

Hey thanks. I’m glad you tweaked it! Tell me what you changed though, I’m interested in knowing because That helps me to learn things too. I theory craft a ton but sometimes I cant think of everything. So if you tweak it and have good success with your new build Link it up I’d like to see the different variations out there.

I’ve already seen a ton more ele’s owning me out there in Spvp. Someone Lightning flash Churning earthed me today and killed me. I’d like to think its because we are growing as a community and sharing what we know. This in turn helps all of us become better at the game!

I’ve updated my Build a little and Made a new video showing some of the updates. Mostly the changes made are simple changes that are shifting with the meta game and 1 thing is kinda a new trick I’ve learned thanks to Ellisd, a necro on our team who really enjoys theory crafting with me (He’s done some amazing and unique things with necro). Here’s the link, It will should be finished uploading within the hour.

Picture prove ele is not useless the player is.

How am I describing a perfect situation?

I was fighting a Warrior that couldn’t even be bothered to dodge, had so high toughness that my Churning Earth hit him for 2k (which is our skill with the highest instant damage) and still has enough power to hit me for 8.5k with a single skill. And well he had a condition removal with him. Most people do, there’s nothing perfect situation about that, it was a simple 1vs1 which tend to happen. I was a bit unlucky with my crits, but I shouldn’t have to pray for getting lucky with my crits to beat a Warrior 1vs1 when all he’s doing is faceplanting his keyboard.

But I guess it’s fine if an Elementalist just has to run for it everytime he sees an enemy and there isn’t an ally with him so they can outnumber the enemy. Good to know. What was I thinking expecting to 1vs1 in a game were every class was supposed to be able to do what they wanted and not what the game told them they could. Silly me.

PS: Kyros, thanks for proving my point. The only downstate in the game that is completely reliant on his allies to avoid the first stomp is perfectly fine. Sure it is.
PPS: Wotan, you’re still at it. I’m right because I say so and you’re wrong because I say so. Way to go. Also I am reading what the others are saying and I’m having a very hard time taking anyone seriously that considers the Elementalist downed state as one of the strongest there is. Oh and where am I hating on the OP?

Edit:
LOL @ one pic of Ele having most points in a match proving Elementalists are great.

This thread is dead and should be closed.

1) There are a lot of people new to elementalist who do not understand the class
2) There are a lot of elitists who deem themselves awesome but actually aren’t
3) We have ALL established (even those defending, which defeats the purpose) that elementalists are indeed not as easy to play, or easier than other classes, and has no niche, and needs a buff to trait synergy and downed state.
4) ANet are still silent
5) You people with your silly videos vs random newbies trying to prove ele is OP makes me laugh.

TL:DR – Stop arguing, it’s a waste of time. Keep your eyes open for my upcoming tutorial series on how to play an elementalist properly, and none of this “LUK MY VIDEO I GET TOP SCORE ELE IZ FINE” video.

Warning: Other classes will still yield better risk vs rewards.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, elementalist in this game isn’t a typical mage class. It’s your hybrid healer that does mediocre damage. If you spec for damage you’re just going to getkitten that is the bottom line.

I think you can only make that judgement if you played all the classes alot. There isn’t enough good teams to see what is actually good through top level play.

Razarei.2809:

This thread is dead and should be closed.

1) There are a lot of people new to elementalist who do not understand the class
2) There are a lot of elitists who deem themselves awesome but actually aren’t
3) We have ALL established (even those defending, which defeats the purpose) that elementalists are indeed not as easy to play, or easier than other classes, and has no niche, and needs a buff to trait synergy and downed state.
4) ANet are still silent
5) You people with your silly videos vs random newbies trying to prove ele is OP makes me laugh.

If people are still reporting that they have received help from the O.P’s video then the thread is not dead and should not be closed, ele’s are strong and can survive very well, you yourself has proved it, I fought you on my necromancer the other day when you transferred to the US servers, while you did over exaggerate your wins a bit and said you would have beat me if the game time hadn’t run out (not true it would have gone for another 1-2 min or so)you were still able to survive very very well, granted I was a experimental spec (with spectral grasp lol). You did manage to survive my lich burst which was me kinda trolling a bit (good use on LoS on your part) and I shouldent have used it as early as i did. Either way you manage to survive proving not only are you good at ele but that they can survive burst damage (atleast from necromancers, but then again everyone has trouble with warrior, thief, mezmer burst it’s not only Ele). I believe once these popular builds are balanced out elementalist will work itself out to be the most unique class in the game and hopefully not broken.

I consider Necromancer to be even weaker than ele right now (the amount of options in utility alone triumphs necromancers. Survivability and group support is probably greater than that of a necro as well. In tourney’s elementalist get even stronger, I was 1v1 a ele yesterday as a conditionmancer and although he couldent burst me (yes he tried very hard) and i couldent burst him (condition damage) I also couldent get him below 50% before he was able to get back to full health similar to what you were doing (yes he did use LoS as well but either way his survivability was insane) remove 8v8 zergs and you got one powerfull class on your hands you should know this by now.

I feel like every class that cant do 20k damage in 3 seconds are asking for a spec that can do so, (not saying this is what you are asking for, although high risk high reward ease to play seems to be your main argument, only skimmed through the thread so i could be wrong and sorry if I am I dont mean to come off as disrespectful or rude) so they can feel viable against the classes and the overwhelming number of players that use them….gw2 needs to move away from this bursty meta game in general so adding more of it really wont fix things…at least in my opinion. My favorite 1v1’s tend to be when both of us are at 5% trying to get that last hit in before we drop, and even extending the fight into downed state due to DoT’s or something, this to me is balance and this is how every 1v1 should go.

@Razerei. My cat cooks bacon in the morning therefore your argument is invalid. Btw no one is saying ele is OP only that ele is not weak. Thats you twisting words again. Brb bacon is done

Kyros, it seems I know you from somewhere, from eq2 maybe? o.O

I agree, Ele is hella strong, I love it and cannot understand the majority of complaints I see. shrug
No matter what it is “percieved” to be.

If there is anything they need to fix about Ele it is air, with scepter it bugs out and I am stuck casting the auto attack, and it is fairly weak. With staff only being usefull for the field and the blind. There are SOME good abilities with air in a few of the weapons but I think the overall damage is lacking.

I agree with Razarei: the thread should be closed. At least change the title to, “Ele is mediocre to average in certain tanky/support builds, I’m here to help you”.

I think the calls to close the thread are because Kryos et al are convincingly demonstrating that the ele isn’t weak and only needs tweaking — ‘If you can’t beat them, shut them up’.

When facing a challenge, people respond in several ways. One is to buckle down and work to improve their game. Another is to put their effort into complaining and lobbying for the bar to be lowered.

It’s interesting that many of the complainers will denigrate videos of eles winning (their foes are incompetent) while accepting at face value videos of eles getting stomped (ie the “This should not be allowed (Full Stop)” thread). Doing so cedes credibility and forfeits the argument.

Finally, for sake of argument, let’s assume eles have to work harder than some other professions for equal results (there is merit in this claim). What’s the solution? The choice is to either dumb down the ele or to ‘smarten up’ the other professions. If one believes that player skill should determine the match then the latter is the answer. Those who are complaining and calling for the ele to be made more like the ‘easier’ classes are saying they don’t think player skill should determine a match, because by definition, dumbing down makes skill less important.

Cliff short notes:
-thread is still worthwhile
-when challenged buckle down and work to improve your game
-to be credible, be even-handed
-make other classes as ‘hard’ to play as eles

I too felt that I was underpowered in pvp and wvw with my elem. But I tried your air/water – Scepter/Dagger build and kittenI am a mean lean elem machine.

My kills have gone up and I am actually contributing.

It seems I was playing the class wrong the entire time.

@Kyros
Any progress about the challenged video between you and Zazarei? Or you decide not to post after all?

I decided I was going to post it and then It failed. to upload due to length. I kinda lost interest In it and listened to some advice about ignoring the trolls and how no matter what you say or show, some people just can’t be convinced. “It’s like arguing religion, they alrdy have their mind made up before they read the first word of your post”

annnnnnnnd then you asked if I was going to post it,….. and I realized that I mass deleted a ton of Footage from fraps today cause I filled up both my 500gb hard drives.

As for me vsing raz, He does fine. Prooves more of my point, that Ele can hold their own vs other classes. Though the builds he went up against might have been shody he still went up against good players. which means his build at the very least was good, which would indicate he has at least some knowledge of the class.

When it comes to myself vs him it rly doesnt go to show anything except for kittens. And we called it a draw at the end. Ele lacks sustained damage, and as much as he denies himself being a bunker, he is. And he does very little direct damage. Most of his damage comes from Condition based, I’d guess he’s using a shamans amulet for condition and healing stats based on the ammount he was healing from regen, and his damage ticks from bleed were like 97. Condition spec damage is something my ele build is strong against since the 30 points in water. Becuase of this, he was unable to really do damage to me unless I allowed it (Do i want to remove these condition now or try to burst him down?) was generally my train of thought.

I rly dont want to argue with the guy anymore, I got a little disgusted when he twisted some of the things i said. We fought like 3 times and the first time the time ran out, 2nd time a necro came in and did 4.7k+ damage to me and downed me. 3rd time a thief came inkitten end and did 4k+ damage to me, (I had like 8 stacks of bleed from a churning earth on me, but I had water attunement up) and the last time I challenged him to holding a node that i said i would take from him. I neutralized the node due to a bad dodge on his part or him habitually running away due to instinct when your on low life. Personally I don’t think i would have finished him off so im going to assume it was a bad dodge on his part that let me cap the node, but he was low on life several times so he could have very well just been instinctfully scared.

I may be ankitten hole sometimes but im not a liar…. I remember this so well because Of the ammount of kitten i was talkin in mumble when my guildies would say “You lost??” and I would respond “What?! No!! lol, im at 95% life and hes below half….. still” and then I remember raging that he heals from 10% life to 95% life in 1 swift motion…. In hindsight I realize It was due to my lack of boon removal capabilities that rly allowed him to live. I’ve told my guildies many times “I often wont be able to kill a bunker/tank 1v1 due to my lack of sustained damage, But they wont kill me either.”

Anyways, sorry sky I know you and other were prolly lookin forward to watching it to get the story straight. Unless you know of a way to get the history of my uploading it to be able to reupload it, if you know what i mean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QxI0V_RKUA thats the old link and I can see the history of me uploading it and still change whether its private or public, it also says my account can now upload more thant 15minutes of stuff. Was hoping maybe it would auto do it >_<

Wall of text Scores a critical strike against you for 10,000,000,000,000,999 damage.
You die.

Kyros,

Since I haven’t done any top-level PvP of any kind, I can’t comment either way on the Elementalist. That said: like you, I would prefer to use a profession that has a higher skill cap, demanding more effort from players but yielding (slightly) greater results when played correctly.

I do have a couple of questions for you.

First, it seems to me that the Elementalist trait lines lack synergy and efficacy compared to other classes — there appear to be very few traits that benefit attunement switching, and they appear to outshine those that do not. by simple virtue of the fact that, without attunement switching, your options are limited.

My question: do you think this is the case?

My second question: I constantly switch attunements after burning through the cooldowns available, but I feel that some abilities appear to not offer enough benefit for their cast or cooldown time.

Do you feel this is the case?

Thanks!

I wanted to quote you, but the Forums are buggin out.

@gaius; You worded yourself carefully and it appears that you have put a lot of thought into your post. The following will likely end up as a HUGE wall of text, so i will Bold each new paragraph with a brief description of what its saying, so you can skip to what you would like if your skimming.

Its a really long post… gonna have to split it up into several it looks like

The only other class that I feel extremely comfortable with is the mesmer, though i can play other classes I will reference and compare mesmer to ele the most.

Gaius wrote; “there appear’s to be very few traits that benefit attunement switching, and they appear to outshine those that do not. by simple virtue of the fact that, without attunement switching, your options are limited”
First before I go into your question I would like to stamp out what Attunement swapping is, and what role it plays for ele as a class and mesmer as a class.

What is attunement swapping(F1-f4keys) and what role should that style of play take on? also applicable to mesmer
With the ability to change attunments the class becomes easily, the most versatile class in the game. Now when trying to make a build that specializes in being versatile, you will be able to do a little of everything, but not great at 1 thing. I really think thats where a lot of the confusion and belief that ele is weak comes from.
In my eye’s, if your going to specialize into your f1-f4 abilities you should be adapting a more support like style of play. That’s probably why “Staff abilities are larger” trait is in the arcane tree. You can of course make a more damaging or tanky style of play with the arcane tree, but again your still attunment swapping so much that you still end up doing a little of everything, and not enough of 1 thing. So i consider you support.

From a mesmer comparison with their f1-f4
Specializing into the mesmer’s bottom tree, wants you to shatter your illusions. The illusions (Mainly phants) are a good chunk of a mesmers DPS. So if your specializing into this tree your going to be applying a ton of confusion, a small amount of direct damage, daze, and vulnerability. In doing this your forced to shatter your illusions at a steady rate, and you never really allow your illusions to sit and do damage.
Again we see here that using their f1-f4 abilities often, gives their class more versatility but causing the style of play to be more support based.

Other Mesmer Tree’s not F1-f4
In other tree’s where a mesmer does not spec into shattering, their shatter’s would be/should be, extremely situational, and if they are using a shatter spell too often they are likely taking a hit to their overall dps. Mind wrack is often over used and is sometimes detrimental becuase the illusions your shattering are hitting me for 3-5k and mind wrack for at max 2.2k, and 2.7k if paired with 20stacks of vuln. But again that is extremely situational when you should or could do that, your sacrifising a lot of sustained damage to do that burst.
In short they should be using their f1-f4 abilities much much less. As a result they are way more 1 dimensional.

Elementalist attunement swapping and synergy
I think a lot of people do not fully understand how ele is supposed to be played, same for mesmer, Utilizing your f1-f4 skills for both classes can be detrimental to you if done wrong, and in some cases I feel like you want to avoid using them when not traited to do so.
When you first look at the tree its,
Fire(Power,condi duration)
Air(Precision, crit damage),
Earth(Toughness,condition damage)
Water(Health, Healing)
Arcane (f1-f4 keys, Boon duration).

When you break up the mesmer tree,
Domination (Power,condi duration)
Dueling (Precision, crit damage)
Chaos (Toughness, Boon duration)
Inspiration (Health, healing)
Illusion (Condition damage, F1-f4 Keys)

As you can see the only difference in the tree’s are that condition damage and Boon duration have been swapped. The reason is most likely because earth is our Condition damage, and the f1-f4 abilities along with weapon choice, are the mesmer’s main condition damage. Lets take a step back and look at your question again.

Gaius wrote; “there appear’s to be very few traits that benefit attunement switching, and they appear to outshine those that do not. by simple virtue of the fact that, without attunement switching, your options are limited”

So for the question, Yes, attunement switching traits are limited. I’m not sure what you mean by “outshine those that do not”. And yes, if you are not attunement switching your options are limited, which is why the class and mesmer are much more 1 dimensional when no specializing into their f1-f4 abilities. You do have options however, Here are some of the attunement options/synergy that I know of.

Attunement Options/Synergy
Every 15 points in a tree you get a spell cast when you attune to that specific element. The arcane tree is where the majority of your attunement swapping utility comes from. 10 points in water clears a condition when you attune to water. 30 points in water clears a condition when you apply regen, 10 points in arcane applies regen when you swap to water. etc…. etc… mostly etc in arcane.

Why does water synergize best with attunement swapping?
Most likely because Anet does not want a “Main healer” type class in the game. Healing in games would be considered a support class. Attunement swapping is a Support type of play, water specialization is a healing/support tree. Naturally the 2 come together when trying to make a attunement swapping style of build. again this is similar with mesmer and their f1-f4s.

Gaius Wrote: “My second question: I constantly switch attunements after burning through the cooldowns available, but I feel that some abilities appear to not offer enough benefit for their cast or cooldown time.
Do you feel this is the case?”

I switch after burning through the Cooldowns I want to use, then i generally come back to my chosen attunement (Air) for sustained. Some abilities that you feel do not offer enough benefit for their cast or cooldown you may be using them at the wrong time. I dont know of any skills that I dont use because of its long Cooldown. I can however think of situations where I do not use the scepter earth 2 (Gives like rock armor//Increased toughness) because it has such a long cast time. However I like to start battles with this on because it is beneficial. Again the only time I don’t use the earth “2” on scepter is when I’m already engaged and did not cast it when I should have.

Only abilities that I feel may need to be improved would be the 1 on most of the attunments. Maybe allow the elementalist’s 1 of that attunment have a passive added effect to the spells cast instead of having to cast the 1. That would allow you to swap from Fire and add a burning effect to your spells cast in earth or air etc.. for a small duration of time, as well as getting the new added bonus from the 1 of w/e element you changed to. That would really help to promote attunement swapping and specializing in arcane “Maintain attunment bonus’ for longer” would help out more. But I could see that rapidly becoming the Only way to play ele. Because of that, Im not 100% sure I would want this yet. I also don’t do nearly enough spam 1 builds on any of my classes. So this could just be me seeing a ranger spam cross fire and a Thief spamming trick shot, and me never really just spamming the 1 on any of my elements.

I’d have to say, I don’t feel this is the case. Mainly a user error in that case. <_< I make mistakes to though (Not casting scepter earth 2 and such)

Again sorry for the long post, I think this is a pretty good read and I hope it helps.

I see someone who is better than the other players on the field because of his dedication to (obsession with?) PvP gameplay. No evidence indicating that the Elementalist class doesn’t need work done to be on par with the other classes. Everybody knows it does, proving yourself a BA with a video and showing off on the forums proves nothing.

And furthermore, even if this single build is PvP viable at all levels, only having one viable build proves, if anything, that the elementalist needs work, even if only to gain some variety.

@Kyros:
I don’t mind the long posts — in fact, when I’m not being deliberately circumspect, my posts tend to run long.

My comment about "traits that benefit attunement swapping tend to outshine traits that do NOT benefit attunement swapping " simply indicates the following:

The Elementalist tree seems to include two types of traits:
1). Traits that benefit a single attunement
2). A few traits that benefit attunement swapping

My observation is, simply: traits that benefit a single attunement might not provide enough of a benefit to be worth it, since you’ll only be receiving that benefit less than a quarter of the time (and to receive that benefit encourages using a single attunement, which discourages taking full advantage of your class).

I’d like to know your opinion on this.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly: certain abilities, such as Flamewall and Fire Shield, tend to have very long cooldowns and cast times, yet they do not influence the battle in a meaningful way — Fire Shield provides 1 second of burning to attackers and lasts for 3 seconds, but it has a 40 second cooldown AND it doesn’t help you avoid damage in any way or buff you in any other respect. Staff abilities tend to suffer from this much more than Scepter/Dagger/Focus abilities, in that staff abilities tend to have longer cooldowns AND longer attunement cooldowns (so you can’t switch as often).

And then there appear to be abilities that suffer from the opposite problem: the Scepter ability Shatterstone is a well-telegraphed ability that does minimal damage on a short cooldown, which appears to be counterintuitive design.

I’m not trying to complain: the whole point of the Elementalist is the ability to switch roles as necessary, providing levels of versatility other classes lack. I like it that way, too — I like being able to switch roles on the fly.

Furthermore, I feel there should be a cost to having approximately 20 combat abilities at your disposal at any given time. This cost can be in the form of long cooldowns or “nerfed” effects by comparison to the abilities of other classes, but there needs to be a balance between cost and benefit.

The question becomes: is the design of the Elementalist working as intended? Is the player penalized appropriately for having this level of versatility, or is the player overpenalized (by either certain numerical values or general trait and ability design flaws [such as lack of synergy])?

Just to give a personal example: I often find that a given combat can depend on whether or not I land a Dragon’s Tooth and/or a Fire Grab — but both of these abilities are very difficult to target appropriately (Dragon’s Tooth because you cannot manually lead the target, Fire Grab because the cone of effect is deceptive). This may or may not be a design issue — perhaps I’m simply not good enough to force my opponent to hang around under the gigantic stalactite until it lands. But when it does go wrong, I simply switch attunements until I can go back to my ability to do damage — and hope I survive.

What say you?

@Kyros I wasn’t going to post again because I made my point, but the fact that you’re coming out with so much bullkitten after this isn’t cool. You constantly say I’m exaggerating and “bending truths” but I’m not, and that I was constantly below 10% hp and you were 95%, and that I was always running for my life.

You’re an aggression based player who thinks it’s okay to twist whatever happened in your favour because there is no proof. Fine. Do whatever, you’re the one that get’s jollies from it.

@Mind, okay, it might have gone for another minute.

I’d sit here and type a huge wall of text against what you said, but I can’t be assed. You’re still the original troll that feeds on a little praise.

You’re right, some people just can’t be reasoned with when challenged, and that’s you. Continue to make yourself sound awesome and that you trolled me with minimal effort and never died, cause that is total bullkitten and you know it.

How convenient the footage is deleted right? Oops clicked that delete button by accident.

Why you can not string together sentences to make a point without bragging about your skill level or saying how scrubby someone is, is beyond me. Take some lessons from your guild-mates.

I’m going to say this one last time, and hopefully it sinks in.

Elementalists are not OP, they are not strong. They are viable. Play it support with (surprise surprise our only reasonable weapon set – scepter/dagger) and it becomes the only viable play-style.

Why should an elementalist run a scepter/dagger just to be taken seriously?

Ahhh Razarei, too much bro.

Sure, we arent OP. Im glad.

We arent ‘1 viable spec’. I’ve tried about 30 different specs and all of them felt fun and fine in 8v8.

Also S/D is probably only just worse than staff and D/F.

Overall we have a few bugs and traits that could use fixing/changing. But we dont need an overhaul, or big buffs.

Thankfully Jon’s got his head screwed on right.

Feel free to stop calling everyone who disagrees with you a troll :p
We’re all Ele’s and I dont want us to be kitten any more than you do. We all need to be working together, rather than fighting.

SO here is what i propose.

Lets drop this thread and start posting on how we want the ele changed. Give Jon and the team tons of good stuff to work on. They may not choose to incorporate 99% of it, but thats the nature of this.

TEAMWORK!!

Gaius.2781:

My comment about "traits that benefit attunement swapping tend to outshine traits that do NOT benefit attunement swapping " simply indicates the following:

The Elementalist tree seems to include two types of traits:
1). Traits that benefit a single attunement
2). A few traits that benefit attunement swapping

Yes, But attunement (F1-f4) abilities are sometimes a small part of a spec. So it would make sense to only have a smaller portion dedicated to only a part of the class (Attunements) rather than forcing every ele to always be switching attunements.

Gaius.2781:

My observation is, simply: traits that benefit a single attunement might not provide enough of a benefit to be worth it, since you’ll only be receiving that benefit less than a quarter of the time (and to receive that benefit encourages using a single attunement, which discourages taking full advantage of your class).

Again, If you choose to be versatile you often swap attunements and specializing towards that rewards you better for swapping. Where as specializing more towards 1 attunment almost penalizes you because your supposed to be 1 Dimensional. yet you are utilizing the Advantage’s of your class. *
*Attunment swapping is geared more towards the arcane tree, until you have invested 30 points in arcane you are not ready to fully exploit all of attunement swapping and by swapping without 30 points in, you are taking a risk for the reward of a heal or condition removal or immunity etc…..

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly: certain abilities, such as Flamewall and Fire Shield, tend to have very long cooldowns and cast times, yet they do not influence the battle in a meaningful way — Fire Shield provides 1 second of burning to attackers and lasts for 3 seconds, but it has a 40 second cooldown AND it doesn’t help you avoid damage in any way or buff you in any other respect. Staff abilities tend to suffer from this much more than Scepter/Dagger/Focus abilities, in that staff abilities tend to have longer cooldowns AND longer attunement cooldowns (so you can’t switch as often).

Try using fire shield as a last ditch effort vs fast attacking people, I.E. Pistol whip crossfire spam. Attuneing and fire shield are both off the GCD.
Staff is best Used with Arcane specialization. the “VIII Blasting staff” really helps to Illustrate that the developers encourage using a staff with a support type tree(Arcane).
Arcane helps to lower the CD on attunment swapping. This give’s more of a benefit to staff than any other weapon.

And then there appear to be abilities that suffer from the opposite problem: the Scepter ability Shatterstone is a well-telegraphed ability that does minimal damage on a short cooldown, which appears to be counterintuitive design.

You Can use the 2 and then switch attunments and start casting a different skill. the skill still goes off while your doing something else. Its just there for some added burst to give you options.