Guild Wars 2

A plain title for a simple truth : " ele elites are worthless"

Elite skills are especially powerful skills designed to be used infrequently and have a dramatic effect on the tide of a battle. The last slot on the skill bar is reserved for elite skills. Elite skills typically have much longer recharge times compared to normal utility skills — very few recharge in less than 60 seconds, and some can take up to 4 minutes

Basically the use of the elite shoud change the tides of battle in your favour, said so I’d wish for a developer to come forward and tell me in which way the elementalist elites can benefit me if I’m losing.

1) Glyph of elementals:
-fire elemental = average dmg (1.5k for aoe atatck max), get killed in 2 hits
-water elemental= low dmg, random aoe heal which rely on luck, get killed in 5 hits
-earth elemental = low dmg, useless aoe effect, slow moving, ignored by any human player
-air elemental= low dmg, random stun attack, get killed in 2 hits

2) Tornado:
- low dmg, slow moving, no protection, ele get killed while using it without accomplishing anything

3) Fire Greatsword:
-cool PvE elite for the lv30 ele who got no clue
- the same guy stop using the elite at lvl 31

Across the entire professions spectrum the ele elites are the most useless ones, 9 times out of 10 I don’t even bother to use my glyph of elemental, the fire elemental and air elemental have been nerfed so much that now they do little more dmg than me but die 10xfaster, was it much to keep the fire elemental as before when it was dealing 4k dmg for hit?..

Good players will just focus the fire elemental and kill it in 2 hits while taking little dmg in return, to use tornado is to ask for death and conjure fiery greatsword is a joke

Welll… I wouldn’t be so quick to poop on Glyph of elementals. Being traited in Glyphs makes the skills really useful (and have a 96 second cd). I don’t pay much attention at all to my elemental when I’m fighting, but I believe the water ele throws up 6k hp aoe heals, frost fields, and some damage. I would say it is one of the more useful elites in the game since it is more passive rather than “press dis button 4 da w1n”. I tink glyph of elementals should serve as an example of how elites should be done.

Tornado is generally bad, but knocking off everyone from clocktower is just great and might give enough time for the cap.

Greatsword: lol. Just lol. Conjures really serve no function to eles since it basically shuts out all of our weapon specific traits and our 20 weapon skills for 5 mediocre, un traited skills.

@OP

Ele elites are bad. We know.

Go with the Elemental Glyph.

One day ANet will change them when enough players homogenize their choice to GoE.

Just add it to the long long list of underwhelming features of this class.

You can use tornado and just click it off for the 20 seconds of stabiltity. Other than that the Elemental Glyph works OK, most people ignore the pet unless it gets chewed up by AoE.

The Flame Sword is absolutely amazing in WvW. As well as the tornado… oh wait so is the Elementals.

So basically… The Elites are Good.

You mean flame sword and tornado are great against horrible opponents?

Try those against anyone decent and you’ll be dead shortly. They’re both worthless.

Elemental is “okay” but doesn’t really seem like an elite skill in pvp. For pve its fine. I’d rather have another utility skill than the elites we have for pvp.

Air and Fire elementals’ auto attacks similar damage to your own. Earth elemental has aoe protection buff. Water elemental has aoe snare and aoe heal. Fire elemental has aoe might buff.

Glyph of Elementals is a swiss-army knife tool which should be used intelligently based on the situation. It’s far from useless, quite the opposite. When traited properly, it’s brilliant.

Kuthos.9623:

You mean flame sword and tornado are great against horrible opponents?

Try those against anyone decent and you’ll be dead shortly. They’re both worthless.

Elemental is “okay” but doesn’t really seem like an elite skill in pvp. For pve its fine. I’d rather have another utility skill than the elites we have for pvp.

For WvW. That’s all I do. I don’t do spvp or pve. But for WvW An ele passing out their FGS before a portal bomb = so much damage and destruction it’s amazing.

Against bad opponents sure maybe you can do some okay dps with the sword. But as soon as someone turns on you, you’re dead.

Not being able to switch elements in pvp to use all your skills is a deathwish. Sure you can kill noobs that don’t know any better, but as soon as you run into people who don’t run at first sight of a fiery sword you’re in trouble.

I would love for tornado and fiery sword to be effective, but they just aren’t in 90% of pvp / wvw situations. If you’re running with a zerg then sure you can get away with using it maybe. But while you’re doing that I’m in the middle of 10 people knocking them down, doing dps, and causing much more chaos than a great sword can simply because I can switch elements.

So true… -.-’

As long as the elemental still triggers the hellish sound bug, I won’t use it. Fire triggers it most, but all the elementals can.

The greatsword is fun in certain group fights in the open world, but it’s usually better for someone else to use and not me. I gain a bit of damage, but lose a lot of versatility using it myself.

Most of the time, I use the norn Snow Leopard transform because it has stealth. It’s my emergency “get away” button and for getting past an annoying group of mobs.

if you ever get an enemy trapped in a corner, use fiery greatswords 3 skill in there face, you will spin around in circles constantly and deal around 10k damage + with 25 stacks of might

deals loads of damage but that’s about all its good for

madatom.5218:

if you ever get an enemy trapped in a corner, use fiery greatswords 3 skill in there face, you will spin around in circles constantly and deal around 10k damage + with 25 stacks of might

deals loads of damage but that’s about all its good for

I also sometimes like to use it as an element of surprise. I’m mainly running staff build and act ranged caster’ish, folks just don’t expect me to suddenly turn around while on the run and start spinning that sword. I’ve downed 6 players chasing me in one spin that way when protecting inner SM.
But yeah it’s underwhelming overall just not completely useless, like the tornado only situationally useful.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/New-Elites/first#post647515

i’ve suggested new elites right here

Sarisa.4731:

As long as the elemental still triggers the hellish sound bug, I won’t use it. Fire triggers it most, but all the elementals can.

Sarisa, to what are you referring here? Does popping the Elemental sometimes make your sound bug out and just give a constant ringing?

Ever since I’ve started WvW’ing more once I reached lvl 80 and geared up, I will occassionally have my sound crap out forcing me to turn off my speakers and play in silence. Could this be the reason?

Bsquared.3421:

Sarisa.4731:

As long as the elemental still triggers the hellish sound bug, I won’t use it. Fire triggers it most, but all the elementals can.

Sarisa, to what are you referring here? Does popping the Elemental sometimes make your sound bug out and just give a constant ringing?

Ever since I’ve started WvW’ing more once I reached lvl 80 and geared up, I will occassionally have my sound crap out forcing me to turn off my speakers and play in silence. Could this be the reason?

The popping and “whirr” sound bug that eventually crashes your client is different.

This is a bug that triggers on any summon or pet, but only at certain times. You hear the footsteps/wingbeats are incredibly loud volume, making it impossible to bear being around one. It’s most common with fire eles, ranger bears, and some of the small necro minions (forget the name).

Per the person above that said they use the Norn racial…

As a Sylvari, I use the turret summoning elite for great effect. (As a staff elementalist) They make for

a. Wonderful auxiliary ranged “units” dmg’ing enemies that are below a wall (with you on top)
b. In the zerg, and someone targets you? Become invulnerable, make the enemy waste their powers, and immediately dodge roll toward the zerg again when the invulnerability ends.
c. … Many other uses.

Class wise? Yes, our elites are pointless in wvw. In pve, however, the pet can be used for great effect in the right circumstances.

Yup, the Sylvari 10 sp (take root) is great. Immobilizes you but you gain immunity and a bunch of turrets to annoy people. It works well with almost any build so I fear it will get nerfed. I’m hoping they instead address conjured weapon scaling and how our 30 sp is almost a self-cc.

Glyph of Elementals is actually a pretty good skill.

Water Elemental for PvP especially. AoE healing and AoE chill? Very handy for those harder 1v1s

The rest of our elites – not even worth unlocking in all honesty.

I wish the elemental just stayed up, I honestly only seem to cast it accidentally, usually forget I even have it. I do get some entertainment out of the air elemental however, in spvp its a lot of fun when I am downed and someone tries to finish, the stun will continually disrupt their stomp. Very amusing to watch and can buy you a lot of time vs 1.

Mostly not very thrilled in general like an elite “should”, but havent tried FGS yet.

ele elite skills are not the worse, human ele elite skills are the worse, well worse if ur not in PVP, useless in PVE, like that transform in to tornado (i have not done PVP jet so i’m not sure about the PVP part but i’m sure about PVE part), i do better with out it, so i say 1 thing to u, try other races!!! all races have different elite skills, only 3 skills remain same, this same 3 what u have with human ele, i have Sylvari ele & i have 4 new elite skills what i have not seen yet

As an extremely versatile player (I play on 6 maxed classes)
I must say that I find the ele and engineer the most fun to play only thanks to attunements + conjures / kits.
For me the conjures act as an extra attunement, more of a use-and-destroy per situation needed. So what I’m getting at, is the FGS as well have some great uses, but it must not be treated as a weapon to keep carrying around.
Start seeing conjures as extentions of your attunements, and I believe you’ll find their viable usefulness as I have in battle.

As for tornado I agree that it’s extremely situational (EB puzzle for the lulz or cliff battles).
And the Glyph have some nice uses when you want to set up passive fields and aoe effects.

As last side note… the tons of versatility ele / engi get should be implemented into other classes as well. 2 skillbars per any other class makes it feel dull compared to these two classes.

Turbo Whale.1738:

Being traited in Glyphs makes the skills really useful (and have a 96 second cd).

Sadly the cooldown resets to full duration when the duration of the elemental is over, making the cooldown 180 seconds instead of 120 by default. Also glyphed it’s actually still 156 seconds.

The Fire sword is awsome. Go dual dagger and you’ll do fine. You only need to pop the elite when you’re in trouble

Shinya.8014:

The Fire sword is awsome. Go dual dagger and you’ll do fine. You only need to pop the elite when you’re in trouble

D/D u are close at close range, & what happens with ele’s at close range? u know? they die fast!!! mage’s are weak at close range in all games & ele is same, ele is nor warrior or guardian who are meant for close range!!!

Sugram.3106:

Shinya.8014:

The Fire sword is awsome. Go dual dagger and you’ll do fine. You only need to pop the elite when you’re in trouble

D/D u are close at close range, & what happens with ele’s at close range? u know? they die fast!!! mage’s are weak at close range in all games & ele is same, ele is nor warrior or guardian who are meant for close range!!!

You’re either a troll or a bad or both… D/D Bunker ele die fast? lol maybe if you have 5 thieves on you than maybe you die fast or 5 players chaining a million stuns on you and you don’t have armor of earth or mist form or shocking aura or lightning flash… Please go play your guardian or thief

On topic the Ice ele is pretty kitten good by traiting 10 points into earth I gain protection if I have an aura applied to myself and oh look EA makes my rolls blast finishers for that frozen ground ^.^ Ele’s need work yes like every other class, but to be honest it boils down to l2p.

As some others have said, Tornado is useful for the long-duration Stability it grants you. I’d use it more or less exclusively in WvW and PvP.

For PvE, I’m an Asura Ele, so I like having a golem around to carry me when I get tired. XD

If tornado was a regular skill then yeah the stability might be worth it. But for an elite skill? It sucks.

Even mesmer’s phantasms are lot better then ele’s elementals.

Plushanubka.7280:

Even mesmer’s phantasms are lot better then ele’s elementals.

That’s just blatantly false. Have you ever tried them on a target dummy? Apart from all the fun abilities that they gain, their auto attacks’ dps is equal or better than your own auto attacks.

They’re very much worth it, but you gotta use them properly. Pick the right elemental for the situation, and it’ll work well.

Fiery Greatsword’s Fiery Whirl at 5s cooldown and Fiery Rush at 10s makes it an excellent escape/mobility tool tho lolz

As a rather experienced pvp player I’d say that our elites aren’t overwhelming at all. At least from a (s)PvP perspective.

Tornado might give you the chance to clear a capture point from a few enemies for a few seconds. Also, it gives you a rather long lasting stability buff which is always useful. BUT once you’ve knocked back your enemy there’s a 87% chance that he won’t be stupid enough to charge at you again and instead starts unloading, literally in case of a double pistol thief, his damage at you with a ranged weapon. Which you can barely do anything against since you are slow. An ability consisting of a 20s duration stability buff and a just initially usefull knockback effect, also presenting you on a silver tablet and depriving you of the full variety of your skills which would normally be used to compensate your squishiness? Sounds untempting for an elite. Besides the visual being awesome (in case it works). I mean, hey, tornados.

Fiery Greatsword Looks nice. Just like the damage numbers it can make appear on your screen. There’s not much besides damage that it is good for though. Just like the tornado, it deprives you of your attunement related abilities. Although you can still use your utility skills. I tried specializing my elementalist on the greatsword, simply because I thought a little asura with a giant flaming sword is really cool. Of course, it didn’t really work out. Mainly because I was too squishy and couldn’t balance that out since skills 1 to 5 were missing, at least when fighting halfway decent opponents. The other thing that really bothered me were the charges which come with every conjured weapon, making it impossible to bear the greatsword at all times, even with the corresponding trait increasing the number of charges. (Also, the sword has a time limit after which it automatically loses all charges) As a conclusion, you could say that the Fiery Greatsword is quite fun and even useful in PvE but rather useless in (s)PvP.

Glyph of Elementals Gives you a fiery/icy/windy/rocky companion. All of them come with good effects and deal a tad of extra damage. Too bad that you can’t control their actions. What’s the use of a ~6k heal if you stand 20 metres out of its radius? What is a stun good for if not used exactly when you need to interrupt your opponent or his movements in order to strike with a powerful ability? Also, unlike the necromancers golem, the elemental disappears after roughly a minute. Don’t get me wrong, for PvP this elite is by far the best choice since the elementals come with quite handy effects and you keep all your abilities when using it. But because you can’t really control them, their usage always involves some luck. And I don’t like that. Thats why I hope for ArenaNet to give us some more options.

Elementals are fine in PvE. FGS is situational but fun in PvE.

If you mean in PvP, put that in your title. Otherwise, you’re just wrong.

im support (read heal spec) on my ele, and I use glyph of elementals… why?.. because im in water attunement quite frequently and that extra bit of heals in a dungeon is just awesome..lol sure its “random” but whatever, its something i can cast and switch to another attunement to put out some damage and still feel reliably sure theres a heal going to be some where