Guild Wars 2

First of all, welcome to all new guild wars franchise players, hope you like the game and enjoy your stay!

Secondly, i keep reading this lets put it uninformed statement all over the ele forum and its getting pretty boring.

Lets look at the facts.

I come from Guild Wars 1, my first class to reach level 20 was elementalist, in Guild Wars 2, my first class to reach level 80 was also elementalist, i have played Guild Wars 1 for more than 4 years so i had the chance to get to know the class pretty well, it was indeed powerfull with air magic and fire magic, inflicting indeed massive damage, it was very versatile thanks to the secondary profession, i had great fun with 300hp build, searing MS and loads of other viable builds for the profession, it was indeed your average mage from WoW with an incredible versatility added to it.

Here is official Guild Wars 1 Description on their official Wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Elementalist

Here is official Guild Wars 2 Description on their official Website:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/the-game/professions/elementalist/

Guild Wars 2 elementalist is called Elementalist, anecdotally A-Net accidentally created an entirely different class with the same name, spells that have the same names aswell and also the same class description! Makes sense?

Please stop trying to teach us that we do not know what we are talking about, please stop telling us to L2P when we say Elementalist is simply underpowered, please stop calling Ele an entirely different profession.
You are only fooling yourselves and others.

Thank you very much.

Sorry but…having the same profession name and skill description does not mean the classes are the same. Unless the skills actually have the same effects as their GW1 counterparts (I wouldn’t know didn’t play GW1) then it really makes no different what they are called.

Perhaps A-Net originally intended for the classes to be the same, but during development changed them into the GW2 elementalist.

A traditional (average) mages have very low hp, but make up for it with huge dps, usually in the form of spike damage.
Elementalist in GW2 have pretty much NO spike damage, excluding churning earth and dragons tooth, which..lets face it.. Do no more damage than a warrior or thief.

If you try and play the class like this then you are effectively kittening yourself by ignoring all the other skills an elementalist has at their disposal. This is clearly not how this particular version of the elementalist is meant to be played.

I do agree that the ele needs increased damage in order to balance it with thief ect but turning the ele into a spike damage fire/air mage to me does not seem the answer.

You say that but i can say something else, what matters is not what the class currently is but what the official advertised description of the class is, it is clearly an elementalist, it is clearly close to your average mage with more versatility, the current state of this class is just bad, i cant say mediocre because that would mean it could cope vs other classes which it cant.

All in all, the topic is simple, stop telling people that complain about how elementalist is overnerfed that they dont know how to play it cause its a versatile class, hard to learn, nothing like a mage and this or that.
Its pretty boring and far from the truth, class description is pretty easy to understand.

.. Same old “I played this game longer than you” card, but you make no sense at all, your first mistake was comparing 2 different games who happen to use the same name for a class (yes, even GW1 is a different game).

I’m saying it now, you don’t know what you’re talking about, and your knowledge about GW1 is irrelevant.

Until Anet updates the class description in the website OP and everybody else has the right to complain. Just like when traits say they do something but they dont, so we can only asume its bugged till fixed or the tooltip changes.

Really? i do not know what i am talking about? care to explain please because all you have said is that they are 2 different games, so what if they are 2 different games if both have the same class concepts and same class description?
Also i dont think you have been around beta weekends so i must say that it semms to me that you dont know what you are talking about more than i do not know what i am talking about, and the “same old” applies more to you than to me but GG.

You say that but i can say something else, what matters is not what the class currently is but what the official advertised description of the class is, it is clearly an elementalist, it is clearly close to your average mage with more versatility, the current state of this class is just bad, i cant say mediocre because that would mean it could cope vs other classes which it cant.

All in all, the topic is simple, stop telling people that complain about how elementalist is overnerfed that they dont know how to play it cause its a versatile class, hard to learn, nothing like a mage and this or that.
Its pretty boring and far from the truth, class description is pretty easy to understand.

I can 1v1 most classes on my D/D bunker ele now. It took me time to learn and I had to visit forums for advice on strategies to use, but I can, and im far from a pro player. I wouldn’t say ele is terrible, but it is in dire need of buffing damage or defense wise.

Arguing that an ele is not a typical mage will get you nowhere. This class is not, and will never be a typical ‘stand on the spot and throw fireballs’ mage. It does not matter what the description says, this is the way the elemetalist mechanics are. Changing the entire class is impossible.

It is rude of people to say ‘you are playing it wrong’ when many have valid arguments. And it is true that eles, for the majority of players are weaker as a class, but they are not unplayable.

I would advise you look into help on forums on how to play the class and post a topic askin for advice. Try it out, find the real weaknesses within gameplay and form a proper argument with realistic suggestions on how to improve the class.

I do not need help from the forums on how to play the class, i know the class well enough, the popular D/D bunker ele is a nothing to a serious Thief, Mesmer, War, DPS Guardian, Engineer and so on, play vs serious players and make a video, all videos shown here were fights where actually wins were only vs total newbs.

I really don’t know what to tell you guys…Ele is not perfect no, but this idea that it is so severely underpowered that it can’t compete with other classes is just pure BS.

I do a lot of WvW and some sPvP as well with my D/D ele. I can basically beat just about anyone 1v1…a few people beat me, but it’s probably because they just played better. And not only that, in WvW, my escape ability is insane…NO class can catch me. I also do great area damage to large groups of folks.

So if the ele really is extremely UP, then I must be such an amazing player that I am somehow able to beat just about anyone else using a crap class. And well, I just don’t think that highly of myself.

Ele is not as broken as you think it is. Instead of ranting about how horrible it is on the forums…just try a new build maybe, new strategies, practice…those kinds of things.

nice try.

you do realize you linked the EXACT same website, right? you didn’t link the GW2 wiki. you linked the GW1 wiki twice and neither has the same description as either the GW2 wiki or the website.

Every single class in GW2, with the possible exception of the Guardian, is not the typical “stand in one spot and spam skills” class. This has little to do with class design (again, except Guardian) and is heavily influenced by how the entire combat system works (moving while using skills, dodging, lots of fields attacks that can be avoided, etc).

What makes the Elementalist stand out from typical mages is the attunement switching, which makes them very versatile, but that’s not reason enough for our lack of spike builds, because we have 7 other professions with weapon swapping (or kit swapping) that can spike with a weapon, and defend themselves, support allies or control enemies with the other one.

Not only that, but when we specc for power/ critical builds, a lot of our defensive skills become ineffective, either because they heavily depend on healing power (healing skills like water trident and cone of frost), or because they heavily depend on toughness/ vitality for sustained/ long-term defense (shocking/ frost auras, armor of earth, etc), and getting hit in the squishiest of builds for a squichy class leads to about a 3s death.

In spike builds, those skills act more like a “delay your death for a few seconds while you attempt to kill your foe first” than tide-turners as it happens in the popular regeneration/ cantrip/ high healing/ high toughness or vitality meta builds.

But, of course, elementalists can’t spike meaningfully at all, which makes both their offensive skills and their defensive skills underpowered in power builds. And truth is, elementalists were once known as excellent spikers during beta, where their spike skills actually spiked your foes. It might be hard to believe, for some of you, that a hard-to-hit sequence designed specifically for spiking, like (Ride the Lightning -> Updraft -> Ring of Fire -> Arcane skills ->) Dragon’s Tooth -> Phoenix -> Fire Grab (-> Earthquake) was efficient at spiking. It was comparable at killing as Frenzy + Hundred Blades, at a much harder cost.

But our damage was greatly nerfed because Anet didn’t like builds that could kill in 1 or 2 seconds (and although I agree with that, it makes you wonder why thieves or HB+frenzy warriors exist in the way they are).

Saying that we shouldn’t be able to spike by design is completely wrong, because we DO have spike skills designed just for that (the OH dagger weapon as a whole is all about setting up spikes or bursting, Scepter’s fire is all about setting up a big spike), and because our versatility from attunement swapping, “to compensate for the fact that we can’t spike” as some of you have been saying, can’t compensate for the fact that we can’t spike, because all it does, in spike builds, is delay the inevitable death, and our defensive/ CC skills are only truly effective if we can kill fast enough, which we can’t, or if we specc defensively, which is our only option.

Also, the description for both GW1’s and GW2’s elementalists is about the same.
GW1:
Elementalists summon the powers of earth, air, fire, and water and command them at will. They can inflict more damage in a single strike than any other profession.
GW2 (which has been updated right before the game came out):
Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

With the perhaps exception of staff, that is almost devoid of damage outside of fire, and the focus, which is our official-defensive-set-that-no-one-uses-for-our-defensive-builds, Daggers are all about dealing damage and Scepter is a hybrid with some big spike-focused sequences, design-wise.

TheWarKeeper.5374:

i have played Guild Wars 1 for more than 4 years so i had the chance to get to know the class pretty well, it was indeed powerfull with air magic and fire magic, inflicting indeed massive damage

Besides the time certain skills were OP Eles were never used as DPS in PvP, they pretty much only dealt damage when they assisted spikes.
In PvE the damage of the Elementalist was pathetic, even a full-out offensive Fire Ele did only about 1/5 the damage of a melee, and that melee could even bring strong group support at the same time; the gap got even bigger in high-level content because unlike most other profession Eles did hardly and armor-ignoring damage to bypass the increased armor of level 20+ mobs. Air was at least somewhat useful to blind mobs but when you found out the insane synergy between AP and Eruption and other earth AoE skills you wouldn’t go back to Air again either.
The GW1 Elementalist was already not your “average mage” because it excelled at support, not damage. And btw: By comparison a GW2 Ele deals a lot more damage than its GW1 counterpart.

Baah! Lost my ability to quote again

@DesertRose Keep in mind that the GW1 ele had a significant overhaul just recently. One I think was reducing armour on monsters to make ele spells more effective. The other was a redesign of the exhaustion mechanic. So obviously, they thought that the ele was flawed in such a way that they had to massively overhaul it. Or… they just wanted to make it more interesting? Ah well.

Anyway! Yeah I’m pretty sick hearing ‘Elementalist is not your average mage’ statement. Having said that though, I really don’t know what we’re supposed to be. We’re great at group support, but I was always under the impression that there are no defined roles so I dislike people saying ‘eles are not glass cannons’ or ‘eles are awesome group support’ or ‘eles suck’, purely because I don’t think we should be funneled into one specific way of playing the game. The only people who can really say what we are, is Anet, because they designed us! Naturally that encourages people to read the class descriptions and take them at face value, so you can’t blame people for complaining when they are annoyed that ‘eles can’t inflict massive damage with a single attack’.

I actually wish they designed each profession with a unique niche, i.e. healing/damage etc. If everyone can do everything, then it’s just naturally going to favour certain professions anyway. That can’t be avoided. Eles suffer a bit more because their skills are purposely diluted due to having so many. The way it currently is, they’re awesome support because they can set up and finish combo fields and do crazy stuff with aura builds. The skills otherwise can’t encourage much else.

I actually hope they start splitting skills for PvE and PvP soon… Hopefully it’d allow more interesting life to be breathed into the class.

nvmvoidrays.2158:

nice try.

you do realize you linked the EXACT same website, right? you didn’t link the GW2 wiki. you linked the GW1 wiki twice and neither has the same description as either the GW2 wiki or the website.

Ty for letting me know, link corrected, feel free to show me why its not the same description.

@ DesertRose

GW1 elementalists are dps aoe machine guns in GW1’s pve. The only time they weren’t was with the old hard mode, but that was more due to bad design with that mode than anything to do with the profession. If we look at the current state, pve elementalists are about bursting with rodgort’s invocation, searing flames, chain/ invoke lightning, etc.

Elementalists in GW2 are not very comparable when it comes to damage input. Elementalist’s staff on fire is similar to GW1’s nuking builds (savannah heat), and our dagger’s skills are an improved version of our old PBAoEs. There’s nothing comparable to gw1’s shockwave (for those who haven’t played GW1, think of our current churning earth with a much faster casting time), or to GW1’s Invoke Lightning (it’s like staff’s air chain lightning, except it hits extremely hard and you don’t need to wait until your lightning bolt hits the enemy) or even to GW1’s Searing Flames/ Elemental Attunement + Rodgort’s Invocation (imagine staff’s flame burst + fireball. Now imagine them so strong, that you could spam them all day and completely annihilate crowds of mobs).

Aiglos.2907:

Baah! Lost my ability to quote again

Just make a non-sense post like “I want to quote, quote, quote!”, for some reason you have to post in a thread first to be able to quote others and edit and delete your own posts; just delete your non-sense post then and quote the post you want to.

Keep in mind that the GW1 ele had a significant overhaul just recently. One I think was reducing armour on monsters to make ele spells more effective. The other was a redesign of the exhaustion mechanic. So obviously, they thought that the ele was flawed in such a way that they had to massively overhaul it. Or… they just wanted to make it more interesting? Ah well.

You’re right, I forgot that the extra armor mobs get in HM was removed so Eles don’t perform even worse damage-wise.
Back when I was active SF Ele was the best build damage-wise, did that update brought forth any Ele builds that exceed it’s damage by 200%-300%? If not you would be still better off with another melee if you want damage.
But in those specialized farm builds with one or two designated tanks Eles do great as spikers.

DesertRose.2031:

You’re right, I forgot that the extra armor mobs get in HM was removed so Eles don’t perform even worse damage-wise.

This was buff exclusively to elementalist! what about roj monks and discord heroes it was nerf to everything with armor ignoring damage.