Guild Wars 2

So this is now my fifth level 80 character ankittenep noticing that there is a great deal missing from it in comparison to all of the other level professions that I have at level cap right now.

So what I have found was that this profession doesn’t actually go through with any of the build play styles. What you have for weapon sets do not mesh well together and there is always one element that is significantly off with the design of the rest I will list more details on this as well.

Dagger Main hand:
Fire: Rush in and lots of melee based fire damage low cooldowns and fire field works well with itself.
Air: Short range, semi-fast main attack, blind and defense based shield to stun while hit.
Water: Long range main attack with short range cone based heal and short ranged area of effect attack.
Earth: Rush in and lots of melee based earth area of effect attacks causing bleeds.

Water is the only elemental base with a long ranged attack.

Air has a defense based ability that is designed to take hits and damage from the hits, however air is not built for defense and instead for both avoidance and mobility so this is a very contradicting ability in general.

Dagger Off-hand: (Short range)
Fire: Short range combo field with short range long cooldown burst.
Air: Distance closer and distance maker… Lots of mobility…
Water: Both defense and area based heal with a cleanse.
Earth: Area of effect stun and very heavy damage area of effect attack, both short range.

Water is the main one off here, while the rest still focus on closer range, water doesn’t focus on any range.

Focus off-hand: (Defense)
Fire: Combo field with short range area of effect (fire shield).
Air: Projectile shield and knockdown.
Water: Area of effect attack as a combo finisher and a chilling based attack.
Earth: Projectile shield, cures conditions and damage immunity.

Water is very far off on this one, it is the only set on the focus that is designed purely for damage. While I do not mind having one weapon build for it, making all other elements into utility or defense based skill sets is a little bit from the mark.

Fire as well has the only short range ability of this weapon set.

No Ranged based off hand. A flaming stick (torch) is to complicated for both an Elementalist and a Warrior to use…

Scepter Main Hand:
Fire: Ranged area of effect, boomerang area of effect and non projectile normal attack.
Air: Channeled rapid attack with a blind and secondary attack that do not break the channel.
Water: Area of effect heal/attack, second area of effect attack and rapid attack normal hits.
Earth: In a line based blind, armor booster that also attacks and rapid attack normal attacks.

This set is pretty decent, if anything fire is the one that is a little off on this, it is the only normal attack that has no rapid fire. It does however cause burning.

Staff:
Fire: Every attack has a lot of area of effect damage. A distance maker with an area of effect at the end as well.
Air: Multi-hit main attack, 3 control based abilities (blind, stun, and knockback), area of effect damage and stun. Area of effect swiftness boon to party (in range).
Water: Area of effect heals and attack with area of effect chill.
Earth: Area of effect damage attack, reflect projectiles, area cripple and immobilize.

For the most part the staff is not bad the earth ability to reflect projectiles is not bad to have at times but just doesn’t fit the build.

Next I will move onto heals, while having so much group support from both the air and water builds, it is hard to imagine that there is no heal for anyone but yourself.

I have come across a very large gap of just about everything with utilities that every class I have played has some form of and this has none of.

Team support utilities: You have two abilities to choose from. Glyph of Renewal to revive allies once they go down and Glyph of Storms with earth attuned for sandstorm, this adds what appears as a proc based or time based blind.

Fun or Gimmick based abilities: You have lots of them, all of your conjured weapons are this. You also have an area of effect attack based on your element and an elemental and while they could help on occasion, they are still really just fun abilities to play with and that is all.

Note – Most experienced players wont pick up conjured weapons anymore because it hinders their build instead of helping them.

Inflict burning: on top of every weapon having 2 or more abilities that inflict burning with fire, the fire build causing critical strikes to have burning and additional burning from attacks/making conjured weapons. You also have 4 utilities that cause burning.
This much redundancy is unnecessary, if I want something to be burning it will be burning… and that is WITHOUT these abilities. With everything else that is already in place, I can already light things on fire just by looking at it, I do not need to try to light the fire… on fire, that is just pointless.

Time for elite skills, while they are amusing, they are just not very elite. All 3 of these abilities fall under the gimmick based abilities that I listed in the utility portion as well. But while some people may believe that running around yelling “I have a Flaming Sword!” is very helpful to a group, it really isn’t. In addition, the burning that you get while casting the conjured great sword is once more overly redundant and unnecessary.

Last is the traits, just about all other professions have a close range damage, long range damage, defense based, support, and general based tree, this profession does not.

Fire is based on all around damage with both ember’s might and burning rage that do the same thing.

Air focuses to much on mobility and while I do not mind having a lot of mobility, it is not useful for much else aside from this. It does however cause vulnerability on critical strikes so that helps.

Earth has both close range and defense based traits forcing you to try and build to much with to little.

Water is your main support tree with a lot of condition removal with boon damage increase and damage increase if your target has vulnerability. This is very far off the mark, not only does water not naturally cause vulnerability but you either have to build for air, or waste another slot so glyph and arcane abilities cause vulnerability.

Arcane is the general based trait tree that has something for everything… but itself. While it may reduce the cooldown of arcane abilities, it is the only trait tree that does not increase the damage of its own abilities…

There is no versatility on builds in this setup there is also little to no focus on weapon sets (aside from the arcane tree).

This is the majority of holes that I have discovered thus far on my Elementalist, I am sure that I’ll find much more pretty soon. I will still play my Elementalist and enjoy some of what it offers, but I also play mine as Sylvari in order to fill in some of the gaps with useful abilities.

Side note – the other 4 level 80s I have right now are Guardian, Thief, Engineer, and Mesmer.

Team support utilities:

Glyph of Storms as earth I would also stick under this because of the AoE mass blinding it does.

Ryld.1340:

Team support utilities:

Glyph of Storms as earth I would also stick under this because of the AoE mass blinding it does.

I had not known this, had to run out and test this, it appears it is a chance based area of effect, Before I edit my post I want to verify if it is or is not chance based =).

Update – It appears it either proc based or else it has a set duration in which it will proc, however the time frame of what it works does not appear to be set so it looks like it may have a high proc chance.

I think they are missing weapon swap, IMO.

it ticks every second dealing dealing and blind

I really think that the skills of Elementalists have a very small range for a poor defense, if you will use the magic meteor in WVW, depending on the occasion is certain death

edit:
I think they are missing weapon swap " 2"