Guild Wars 2

It’s really not a question of whether or not we have a viable build for PvP, but rather a class that had the design and foundation to be multi-dimensional becoming increasingly one dimensional.

I think the decline into boredom for me began with the introduction of Tempest. Base elementalist was balanced around having access to four different sets of weapon skills, resulting in the skills themselves being individually less powerful than other class’s weapon skills, because we had access to more of them and were never CD locked into only just auto-attacking. Tempest introduced a mechanic that then prohibited us from being able to access that variety of weapon skills in exchange for the usage of Overloads which required the weakest hp and armor class to be in melee range. It was also the only elite spec that had a con built into it’s mechanic where as other elite specs were just straight up power creep.

The elementalist community called this for what it was and despite the overwhelming feedback against Tempest, it was all just completely ignored. I think the only positive change Tempest brought was the revival of Fresh Air PvE builds, because of the unique interaction between Air Overload and Fresh Air.

Outside of that, Tempest was taken not for the Overloads, but rather the support capability of the shouts and it was worked into the exact same builds that we had before.

Like, whoopedity do, I can now play the exact same Staff build I played pre-HoT in PvE with signet of fire and icebow, but can now whirl around like a kitten every 20 seconds as I camp fire.

In WvW, the impact was even less, because the Overload mechanics are just in strong opposition to our backline role that they make no notable difference.

Tempest did ultimately nothing to change us in any type of profound way and the last balance patch just further limited the pool of viable builds, making it the nail in the coffin for me.

Any motivation to play the class is largely gone, because it feels like an uphill battle against game developer’s with no real interest in making the class fun and interesting. Tempest was some dude’s cool idea and on paper, the idea of overloads and this risk vs reward mechanic does sound pretty cool. But it was ultimately implemented, because it was some dude’s cool idea and not, because it addressed any of the weak points of elementalist.

Once you get beyond the gimmicky “coolness” of Tempest, you quickly realize that that’s what it is; a fluffy gimmick and beyond it, you are still playing all the same kitten you played pre-HoT. It’s just all a lot worse off due to all the classes who got actual power creep from their new specs.

You said it. This is why, despite having seen many ridiculous posts that past-me would have jumped on to comment on, I just don’t bother anymore. They don’t listen.

Yea, old ele actually felt really interesting to play b/c you had to properly manage your attunements and they finally reached a point where each attunement had a unique role: fire was burn/burst, air was sustained damage/mobility, water was healing, and earth was defense/finishers.

Now tempest is, in pvp, basically just a healer, where every attunement besides earth is just some way to provide some healing (mostly through auras), a few filler skills in-between overloading or killing time for the next aura, and then earth for the big defense (mostly). There isn’t a lot of interesing comboing of fields or managing your attunements, there certainly isn’t any way to play any way other than max-defense, and there isnt’ even the joy of high mobility due to no RtL (and that skill being so utterly gutted by now…what is the point of it?).

It’s only viable for support. I don’t want to play support. Why should I have to? I love that there are soooooo many stat combos, sigils, runes, several weapons, different trait lines, yet here I am forced into ONE of them all. GG devs

I actually enjoy playing a support role overall, in other games, especially those that are more strategy based.

I think part of the problem is that the conquest game mode is designed such that bunkering is always better support than actual support, and that health bars drop so fast in this game with all of its trap bombs and ApE condi spikes, that you have to react extremely fast to support and heal properly.

I also see now that tempest being melee focused was a drawback. I think it would be much more tactically interesting in pvp to have tempest be a squishy backline healer/support spec that also deals good damage with a menders amulet and relies on strategic ranged positioning, it’s just that the tools don’t match up, so you end up being a squishy glass healer that dies if you go up to the point to try and use most of our skills.

If the overlords were channelanle from range, it’d have a more unique identity, especially if warhorn were made to fit that idea, so that it would complement scepter rather than staff.

Logged in today to try things out, it was fun, but I’m afraid it’s back to smash bros and playing through fire emblem fates for me.

I personaly basicaly enjoy support and tempest was a great enhancement. But i dislike being forced to meele and i prefer offensive support. A pure bunker healbot that needs to stay close is awful … I want flexible and tactical builds. Thats why i run scepter and not clerics but i fear its not viable in top tier. I don´t give up. I am quite good in finding ways/builds so i continue testing….
Well my preferences might move me to scrapper ….. Currently i have 5 toons ready. Ele (main 99% played),mesmer, thief, guarding, warrior… mesmer is pve solo for map completion, the others to try diffrent playstyles.

Wolfric.9380:

I personaly basicaly enjoy support and tempest was a great enhancement. But i dislike being forced to meele and i prefer offensive support. A pure bunker healbot that needs to stay close is awful … I want flexible and tactical builds. Thats why i run scepter and not clerics but i fear its not viable in top tier. I don´t give up. I am quite good in finding ways/builds so i continue testing….
Well my preferences might move me to scrapper ….. Currently i have 5 toons ready. Ele (main 99% played),mesmer, thief, guarding, warrior… mesmer is pve solo for map completion, the others to try diffrent playstyles.

I am really digging my Thief a lot at the moment. I really like what Daredevil did for the Thief class.

I still have hope. I loved elementalist for a long time. Maybe, next expansion they will do something cool with us. At least, hopefully, we’ll get an elite spec that…you know…isn’t in diametric opposition to the class design itself.

We’ve seen it from milles away, even after a lot of feedback and complains nothing actually changed.

We now have ele 2.0 which doesn’t even feel more powerful, we just have 1 more skill (overload fire) in the rotation.

We still play staff (like 85% of eles) and it’s pretty much the same class without any meaningful change.

I can’t comment on this season yet for ele, and I know people could argue from the perspective of a MLG team who plays together all the time that ele should only support.

However, in the past, I managed to make a non-tempest damage ele work fairly well during the bunker meta. Probably not as strong now, because people realize they will die if they let an ele free cast, so more pressure should come your way, but I think when I get back I’ll try and bring some life into the damage ele, not sure how yet though, going to be tough. I wouldn’t mind some small changes to help out staff ele and scepter.

Ele for damage has always sucked when more players play mobile damage builds like thief and now rev. Without those two, damage ele is fairly strong, and you can probably pull it off well if facing teams of only reapers and dh. (which I’ve heard complaints about) So, while maybe ele is only support in many matches, there are probably still some where you can swap to damage and do well.

Good luck though on getting changes, no doubt ele is at a disadvantage playing anything other than support. As soon as tanky amulets were pulled, I knew ele was going to be in a bad state. (my opinion since I can’t stand classes forced into one build)

@OP
Tempest is the best thing to happen to ele.
Sorry you want to camp 1200 yards with a staff. Perhaps you’d like longbow ranger?

Ele being a support bot only in PVP using the most boring ele weapon combo is really awful and I feel sorry for people still pvping on it.

Shiyo.3578:

@OP
Tempest is the best thing to happen to ele.
Sorry you want to camp 1200 yards with a staff. Perhaps you’d like longbow ranger?

Nah, I’d like a staff, because that what’s you do with a weapon that has 1200 range.

0.o

Yep agree with everything in the OP, tempest was the worst thing that could have happened to Ele. I was already frustrated with the lack of build options and tempest only made things worse.

Auramancer is just the meta build. You’re telling me that there are no other builds that work?

Ayrilana.1396:

Auramancer is just the meta build. You’re telling me that there are no other builds that work?

Exactly, because other builds won’t work.

Guizao.4167:

Ayrilana.1396:

Auramancer is just the meta build. You’re telling me that there are no other builds that work?

Exactly, because other builds won’t work.

Please don’t be so narrow-minded. If only you guys actually experimented and realised that we have other builds capable of actually ranking you up to ruby and beyond. For example, my own build which uses the Mercenary Amulet has taken me to ruby and I’ve been solo queuing. I’ve faced many people on different classes all on different builds, including your precious auramancer diamond skin attrocity, and yet my team (if they are competent) still manage to win somehow.

Celestial is gone. Do some research now. Experiment.

Loboling.5293:

I can’t comment on this season yet for ele, and I know people could argue from the perspective of a MLG team who plays together all the time that ele should only support.

However, in the past, I managed to make a non-tempest damage ele work fairly well during the bunker meta. Probably not as strong now, because people realize they will die if they let an ele free cast, so more pressure should come your way, but I think when I get back I’ll try and bring some life into the damage ele, not sure how yet though, going to be tough. I wouldn’t mind some small changes to help out staff ele and scepter.

Ele for damage has always sucked when more players play mobile damage builds like thief and now rev. Without those two, damage ele is fairly strong, and you can probably pull it off well if facing teams of only reapers and dh. (which I’ve heard complaints about) So, while maybe ele is only support in many matches, there are probably still some where you can swap to damage and do well.

Good luck though on getting changes, no doubt ele is at a disadvantage playing anything other than support. As soon as tanky amulets were pulled, I knew ele was going to be in a bad state. (my opinion since I can’t stand classes forced into one build)

I’ve actually “accidently” forgot to change my builds a couple time…and pure damage ele is still valuable in pvp imo. I’m almost ruby tier and maybe 1 out of 60 matches…there might be a couple people that can locate me instantly or find me before they die. It’s all about location location location. Don’t be seen but do attack at full strength from a distance. Pretty simple if you know the maps. Be a camper and win! Kill, move spots, kill, move spots. Easy as pie. If that isn’t your cup of tea..then go find another build or class to play.

But I guess my form of entertainment is different than others. I mainly use the aura share build. Changed a few things from the meta build….works like a charm. I like it when I can tank 3 players and keep my team and self healed to full majority of the time. That’s quite entertaining if you ask me…especially with all the dodging out of aoes, traps and curing conditions off yourself and your team mates and making sure you’re close to them as well so they can get your heals…and yet…still be able to do a little bit of damage here and there.

As being a mmorpg gamer for a little over 15 years and playing healer in practically all of them…I’ve never came across a game as fun and challenging as gw2 healing…so yeah..it’s fun for me :P

The main problem with ele in wvw it is weak defensively and offensively compared to other classes. It is a jack of all trades, master of none and you are usually dead before you get to use many of your abilities unless you stick firmly to the backlines with a crew that has a clue how to defend backliners.

Cuchullain.3104:

The main problem with ele in wvw it is weak defensively and offensively compared to other classes. It is a jack of all trades, master of none and you are usually dead before you get to use many of your abilities unless you stick firmly to the backlines with a crew that has a clue how to defend backliners.

Very true. Plus majority, if not all of their aoes are only for 5 players at most. Sometimes you may get lucky and sneak up on the main squad and throw down a meteor shower and take off and watch them all run like kittenroaches. But 80% of the time, if I’m in a zerg group, I’d go straight heals/bunker. Really fun to screw with other zergs by running straight into them overcharging fire or air then getting the heck out before you die.

Ayrilana.1396:

Auramancer is just the meta build. You’re telling me that there are no other builds that work?

I suppose if I really wanted to try, I could find something else, but I just don’t really want to. There is just so many broken and useless traits and skills that the pool of what you have to work with that the variance in viable builds is so small. But I am confident whatever I created, even if I could achieve high PvP ranks, it would be done while working around a number of handicaps that won’t be present if I just caved and played the meta build.

I’ve gone back to PoE lately, because the game has so much depth that the pool of potentially viable builds is huge and it’s given me a much needed breath of fresh air.

And it’s not even just singular broken skills and mechanics, but fundamental flaws in the class that have never been addressed. We don’t have any kind of compensating mechanic for our low health and armor except our sustain which you can’t get to be high enough without building specifically for it and that comes at the expense of our damage which makes creating burst builds exceedingly difficult. It’s why historically almost every meta build, regardless of weapon set used, is built off the same foundation of building for sustain.

Take thief, for example. They are in a bad place at the moment, because all the surviability of the new HoT specs gimps their burst, but historically, that class has been about burst and it is the weakness class in terms of health and armor. They are able to do that, because they have reliable access to stealth, which is a mechanic that allows them to potentially avoid all damage from other classes. They don’t have to specifically build for it either, because D/P provides consistent access, which gives them a reliable counter to both burst and sustain damage via stealth abuse (condi dumping is another issue).

We don’t have anything like that. If you look at other RPGs, other low health and low armor magic based damage dealer classes have some kind of energy shield mechanic which gives them damage absorption that can be used while spellcasting. Only thing we have close to that is arcane shield which has a long cd and absorbs three hits, not a total damage amount. Three hits is three hits whether it’s three off a weak auto attack chain or three strong hits from a powerful combo. This makes it only good at absorbing other burst, not lower sustained damage. Same issue with most of our invuls, since you can’t use skills while using them, so only suitable for, once again, absorbing burst.

I think the only RPG genre game in recent history I have played that didn’t have something like that available was Neverwinter and it didn’t matter, because Control Wizards just did so much insane god awful damage.

It’s just a constant fight to try and find ways to make a broken class work, not working with a baseline of solid and balanced skills and traits that you use creatively to create different viable playstyles….which is what I find fun…which is why I went back to PoE.

Dahir.4158:

Guizao.4167:

Ayrilana.1396:

Auramancer is just the meta build. You’re telling me that there are no other builds that work?

Exactly, because other builds won’t work.

Please don’t be so narrow-minded. If only you guys actually experimented and realised that we have other builds capable of actually ranking you up to ruby and beyond. For example, my own build which uses the Mercenary Amulet has taken me to ruby and I’ve been solo queuing. I’ve faced many people on different classes all on different builds, including your precious auramancer diamond skin attrocity, and yet my team (if they are competent) still manage to win somehow.

Celestial is gone. Do some research now. Experiment.

Given historically your posts on the forums have centered around condi builds which nobody besides you have really agreed have been viable, I have serious doubts that whatever you came up with isn’t suffering from some handicaps that you have blinders to.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to climb ladder with another build. I don’t knock your skill or proficiency with the class to be able to achieve high ranks with such a build, but it doesn’t remove the underlying issue here that has killed all my motivation to keep trying with the class. That issue is making viable builds with elementalist is an upwards battle against a huge amount of crap you have to deal with or work around which isnt present in other classes.

The is why the auramancer, which is nothing more than 2.0 of the older water based sustain builds, is so popular, because it successfully deals with all that crap while still providing value to the overall team. It’s actually been so successful and so widely used that other players mistake it’s existence as marking the elementalist as a solid, overpowered class when it’s the opposite that is true. We just managed to find a gem in what is otherwise a pile of coal.

Even though Metabattle is a pale shadow of what it used to be, the fact that we have one build in conquest and one build in WvW with a solid score is indicative of this.

I don’t see how this class was ever designed to be multidimensional.

From launch they kitten each attunement well past the point where they could begin to do anything on their own, enforcing attunement swapping as much as possible for both offense and utility, and granting no defense which relied on reaction and timing and strategy but instead on passive effects and constant use of high uptime sustain and defensive skills.

There was never meant to be any choice on how you used the attunement system, it was always designed for a single dimension of play depth.

This has just been a terribly designed class since launch, great concept, poor in execution. And the developers have all but said that they don’t agree with players on the flaws of the elementalist class mechanic and will never make major changes to it that it needs.

Actually, not ‘all but said’ at one point some hoity toity developer on the forum even stated that they would never majorly change the attunement system no matter the volume, intelligence, or correctness of player feedback on the subject. Players ‘just don’t understand the developers design goals’ as he put it.