Guild Wars 2

Having played a level 80 Guardian and Elementalist in explorable dungeons, both in full exotics, I must say I feel the Elementalist is the better profession to play. I don’t see why people complain about Elementalist being underpowered or sucky, because I find it easier to survive dungeons playing Elementalist than Guardian.
Yeah, that’s it. Having read tons of people complain about the Elementalist being weak, I wanted to put the profession to the test myself and compare it to one of the most sought after professions in dungeon groups. Elementalists have tons of survivability and versatility that I miss having on Guardian. Not saying Guardians are bad, but I feel Elementalist is just better, and more fun to play as well.

Most of the people complain about pvp, dungeons never are hard with any profession :P

No really i don t want to talk for other aspects of the game but guardians are universally known as the best dungeon class……..with no comparison also…..

I don t complain about DD elementalist in dungeon, but really life is so easy for everyone when you have a good guardian in party, whereas an elementalist are meh

Not bad but not awesome either….

An elementalist without some added vitality will suffer though. When I first played Crucible of Eternity, I had mostly toughness and just a little over 10k health.

I got creamed.

Whenever I got hit, despite my high toughness, I’d die. So unless I dodged everything perfectly, I had a very poor time.

Then I decided to alter my gear somewhat, and when I got past the 12k health, things suddenly got a lot more fun. I could get away with missing a dodge and not dying instantly. That also meant my defensive skills actually mattered, as did my healing skills.

So yeah, I agree. But you will need some vitality to avoid the instant kills first.

I had 4 eles and 1 thief for CoE and did a lot better than many parties which make me think it not the professions make difference, it the players make difference. I am starting to believe 80% skill, 20% profession.

That said, I feel my staff ele do way better when there is a tank in party who can aggro and tank mobs. So yes I love greatsword guardian who use pull all the time.

My 2 main professions builds are Bunker/Support (Water/Arcane) Elementalist and Bunker/Support Guardian. I can say that a guardian is hands down the easier class to play From 1-80 and through every dungeon when comparing the 2. Elementalists can take a beating in PvP/Wv3 much more as this build than in PvE. The mobs big hits seem to affect an ele a lot more than a guardian. my guardian just stands there and takes the beating while shrugging it off with some heals, where my ele is jumping all over throwing out spells and heals left right and centre.. Not to say that I don’t live a lot longer than the rest of my group, but it isn’t as helpful as my guardian still manages to do more damage too, and all his spells are curing conditions/granting boons to allies and each boon is healing me at the same time. which is pretty awesome in a group. Ele takes a lot more work and has less payoff, but it’s still far more fun and engaging

Guild leader of mine put in over 600 hours into his ele. He got dungeon master on that elementalist. He used to run a full tank set for things like arah.

He switches to guardian. Puts maybe 50 hours into it. Levels it via crafting, gets it full exotics straight away via dungeon tokens, buys the accessories, ETC. 50 hours.

I’ve never seen him die in Arah on that guardian. Not even when facetanking lupicus for the entire fight (which happens every time we fight lupicus now, as lupi likes to 100% focus him)

The fact is, guardian has better natural armor, and imo better survivability. They have comparable levels of heals, but guardians also have access to aegis, which is godmode for bosses like lupicus who focus on very strong single hits.

If you feel like your elementalist survives better than your guardian that’s great. But I would look into it more. Perhaps you’re playing your guardian quite differently. Does your guardian have comparable gear (tanky? ETC) do you stick to melee range with guardian and then range with ele (Greatsword vs staff, ETC) Do you equip survivability utilities on your guardian and use them often? And lastly, does your guardian get focused more than your ele? (In my previous example of lupicus he constantly targets my guild leader. This is because lupicus aggro means he likes to go for the person with highest toughness. You may find your ele survives longer simply because stuff is tending to ignore you)

I’m not trying to say elementalist cant be tanky. For the longest time I would find myself as the last one alive when doing dungeons. But more tanky than a guardian? Im not buying that one. I’ve seen some pretty kitten tanky guardians, and they put anything my class can do to shame.

Zenyatoo.4059:

I’m not trying to say elementalist cant be tanky. For the longest time I would find myself as the last one alive when doing dungeons. But more tanky than a guardian? Im not buying that one.

No, not more tanky. But unlike the guardian, the elementalist will NEED to focus on defensive gear almost completely. Like how your guild leader used a highly defensive build for the dungeons.

Well, that’s currently the only viable way to play an elementalist in dungeons. Theoretically you could get by if you’re good at dodging. In practice, you need that extra health for the times when you get lag spikes and such.

Elementalists are great for dungeons, good survivability (providing you have some skill) and good damage. They’re also 10x more fun to play imo.

But more survivability than a Guardian? Not even close.

Having played Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, Thief, Necromancer and Engineer in dungeons all in full exotics.

With the Guardian I can go autopilot sleep mode at any dungeon, some of them I’m playing while being on the phone, others I just read articles online.

Guardian GS #1 + VoJ spam > All elementalists skills, and guess what? I don’ have to worry about being heavily hit, got two insta 75% heals (Staff #4 with altruistic, and signet). And another 50% emergency recovery (pop all virtues + FR Elite)

I agree on one thing though, Elementalist is more fun, but since we’re talking about dungeons here and for some reason enemies got insane amount of HP which supposed to make it challanging or whatever, I’d rather autopilot with my guardian and do something constructive while I’m at it.

I have both a level 80 Guardian and a level 80 Elementalist.

My Guardian has a rare set and is built to use Hammers and Altruistic Healing (there’s a great guide sticked in Guardian’s board, you might want to check it) which makes him incredibly durable thanks to high armor values and extremely high self heals.
Plus the amount of damage my Guardian can prevent, not deal as survability>damage in dungeons, is unbelivable: all the line of warding spells used to trap mobs at chocke points, wall of reflection (i’ve seen up to 6k reflected) and group stability buff…

My Elementalist is full exotics and I use d/d or staff (aura build) and while being more fun to play than my Guardian there’s no way he will be able to support a group better.

Maybe I play my guardian way better than my Elementalist, but still I feel there’s no comparison.