Guild Wars 2

Some people compare an ele’s dps with a warrior’s; our survivability with a guardian’s; our spike with a thief’s and claim we need buffs in each area. But I feel that our inferior ability in each area is made up by our abundance in options.

If you haven’t noticed, Elementalists have 20 right hand skills versus the average 10 This means that the amount of utility, cc, dps, healing etc. is abundant. I’ll give a few examples using the staff.

Fire: 1: Best single target damage 2: Very good aoe damage 3. Aoe burn 4. Extra dodge with a combo field aswell 5. The most awesome aoe attack in the game.

So in fire attunement I can do the most damage to the most targets. (Note how the first 3 fire skills can be done in extremely quick succession, causing massive damage)

Water: 1: Terrible damage but a decent heal of about 400 (600 with healing skill) per cast. 2: Delayed spike damage that causes 5 stacks of invulnerability (very powerful. crits 3k ish on a moderate build) 3. Aoe heal of about 1700 HP. Very nice. 4. Very large aoe chill. Works great comboed with ice spike. 5. Amazing support skill. Regen and condition removal over a massive aoe.

So in water I have chill, heals, some spike and vulerability.

(I don’t have to go into the other two elements).

So basically, we have just about everything we need (dps, cc, aoe damage, delayed spike damage) in our weapon skills alone. We have 5 other slots on the right to fill in any gap we might have.

Guardians can support, necros can survive, thieves can spike, warriors can dps, but elementalists can do all of this.

There must be a class that gives the player all of the options possible but at the expensive of specialty classes being better each specific area.

Posts your thoughts and thanks for reading

See, we disagree on this point. We have a lot of initial options but those quickly go away with incredibly long cooldowns. We are further met with long cast times and INCREDIBLY long animations. THEN we must account for the massive telegraph that our skills give out long before the skill actually hits (ummmm dragon tooth… also, only a problem in any pvp).

Also, you later mention that each class can do something. “Guardians can support, necros can survive…” While this is true, they can also do a lot of other things. Guardians can support, they can dps, they can survive, and they can cc. Necros can survive, dps (conditions), and condition removal out the wazoo (also note: necros are also very messed up). Thieves can spike and dps… I know very little about the thieves but they can do anything the ele can do minus aoe and support which is greatly made up for in their MASSIVE damage. Warriors can support, damage (spike and condition), survive MUCH better than an ele, and do great ranged. So why are elementalists so bad? It is because they can do the same things other classes can do but they have to work harder and in general, their results are much less than any other class.

Most classes can do what ele’s do, better. We can support, we can have a high DPS and we can do condition damage.
Yet just about all the other classes can do that and they can do it better. Even if it is just that they have more armour then us, or can out DPS us without a damage build.

Elementalist needs to be balanced, or the other classes all need to be nerfed.

Side note:

You can’t get 600 healing with water #1. Most you’ll probably get with full exotics is 512~.

I don’t think anyone called ele a one trick pony.

When I think jack of all trades, I think tanky dps (because I’m LoL player) like warriors; high raw strength (damage and survivability.)

I would say staff ele is a support type character, as in they have low raw strength, but they have many other effects. They heal, they cc, put area of effects on the ground, create combos, etc.

I think there is a problem that eles are only really good at support; they are great in groups, but bad solo. They are kinda overpowered in dungeon and in zergfests, but kinda crappy in solo pve, and spvp. People want to spec their eles to be good at soloing, but the system doesn’t really allow it.

You’re confusing “Abundant” with “Redundant”. >.>

Ele should have been 5 weapon skills with context sensitive effects based on attunement + the ability to weapon swap. Not 20 skills spread across 4 skill bars that by and large have little overall mechanical difference, only different secondary effects. The Elements don’t really feel at hat unique from each other as they generally have the same playstyle just with different visuals.

Also, if you think the most of the other classes don’t have this flexibility, you’re playing them wrong.