Guild Wars 2

Survivability:
This is probably the main issue, but when coupled with everything else, just becomes ARGH. Yes, I said argh. Anyways, the only way you can survive playing an elementalist, is to play and spec defensively. This means max toughness and vitality, with little emphasis on damage. Now, this means that your damage goes from sucky, to super sucky, but it means you can tank a whole three mobs at level 80! Wow! Three mobs! Omged so mut powr. Sarcasm aside, this just means that we give up almost all of our power, just to be able to defend as well as your average guardian, that still has tonnes of more damage. Think this spec will save you from engineers? Pfft.
If you spec any other way, you’ll get face-rolled by mobs who hit once every three seconds, and by your average John in PvP.
Damage:
See, I didn’t actually think the damage with my elementalist was all that bad when I specced power/pre or power/cond d/d build with glyph of storms (earth) all I knew was that I died very VERY quickly if I got hit. That was until I tried out a warrior, then a thief, then a guardian, then an engineer.
And my jaw dropped.
It’s insanely stupid how much we have to spec one way (defensively) and if we choose not to we get the survivability of a paper shield, and the damage of your average guardian wearing lesser gear, and specced for defence. Now, clearly there is something wrong here. Elementalists are MAGES. They are supposed to be the TRUE glass cannons, yet, we’re not glass, we’re paper, and we’re not cannons, we’re pea shooters. Why is it that every other class in the game can be specced for TRUE glass cannons yet achieve way more killing power AND defence while doing it? How does this make any sense at all?
Attunements:
I really like the way they have done this, makes me feel like a baws while playing. The next Avatar, but still, it’s badly designed. Everyone is like omg ele so gud 20 skillz moar versatiliteee but no, it’s not versatile, it’s a hindrance. Who came up with this clever idea? Sure, it works in theory, but it practice because of the attunement delay it doesn’t work as well as intended. You want to make this versatile? Cool, make it 0.1 sec attunement switch rate like the engineers have with their packs.

Traits:
But Raz, you said nerf the cooldown on the attunements, you mek ele OP omg qqqqq.
But you can now put some real thought into traits. Why is it every other class in the game gets traits based on their weapon set for some real bonuses, but we get some halfkitten traits that barely make any difference whatsoever? C’mon now, seriously?
How about revamping the traits? I don’t mean removing them, I mean improving on the ones we already have. As per my suggestion above, this would start by adding a delay for attunement bonuses while changing attunements, to stop people from auto-buffing. Yeah? Solved.
Next. Some more specialist weapon traits ploz. Staff excels at support, why why aren’t there more traits with combined support abilities that give staff bonuses in the earth or water trait-line? I’d like to see things such as
Water 10 – Increases water spell recharge time by 20%, and increases the duration of healing spring and healing rain by 20%
and
Water 10 – Increases base healing power by 33%
and
Air 30 – All Air spells cause insert new effect here that ARMOUR PENETRATION while wielding a dagger. HELLLOOOO WHERE ARE YOU?! Yes, vulnerability, there you are. Why are you not applied to air spells? Really?
Base stats:
This section isn’t going to be long, but I’m sorry. We need better base stats. We need more base damage scaling, and more armour scaling. I said scaling for a reason. A straight buff would be stupid, because it’s linear. Adjust the scaling so that people with certain builds will actually gain a significant bonus, instead of being steamrolled all the time.
People that want to spec for power / pre will actually be the true glass cannons like they were supposed to be, the highest damage dealers in the game, with bad defence.
Alternatively, this goes for the people who want to spec defensively.
Mindset:
This is also a problem. You guys need to get it into your head, that elementalists are NOT versatile, and that they’re a challenging class to play, with no benefits. Sure, most of us understand this, and most of us continue to play the elementalist because we have hope. It’s going to be a long ride, but for those of us who have pretty much learned the inside and out of our class, we’re still left feeling slightly demoralized. Wanna join TPvP? No problem, what class are you? Oh, ele? Sorry we have an ele already.
No, you don’t have an ele, I get it you’re just trying to politely tell me to gtfo.
This goes for PvE dungeons on explorer mode too with most people.
In no way I’m saying elementalists are complete and utter paper, because they’re not. They can still be viable, but we’re easily outclassed.

It’s not a big deal. But if I leave the heart of the mists attuned to Air or Earth, I instantly am able to gain access to it in the PvE side of things. Course I can’t switch out of it or I have to back into the heart of the mists all over again. shrug

Only lvl 2 right now. =)

Lightning whip has such a tiny hitbox that it will miss whenever you or your opponent moves. Might just be because I have Australian latency, but seeing the whip go straight through the mob over and over with a string of red ‘miss miss miss miss miss miss’ gets really frustrating really fast.

It also misses static objects like weapon racks about 90% of the time too.

Tidal wave has the same problem for me, I torpedo straight through a mob with a string of red miss spam, but I get the impression its more latency based after seeing it hit properly sometimes.

[BUG] Moving a signet from one slot to another kills its passive effect. For example:
1. Equip Signet of Water in slot 7
2. Equip Signet of Earth in slot 9
3. Equip Signet of Earth in slot 7 (to swap their slots): toughness increase no longer takes effect (the effects icon is missing and the stat isn’t modified)

-+-

I don’t know if this is a bug or an intended effect but Water Magic’s skill X does not give regeneration when casting Conjure Frost Bow, only when picking up the conjured Frost Bow

Bug: Burning Retreat creates a fire combo field, and if you detonate a blast or whirl in it, you’ll get the right combo. However, I frequently have issues of it not working correctly with physical projectiles (haven’t tried leaps). During betas, I could hit Burning Retreat, take a quick sidestep and pop a projectile through it for the combo. Now, most of the time it won’t work, even if I’m shooting perpendicular through it.

When using magnetic grasp and burning retreat, the character’s movespeed is effected by cripple and swiftness. This can make for some annoyingly slow grasps but is mostly an issue for burning retreat. The tooltip wording and the fact that you evade made me think the skill is supposed to be a normal dodge which leaves burn.

Also, the Ride the Lightning and Arc Lightning bugs – not always moving to your target, and sticking on your target’s dead corpse – are frustrating enough to warrant being repeated. They have pretty major implications in pvp.

With S/D combo if i cast fire ring then dragon’s tooth, i get the 3might when i finish the cast of dragons tooth NOT when the tooth lands. Also the combo happens if I am in the field, not the tooth. This may be intended.

Magnetic Grasp is a leap finisher when it is not stated on the tooltip.

I have another one:

Lightning Surge (Teleport):
Sometimes the teleport doesn’t go off. You see the lightning strike at the targeted location, but your character isn’t moved there as if by teleportation. Most of the time this occurs when the area you are targeting is higher or lower (And I don’t mean that the view is blocked). The character “jumps” forward sometimes, as if it is trying to move to that location, but it appears that the location is “blocked”. The skill still goes onto its full cooldown.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the few times I used Glyph of Renewal, the element effect didn’t work.

Well, I only ever used it while in water attunement, but the tooltip says that its supposed to revive your ally to full health. Whenever I revived someone though, they come back with half health, just like if I had actually ran up to them and revive them the normal way.

Anyone else noticed this? Am I just not using the glyph correctly?

shockwave and gust become obstructed if used on a target that is on a different level than you even when you have line of sight. E.g. trying to gust somebody on the upper level of keep in forest while being on the point.

In addition, neither of these abilities seem to track their target once fired. If this is intended the abilities should fire straight out of your character as that’s a much easier way to aim them. As it stands now, unless you de-target and manually aim it is near impossible to hit a strafing target.

Burning retreat also is quite annoying. It can be used only in combination with updraft or just to go to the target if they are far away, losing a lot of dps.
Instead the charge could go to the target you have selected or at least let us to click again in the hotkey and do the explosion before it finish its path if we want to do it

Zephyr’s Speed doesn’t give out the speed it should, with fire attunement and signet of air i can see a difference in speed, but with air attunement and no signet i don’t notice anything.
Might be me going deff, maybe more ppl can try it out?

Telyne.9768:

Lightning whip has such a tiny hitbox that it will miss whenever you or your opponent moves. Might just be because I have Australian latency, but seeing the whip go straight through the mob over and over with a string of red ‘miss miss miss miss miss miss’ gets really frustrating really fast.

It also misses static objects like weapon racks about 90% of the time too.

Tidal wave has the same problem for me, I torpedo straight through a mob with a string of red miss spam, but I get the impression its more latency based after seeing it hit properly sometimes.

I can approve this. Yesterday i was Lightning whipping a ranger moving right in front of me. The animation went right trough him for like 6-7 hits not dealing any damage. I didnt even get a “Miss”.

Very annoying

Minor graphical glitch:
Whirlpool loses it´s graphics if any other skills graphical effect is added before casting. (for example, magnetic shield, arcane shield, auras etc.)

It’s quite disheartening to see not a single one of these bugs was fixed in the latest update.

Actually whirlpool loses it’s graphic completely for me when I cast it. I just go invisible on my screen.

The annimation for the tornado elite skill underwater(whirlpool) isnt always showing up. Somtimes your character will just turn invisible. You still do dmg if you can figure out where your character actually is on the screen thou lol

MajorMelchett.6042:

It’s quite disheartening to see not a single one of these bugs was fixed in the latest update.

Hey Major, I found this thread when It had less than 300 views, so far I have been taking notes and replecating bugs that are described, though not posting about it… forever lurk

Anyway on to the quote, I would say we have had a reply where they stated that these take 1-5 days to find and about a week to test. We have not reached this time period.

Also stated that Anet are going to fixed progressionblocking/exploiting bugs first. Either way the vocal minority do come in with non fact based findings but don’t let it get you down!

Every time I go in the water now I’m like "Ok, get you’re game face on guys its under water time…. OH HAI WHIRLPOOL, my friends who dislike underwater love the “rallypool”

Could someone do a second verification on this?

I’m almost positive that Meteor Shower is not affected by Blasting Staff (Area attacks with staff are larger). I don’t just mean the visual appearance of the circle on the ground. I know the size doesn’t appear bigger despite having the skill. I mean the actual area where the meteors drop. From what I’ve tested when I placed the edge of the circle against a marker, the max distance the meteors drop is the same with or without Blasting Staff.

New update, no problems fixed.

I’ve never been able to tell if blasting staff worked on meteor shower or not. I would just be fine with an increase in all of the ground targets so you could tell.

@Chilly – I understand things can take time, the thing is a number of these bugs have been in the game since the beta and a number of them shouldn’t really be all that hard to fix IMO (glyph of fires range, arcane powers crit amout etc).

The thing that i find disheartening is the lack of fixes for our broken skills while other classes are actully being buffed (guardians got buffed in a recent patch, warrior in this one). Considering it’s pretty much agreed we are the weakest class (well hardest to play some would say), it’s just kind of weird to see buffs for other classes while our class not only needs a buff to get us to the same level as them but also a lot of fixes are needed aswell.

Also stated that Anet are going to fixed progressionblocking/exploiting bugs first.

I would have no issue with this if they stopped buffing other classes before actully doing that and fixing broken skills. Fixing any classes broken skills should come before any general skills changes/buffs/nerfs.

MajorMelchett.6042:

@Chilly – I understand things can take time, the thing is a number of these bugs have been in the game since the beta and a number of them shouldn’t really be all that hard to fix IMO (glyph of fires range, arcane powers crit amout etc).

The thing that i find disheartening is the lack of fixes for our broken skills while other classes are actully being buffed (guardians got buffed in a recent patch, warrior in this one). Considering it’s pretty much agreed we are the weakest class (well hardest to play some would say), it’s just kind of weird to see buffs for other classes while our class not only needs a buff to get us to the same level as them but also a lot of fixes are needed aswell.

Also stated that Anet are going to fixed progressionblocking/exploiting bugs first.

I would have no issue with this if they stopped buffing other classes before actully doing that and fixing broken skills. Fixing any classes broken skills should come before any general skills changes/buffs/nerfs.

Agreed. I wish they would just come out and say how much they dislike the elementalist so I could move on. We keep seeing balancing done for other classes while we aren’t balanced or even fixed. I can see where it might take a while to make huge changes like I’m sure are required but just fixing some of the HUGE bugs and broken skills and traits should happen soon so we have a playable class until it is balanced properly.

I wouldn´t go doomsaying all over the forums just because we haven´t had any quick balances.
Undeniably ele is one of the most complicated professions and i think it´s equaly complicated to balance.

I don’t want balance fixes at this moment (but I really do and they are necessary) but they keep fixing issues with other classes that we have too. Examples include but are not limited to: fixing range of skills and fixing some “jump” skills (our RTL)… specifically I believe the warrior’s version was fixed while we still have the EXACT same issue…

We got this topic sticked because the feedback is mirroring the nerco forums who set the best example for bug report:
skill + strait description
What is not happening/supposed to happen/happens
How this can be replicated (areas/combat/races)
Our opinions on what is causing the problems are almost always not helpful to the topic. Lets keep the topic focused, report any new bugs or try to recreate a reported bug. Confirms bugs existence and you get to try a new build

After reading through the initial listing of bugs posted for the Elementalist (my main), as well as bugs for a few other classes I play as alts, I went ahead and made a general “state of game in my opinion” post.

Due to a combination of forum rules and not rewording/posting it all, most of the post includes the bugs/problems I have noted while playing the Elementalist character. (Including for submission to this mass bug post.)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Class-Balance-Bugs-One-Player-s-View/first#post162433

Guys, can we keep this thread for BUG REPORTS only, please? No need to discuss other stuff here, take that to a different thread, this one is for reporting bugs. Bugs not being fixed or other classes getting balance changes are not bugs, and therefore have no place in this thread.

‘Rock Barrier’ (Scepter #2 skill)
Nine times out of ten the animation fails to display. (the 5 rocks floating behind your character) or sometimes, it will randomly draw 2-3 of the floaty rocks. You still hurl 5 for the purpose of the ‘Hurl’ skill it transforms into.
The tooltip for Rock Barrier also states ‘Foes around you take damage, and you have five rock charges’. Nothing takes any damage around you while either casting this skill, taking damage while under the effects of this skill or from simply having the buff on you. The note about having 5 charges seems a bit redundant since you cannot control how many you expend via the ‘Hurl’ skill.

‘Burning Flame’ #2 fire magic major trait typo- ‘Conjure Flame’ should be ‘Conjure Flame Axe’

Lightning Surge #2 Skill on Staff has Unlimited Range and does not require LoS targeting.

Allows you to kill Siege behind walls and way out of range safely.

burning speed
when slowed, the dash distance is shortened.

i hope the skill is unaffected by effects like that, like how the current ride the lightning is unaffected.

ride the lightning + aura grants swiftness and fury trait
if you cast lightning aura while in ride the lightning animation (the ball lightning), the trait doesn’t proc.

Glyph of elementals + Inscription = > Doesn’t work.
Inscription: “Grants a boon associated with your current attunement when you cast a glyph.”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inscription_%28trait%29
Glyph: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph
Please, fix it. :]

Does anyone else’s skill bar disappear when using whirlpool? I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be 3 different skills like Tornado right? When I use it, there’s just a bunch of locked skills, but they can still be used.

kekuso.5837:

Does anyone else’s skill bar disappear when using whirlpool? I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be 3 different skills like Tornado right? When I use it, there’s just a bunch of locked skills, but they can still be used.

They disappear also for me but I don’t care because the damage I do automatically to everything around me is wtfpwnage anyway. Lol.

Too bad all my other skills suck underwater. =/

Windborne Dagger
This skill is not working at all.
Bug-report thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Ele-Skill-Windborn-Dagger-not-working/first#post19731

It was mentioned on page 1 already but i have, i think, more details:

The arcana trait line reduces attunement recgarge by 2% per point in an iterative, rather than cumulative manner.

So 98% of 15 is x, the 98% of x is y, and so on for each point youve increased arcana. At 30 points this results in a recharge rate just over 9 seconds, as opposed to the 6 second recharge rate a cumulative approach would yield. The tooltip leads one to think the reduction would be cumulative.

Well its 15/1.60, witch is a laughable troll by the devs for being absolutely non intuitive.

Another Burning Speed bug – even without being crippled/chilled/otherwise slowed the distance of the fire trail will sometimes be shorter than it should be by a noticeable amount (ie, burning speed —> ring of fire and the burning speed fire trail ends at the outside of the ring of fire).

Also somewhat related, after casting burning speed and holding the back button and hitting dodge the game will occasionally dodge forwards instead of backwards despite my character still being shown as facing the same way.

A couple issues I’ve noticed while leveling as dagger/dagger.

Lightning Whip (dagger main #1, air attunement): The attack’s range and the animation do not line up correctly. The attack hits at around double the length of the whip’s visual effect. The whip needs to be made longer to match up. Minor cosmetic issue.

Many attacks have issues landing while moving/strafing. These include:

• Drake’s Breath (dagger main #2, fire attunement)
• Fire Grab (dagger secondary #5, fire attunement)
• Cone of Cold (dagger main #2, water attunement)
• Lightning Whip (dagger main #1, air attunement)
• Lightning Touch (dagger main #2, air attunement)

This mostly occurs when both the player and target are moving, although I have seen it when only my character was moving and the target was stationary. Also of note, it appears to be mostly related to cone based attacks. Likely latency related?

Inconsistent skill behaviour with regards to auto-targeting/attacking
Magnetic Aura & Glyph of Renewal: Causes your character to auto-attack/target. Other purely defensive/utility based skills do not cause auto-attacking.

Frozen Burst, Ring of Fire, Ring of Earth, Arcane Wave (all PBAOEs) have different targeting behaviours: Some cause your character to auto-attack, others do not.

Thread is over here.

Truga.5897:

For churning earth, use it in combination with lightning flash. Start channelling, then just before it’s done proceed to jump into 5 enemies and impale them onto spikes.

Phat. I bet they remove this capability at some point though.

Gavoll.9085:

Truga.5897:

For churning earth, use it in combination with lightning flash. Start channelling, then just before it’s done proceed to jump into 5 enemies and impale them onto spikes.

Phat. I bet they remove this capability at some point though.

I hope not, this reminds me of instant transmission from DBZ

You mean the ONLY good thing that eles can do? Of course they will remove it.

I had a huge list of bugs but now I can’t remember it.

One with Air makes Zephyr’s Speed useless as they currently do not stack.

See my thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/One-with-Air-and-Zephyr-s-Speed-Trait-Issue

Mist form (downed state skill)
Sometimes at the end of the skill, I get in the defeated state without beeing back to downed. It usually happens when I do it for the third or fourth time in a row, independantly of the amount of “downed health” I had before using mist form. Espesially annoying when at last you managed to lose the aggro.

I suspect getting in and out mist for actually stacks the downed penalty while I don’t belive it should be the case (we should be considered to be in the “same” downed state the whole time)
I have that suspicion because in sPvP, when using mist form, I will see on the notification telling who downed who, that I basically downed myself when the skill ends.
Not to mention our downed state is a joke (I know, not a bug, working as intened…)

Mist Form (The normal skill)
Allready talked about, the dots from bleed, poison, fire etc… kills us even though we are supposed to be “invicible”. Some argue that it is working as intended. Maybe it is the case, but considering how often we recieve those conditions it reduce the usefulness of the skill a lot. Because I used to use this skill as my “Oh Shi*” button. Except now it is my “Oh Shi*… Oh Shi*” button. The first one is “Oh Shi* I am going to die, let’s flee”, the second is “Oh Shi* I forgot this skill is useless when I am already low on life”.

So either don’t apply the dots while in mist form (and reapply them after), or if it is woking as intended, at least let the skill last for its whole duration, and when it ends, if we happen to be at 0 life, get in downed state. But it is really infuraiting to use mist form… and get downed half a second later.

Skill: eruption (staff / earth)

Description: when this spell is about to explode and you cast mist form, the damage and condition won’t apply to the target(s).

Without talking about balance, it’s quite annoying to see the number of buggy/glitchy mechanism we have to work with while setting up complicated combo that aren’t that rewarding.

<3 still love my ele anyway

Earth’s embrace trait does not activate at 50% as it is in the tooltip but on about 30~35%
Raid the ligthing should grant control immunity while it last and to break stun/root (slow ?) u can add 5 sec longer CD to be more balanced
The renewal glyph does not revive most of the time and is waste of utility skill slot also when it doesnt work the longer CD prevent it from beign swaped to something usefull
Arc ligthing should get interrupted on target swap or when the target is dead this may cause big delay before we can start dealing dmg to the next target which can lead to our dead

Abilities such as ice spike should form while casting not to cast and then wait for the spike to form and hit the ground because this way it hits double the time it should
either isntant cast but delay before impact or impact after the cast time is finished

Batlav.6318:

Abilities such as ice spike should form while casting not to cast and then wait for the spike to form and hit the ground because this way it hits double the time it should
either isntant cast but delay before impact or impact after the cast time is finished

Totally agree. Some casting animations are prety long already and then the activation come long after. I got this feeling about eruption too.

Sorry about not keeping the 1st few posts updated as much now, at the moment i’ve given up on the elementalist and rolled a different profession and on top of this the ability to actully edit the posts keeps going missing..

I’ll still check back now and again to update the bug list as and when i can.

The air trait IV “One with Air” Does not work.