Guild Wars 2

@Ensign
Don’t you think when people choose elemental mage, they expect for pure damage, not wonderful support? Anet said, all classes are self-sufficient. No pronounced supports or tanks. And what do we see? When I play elementalist in PvP and using Rtl or Burning speed to land other skills (and this kitten piece of kitten jumps anywhere, but not to enemy or just stuck for few seconds), I start swearing dirty and loud.
And for doing damage less then warrior doing buy 3 buttons (which almost impossible to miss) I need 7-8 buttons (and skills are very easy to miss, or it’s just bugged kitten RtL and fight is over at start).
P.S. Last sPvP match kitten 1-button pistol thief just run around and press 3-3-3-3… and I can’t do anything, because signet of earth on CD and after use RtL without it I stun myself for 3-4 seconds and make job for him easier. GJ Anet for fixing any kitten or skill which does minimal advantage, but not critical bugs.

Bunker/support Elementalists are kittening amazing, and have insane survivability.

Go staff, water and arcane talents. Pow/Tough/Vit/Healing stats (different mixes are fine), and cantrips for utility.

Sit on points and be invincible unless 3+ people get on you. Hey look that’s how you score and win in PVP in this game.

If you have a partner on the point with you it’s even better and you’re even more invincible.

I die an average of once per sPVP match and win the vast majority of my games.

I don’t have an 80 Elementalist, but I have grouped with a berserker-based one in explorables. He did incredible amounts of damage and destroyed everything. Ranged AOE is very powerful in PVE in this game.

Overall Elementalists are fine.

I love how “having a bunker build makes this class just fine”, when EVERY class can bunker and they all work exactly the same. In fact bunker is so strong at the moment that it’s likely getting a decent sized nerf. Guardians already caught a bit of it.

Ele’s are not “fine”. They’re also not “broken”. They have LOTS of potential. They just need the animations, long CDs, stupid cast times, and poor trait synergy outside of earth/water/arcane (oh hey that’s our bunker spec!) to stop holding them back.

Absolutely laughable reasoning from these kitten so basically the solution to the class is to become a healer in a game that shouldn’t even have one.
Show me you doing anything even remotely useful as a glass cannon or balanced staff play, then you can come spouting kitten out of your kitten

Staff Elementalists also generate combo fields. That adds a lot of hidden damage, like near-constant burning, might buffs or invulnerability.

Not all damage can be measured by looking at the skill numbers.

RaptorSpectre.3271:

Ele’s are weak if by weak you mean can’t take a lot of burst damage and don’t output massive damage. That isn’t what they are meant for though. They are one of the best support classes in the game.

I assume you didn’t read any pre-release interview or blog where ArenaNet specifically stated there is no such thing as a “support class” but rather “support specs”? In other words, no one class is supposed to be pidgeonholed into one or two of the roles in the “trinity”, but each class should be able to spec to fill a role, and bring something somewhat unique in their own way. “Best support class” doesn’t mean a whole lot with this in mind, now does it?

I’m heavily disappointed in ele damage output. We don’t take very many hits and if we get ganged on its over. We have too many aoe skills IMO . I would prefer to be able to single target nuke with fire, totally destroy basic mobs with a full fire combo, aoe damage support with earth for when I’m grouping, cc with air, and heal support with water. But instead elementalist feels last minute thrown together and not thought out. The traits are garbage. The skill slots are laughable. The summoned pets don’t last nearly long enough, and even using s/d or d/d the damage output isn’t high enough to justify the lowest armor of any profession. Elementalists need some help. Well a lot of help. Farming is a survival game instead of something I can do leisurely while I wait for a dungeon group. And even once i get into a dungeon the aggro is so laughably broken I don’t survive for more than 45 seconds at a time. I really wish ANet would at least fix SOMETHING on elementalists

Masternewbz.4953:

Ementalist sucks period.

Reduce cooldown on skills and animation time and they can be just as good as the others, but for now they suck very very bad

This was clearly the data the second poster asked for.

You can’t just come on here and say “omg they suck” with nothing to back it up or no one will take you seriously.

Elementalist either needs a greater amount of defense or evasion, or a greater amount of damage. The necromancer has more HP and the same amount of max armor, yet they can at least heal themselves with some of the HP draining spells. What is really frusterating is that I cannot roam the higher level maps without depending on another player or npc that attacks monsters. I feel like a noob playing a map that is 10 levels higher then what I am. Thing is there are no level 90 maps yet.

Often the other player takes out the monster he/she is taking out and the one that put me in a downed state or defeated me. I feel like being baby-sat here as a frigg’n level 80!

@Above

You are doing something wrong, I farmed Orr including the area before the Arah instance in the first 2 weeks of the game being out. I was in blues and greens, 1 yellow weapon (not even the right stats but it was a dagger so I just used it).
This was using S/D + condition spec (the spec S/D cater the most to). I discovered condition spec works but is too weak, S/D give single target CC but that’s not enough since we are constantly zerged both in Orr and PvP.

Now I switched to D/D, because it seems a stronger combo and indeed it is. It got a smidge more damage but most of all it comes with omni-directional AoE CC.
Now I can kill 5-6 mobs at a time instead of 2 tops, if one of them is a veteran it’s still no problem.

Basically the only one who can give you a greater “amount of defense or evasion” is you, and you can do it. Not in some super easy mode way, no. But enough to kill PvE.
Once you master it, you’ll find out you almost equal some other faster classes at farming, because it’s true you take 3 times as much but you AoE kill instead of quick 1 by 1 / 2 by 2 kill.

The issue with Eles is the same with every class: if you do high damage, you’re made out of paper — and if you can take a hit well, your damage is lower.. and every class complains about the same.

Where the Ele shines is when you don’t go 30 points into any trait line, but spread out and play all your attunements to their strengths. No, earth and water are not powerhouse damage lines — but what they can do is amazing in the context of a fight because we get 20 abilities in any build.. and because of the crazy number of available abilities we can access, people cannot faceroll their keyboard and expect to do well like with a warrior, thief, or guardian who plays a single role based on build. I love my warrior, but on him I play hammer / mace+shield and he’s a CC beast, with lots of self healing. No real damage of note, but I’m great when paired with someone who can. On my ele, however, no one can clear a point like him with earth dagger 4, stability, 5 (huge AOE people will either stand in and take solid damage, or run to get out of thus buying me time). I can leap into the middle of a fight on him to save a team member with lightning dagger 4 (gap close + damage), then 5 (KB + swiftness), attune ice dagger and 3 (3 second AE chill), circle strafe 2 (cone damage + heal allies), then turn on the fire and light everything up to start bringing damage.

The best thing about an ele is that there is no situation to which I cannot bring benefit, which is something I can say is not the case on my other pvp toons who, quite frequently, are just overkill to a fight.

@Kellhus
Mm…. not every. I have warrior for pve/pvp and thief for spvp. Warrior have high survivability even in pure dps spec. Thief… just spam 3 in dual pistol build and get top score… ~7k damage per skill and can use 3 in a row, plus ~4k damage traited steal. And these skills can’t be dodged. One (!!!) kitten button to overdps elementalist’s piano style. Funny, isn’t?

I disagree, and my warrior is 80.

If you play warrior dps, most go with GS and rely on setting up HB which is easily avoidable and you can counter with strong damage while they put out zero with HB on it’s traited 8 second CD. A bad warrior who stays with GS on a miss will die before GS is up again, a good one will shift to something/shield and block with 5, followed by a stun to create space again, or chain into another HB.

Neither of those are better survivability than what any ele can get just by traiting into water and getting regen or protection/cripple on aura shifts into earth — not to mention the heals and escapes we get by weapon selection alone.

That being said, a really well played eviserate triple axe warrior can be a problem given their 8 second evis, and weapon swap crits with sigil of intell, and how quickittenhey will build adren (I know on my warrior running this is the only time I’ve landed a 10k crit against anyone, and the target was an ele with no toughness). But, again, this build is only a threat from a good player, and does come down to who plays better against their opponent.

I can’t remember the last time I lost to a thief on either my warrior or ele 1v1, the problem most people make with them is not understanding that AEs still hit them when in stealth. The moment one engages you strip off the conditions they place, drop into Earth dagger and 4 to 5, or ice dagger 3 to 2, fire dagger 4 and 3, or lighting dagger 3 and 4 away (or just 5 and knock them away). Point is there are multiple combinations ( and I only listed dagger!) the leave glass cannon thief builds completely exposed.

And if I’m seeing a ton of pistol 3 thief spammers, I’ll swap to a staff build and earth 3 to let them kill themselves, or just mind my end better and dodge them to negate more than half the damage. I think people are caught up in WoW playing where one strong ability means the class is OP, without remember that a well used dodge is there specifically for that.

Personally i couldnt care less about the pvp aspect. As for pve i can deffinitly see the difference between my ele and my ranger for instance. For me its not a question of dps i think the damage is fine but the cooldowns and the summoned familiar time could be looked at

@Kellhus
If warrior’s HS was avoided, he can switch (for example) to rifle (I play in “primitive” might/vulnerability stacking GS-rifle build) and still do a lot of damage (especially if frenzy still working). Anyway, warriors main damage skills have to low cooldowns. And if elementalist’s some skills was avoided (and its very easy), you cant do burst for 30-45 seconds, not 8-10 as warrior. Plus warriors survivability in DPS build is close to elementalist in defensive/hybrid build.
About thief pistol spammers. Of course you can switch to staff, after you die =). Magnetic Aura works for 5 seconds and has 30 seconds cooldown. Thief need to be completely noob to shot elementalist instead of wait untill aura ends. Or just switch to daggers and press 2, like a boss ©.

@ Kriet

I literally have no trouble with warriors of any flavor save Axe (either single, or double — the triple axe build gives me nightmares). If a warrior swaps to rifle, the only ability I care about is volley — again, the moment the animation starts I dodge, and take less than 1k damage total.

Same with a thief, it’s like you completely disregard dodge — and pistol is just like rifle in that there is only one move you need to care about.

The difference in our views here comes down to potential, I think. Yes, the abilities you mention are very hard hitting and can potentially win fights. Elementalists do not have an ability cut from the same cloth — but we do have 20 instead of 5, and this allows us to do more things over a shorter period of time. I think a good elementalist needs to know other classes probably moreso than anyone else, because we can really get a lot of milage out of dodge to take away big hits, whereas a dodge against us really doesn’t cost us much as we just shift attunements and carry on.

Vaerah.4907:

@Above

You are doing something wrong, I farmed Orr including the area before the Arah instance in the first 2 weeks of the game being out. I was in blues and greens, 1 yellow weapon (not even the right stats but it was a dagger so I just used it).
This was using S/D + condition spec (the spec S/D cater the most to). I discovered condition spec works but is too weak, S/D give single target CC but that’s not enough since we are constantly zerged both in Orr and PvP.

Now I switched to D/D, because it seems a stronger combo and indeed it is. It got a smidge more damage but most of all it comes with omni-directional AoE CC.
Now I can kill 5-6 mobs at a time instead of 2 tops, if one of them is a veteran it’s still no problem.

Basically the only one who can give you a greater “amount of defense or evasion” is you, and you can do it. Not in some super easy mode way, no. But enough to kill PvE.
Once you master it, you’ll find out you almost equal some other faster classes at farming, because it’s true you take 3 times as much but you AoE kill instead of quick 1 by 1 / 2 by 2 kill.

So, let me get this straight, you are claiming you can take down 5 – 6 mobs at a time….in front of Arah…..using D/D.

This leads me to the following conclusions:

1) The time it takes you to take down all 5 – 6 (presumably involving a LOT of time running around and kiting) is so long that such a claim is just not worth even including in this discussion. For example, if it takes you 10 mins to take down 5 – 6 mobs at a time, then such an activity is a waste of time and effort for the reward you get. Under such circumstances, the damage output over time could therefore actually turn out to further validate what other people have said in regards to the low damage output of Elem’s.

2) Your claim is 100% bogus, and you are just spouting numbers off the top of your head.

In any case, I would love to see a video showing you consistently taking down 5 – 6 mobs at a time, using D/D, in front of Arah.

Kellhus.8071:

The issue with Eles is the same with every class: if you do high damage, you’re made out of paper — and if you can take a hit well, your damage is lower.. and every class complains about the same.

Where the Ele shines is when you don’t go 30 points into any trait line, but spread out and play all your attunements to their strengths. No, earth and water are not powerhouse damage lines — but what they can do is amazing in the context of a fight because we get 20 abilities in any build.. and because of the crazy number of available abilities we can access, people cannot faceroll their keyboard and expect to do well like with a warrior, thief, or guardian who plays a single role based on build. I love my warrior, but on him I play hammer / mace+shield and he’s a CC beast, with lots of self healing. No real damage of note, but I’m great when paired with someone who can. On my ele, however, no one can clear a point like him with earth dagger 4, stability, 5 (huge AOE people will either stand in and take solid damage, or run to get out of thus buying me time). I can leap into the middle of a fight on him to save a team member with lightning dagger 4 (gap close + damage), then 5 (KB + swiftness), attune ice dagger and 3 (3 second AE chill), circle strafe 2 (cone damage + heal allies), then turn on the fire and light everything up to start bringing damage.

The best thing about an ele is that there is no situation to which I cannot bring benefit, which is something I can say is not the case on my other pvp toons who, quite frequently, are just overkill to a fight.

Please stop with the spouting the standard “you’re glass cannons, deal with it” line. Also, please try to look at the Elementalist not only from a PVP perspective, but from a PVE one too.

If the situation was as per other games (i.e. the class was actually a glass cannon), then yes claims about elementalists being glass cannons would apply. And in such circumstances Elementalists would then actually be in line with how Arenanet describe the Elementalist on their own website:

“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.”

The last bit is what is most important here. “…the ability to inflict massive damage on a single attack”. That is just not true when you compare Elementalist’s to certain other classes.

But the reality is that if a class’s dmg output is such that it is below par, then it is no longer a case of “you’re a glass cannon”, more like “you’re a glass peashooter” in certain situations. So, in essence, Elem’s cannot be described as glass cannons at all.

Side note: What certain posters in this thread need to realise is that whilst Elem’s do indeed bring a wider variety of abilities to the table, and yes they CAN heal, they are NOT just supposed to be a support class only. Therefore claiming that an Elementalist is “fine” purely on the grounds that it can be placed in a support role is just not good enough argument. Especially considering many other classes can ALSO be placed in a support role and yet do better damage when not used in a support role.

@Kellhus
20 doesn’t mean they all are good and useful in any build. Let’s look at D/D power build:
Air-water skills can’t be used for good damage (cone of cold will miss most damage at moving target, but not bad for heal, RtL is bugged and can stun you), only auto-attack, which is terrible, compared to other classes. 1-2 earth skills are only good for condition build (but in condition build much more skills become useless). So we have 5 skills from fire attunement and 2 from earth. And none of them have target direct damage, only aoe or cone type, which are easily avoidable and easy to miss (fire grab, burning speed etc). So we don’t have 20 effective skills.
Dodge doesn’t cos much in condition bunker spec, but not in power. So it’s like to say “For warriors dodge doesn’t hurt much, he just switch to another weapon and carry on”. And he does, because all warrior’s skill are effective. And I can’t find idiotic mix of condition and power based skills on one weapon (like ours fire scepter, earth dagger).
P.S. I begin to doubt that these people made Guild wars 1. In GW1 so many viable build for ANY class, but there we are forced to play with 1-2 effective builds with some classes :/.

So I don’t know what the deal is here. I have been running a VERY VIABLE glass cannon pvp spec which decimates enemies. 30 fire, 30 air, 10 arcane. With CD reduction talents, downtime isn’t that bad. Survivability isn’t a problem if you realize your strengths aren’t in sitting on the point. You have RTL for a reason (FIX PATHING NOW). Arcane wave and power coupled with mist form does the trick for me. Ether renewal while running away off the point. Get in, get out, repeat.

I suppose many people are complaining more about PvE, though. I had a little bit of a problem with PvE till I took a step back and worked out some viable combos. If I were richer (I invested a ton in tailoring), I would run Fire 20, Air 10, Earth 30, Water 10 with 4 signets; as it is, I haven’t bothered earning any money since I fell in love with sPvP.

But then I was taking on these large groups people talk about killing on their warriors and so forth even before that. I’m not sure what the problem is. Maybe ele just requires a higher actions-per-minute to play effectively.

elchulo.3148:

Those of us who actually care about the class have been beating these drums since launch but so far we’ve been completely ignored. I suggest either avoiding spvp or re-rolling to keep your sanity.

This.
either reroll another class or quit the game and wait for another mmo with some decent balanced magic classes (that isnt totally overnerfed in the believe it shouldnt be able to NUKE people but keeping the insane squiciness of an actual nuker since it is a mage and mages are super squicies so should our mage be in dps mode but still no dps since we can’t have it actually nuking people -_-)

ps: tankish builds works fine if you are Grosely outskilling (rl skill +knowledge of mechanics/effects etc.) your opponent.
doesnt change the fact that same rl skill and gear as your opponent you are grosely nerfed as an ele, to the point where its just not fun in the long run to play (this is especially a problem in very squicy glass cannon builds where every action needs to be perfect and fast, since evne if you do this your total lack of any dmg and survive will result in the enemy just brushing of your attack and kitten you shortly after, so this is where you can REALLY feel the UP of ele :/ )

ps: i have yet to see another +- effective ele for group runs of any kind… sadly.. since i love the idea of a “mage/support” in dungeon runs, but as it is now ele is neither nuker, nor effective support. etc. etc etc there is houndred of pages about this but at this point anet have said “go kitten yourself” so many times that most people have either left the game, given up and just poking around waiting for something new and better to release, or rerolled and just said “kitten it”.

I am disappointed with the way the elementalist is balanced theres no point me going over it, its all been said well but if this is true "at this point anet have said “go kitten yourself” so many times that most people have either left the game, given up and just poking around waiting for something new and better to release, or rerolled and just said “kitten it”. its certainly made me feel like giving up, guess I can try another class but I am not impressed,
,

Just to point out, a dev posted :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Some-improvements-I-d-like-to-see-to-D-D-Ele/first#content

“We do have some improvements in mind for the elementalist’s main-hand dagger, along with reworking the downed state a bit. Keep in mind that you might not see this for a bit, but it is in the works.”

@Mik Hell

Not everyone wants to give away their build. Yes, some people like to keep it to themselves or only share with their friends. No one owes you an explanation or proof. If you cannot figure it out on your own like some of us have done, instead needing someone to draw you pictures so that you understand, is no ones issue but your own.

I can tank with the best of them, I can smash face zerg aoe solo without dying, I can be the cornerstone in a group with heals/cc/combo opportunities (elementalists are the combo queens you know, warrior cannot do anything without someone starting a combo for him)

You all want the damage buffed? Go ahead, buff the damage then I can be OP.
However demanding from people their specs accomplishes nothing as people don’t often have the same play style, a spec I use to rock your world might leave you thinking WTF? While one you use (which has obviously not worked) would leave me wondering wtf, just like it left you thinking. Trying to force yourself into soemone elses playstyle might jsut be your problem, try using soemthing you are msot comfortable with instead.

TL:DR; Quit asking for the answers and figure it out yourself.

Maybe that’s the problem with the class, it’s not as transparent as others; thus some aren’t able to create the “right” builds. It’s counter-intuitive when other classes can succeed without “the right build” whereas many have said, shown, and explained, that the trait system, skills, and overall class is underpowered. Yes, it can perform as a support class, but taken directly from anet, there are no support classes. With this in mind, the class isn’t performing as intended at least as far as balancing is concerned.

Can I play the class moderately well, yes I can. Do I find situations where I feel underpowered or overwhelmed, yeah. For instance, yes, I can solo a few enemies at once in orr without dying. The problem is it requires a lot of effort, my hp sinks and I get wacked hard whereas other classes seem to do it with less effort and less risk to their overall survivability.

As far as someone wanting anothers build, I don’t see anything wrong with that. There comes a time you get frustrated because things don’t feel as if they’re working well, you’re dying more than others, you take hits more, and you just aren’t putting out damage comparable to other classes. Elementalist being more challenging or not is irrelevant, what matter is what the majority of people interpret and play the class as. Most people I’ve talked to in game, seen posting on these forums and others all have something in common, they have a view of the elementalist being a weaker class, one that tries to perform too many roles at once whereby kittening them to other classes (support, dps, healer etc.) Yes, we get 20 skills based on attunement, but why is there a cooldown from switching one attunement to another? That’s silly, any of them we swap out of are on cooldown, so when we switch to that new attunement we have a CD that lasts a second?

As many have done, I’ve tried respeccing, regearing, and it always ends up the same. I can survive a bit more as a healer/toughness-stacked support character with no damage (my survivability is less than other classes still), stat up and go full on dps glass-cannon and do more damage with lower survivability (my damage is still much less than other classes, conditions included and lower survivability).

The problem lies isn’t that elementalist is necessarily broken (though we do have plenty of bugs), it’s that other classes are given more power, survivability, overall dmg etc than we are so it gives us the impression of our class being weak. How to solve? You could nerf all the other classes, but it would be easier to fix the ele as it’s one class versus many. For all the people that post these ridiculous statements about how they’re so good this & that and there’s no problem, this discussion isn’t about the 1% who can do it right, it’s about the other 99% who can’t (numbers are meant figuratively). Does that mean that 1% know what they’re doing and 99% (which may be the culmination of casual or less-than-hardcore players) don’t have a clue and we must not know the class is good?? That’s silly, if a majority of players are having issues, feel the class is underpowered, and we’re all coming to the same conclusions, trying the same ways to counter balance it and it doesn’t work, then there is an issue with the class. Likewise, the game is designed for EVERYONE, not just the select few people who can “master” the class so-to-say. If only a few can “do it right” then there is a problem right there, it should be playable and usable by more people. Going back to those figurative numbers above, let’s say they buff and fix all these issues right now; is it better to have that 1% then be “overpowered” and the 99% be “balanced to all other classes now” or keep the current as is 1% feels they’re “balanced” and the 99% feel “underpowered”.

Anyones thoughts? Don’t bother trolling, keep it productive. Have I actually summed things up here so those that feel there’s no issue with elementalists can understand where this common ground of frustration with the class is coming?

to quote the poster above me;
"the game is designed for EVERYONE, not just the select few people who can “master” the class so-to-say. If only a few can “do it right” "

game =/= class

I would suck royal balls on a thief, does that mean they are underpowered and I should demand buffs?

Efaicia.3672
Exactly what I was saying. None of us know what anet’s plans are, and frankittenhey don’t need to tell us, but it would be nice to get a quick note saying they’re taking what we say into consideration or they’re looking into re-balancing etc.

I know they’ll fix it in time, they did the same with original guild wars and the quarks of the ele (played it beta and then early release).

Kellhus.8071:

I disagree, and my warrior is 80.

If you play warrior dps, most go with GS and rely on setting up HB which is easily avoidable and you can counter with strong damage while they put out zero with HB on it’s traited 8 second CD. A bad warrior who stays with GS on a miss will die before GS is up again, a good one will shift to something/shield and block with 5, followed by a stun to create space again, or chain into another HB.

Neither of those are better survivability than what any ele can get just by traiting into water and getting regen or protection/cripple on aura shifts into earth — not to mention the heals and escapes we get by weapon selection alone.

That being said, a really well played eviserate triple axe warrior can be a problem given their 8 second evis, and weapon swap crits with sigil of intell, and how quickittenhey will build adren (I know on my warrior running this is the only time I’ve landed a 10k crit against anyone, and the target was an ele with no toughness). But, again, this build is only a threat from a good player, and does come down to who plays better against their opponent.

I can’t remember the last time I lost to a thief on either my warrior or ele 1v1, the problem most people make with them is not understanding that AEs still hit them when in stealth. The moment one engages you strip off the conditions they place, drop into Earth dagger and 4 to 5, or ice dagger 3 to 2, fire dagger 4 and 3, or lighting dagger 3 and 4 away (or just 5 and knock them away). Point is there are multiple combinations ( and I only listed dagger!) the leave glass cannon thief builds completely exposed.

And if I’m seeing a ton of pistol 3 thief spammers, I’ll swap to a staff build and earth 3 to let them kill themselves, or just mind my end better and dodge them to negate more than half the damage. I think people are caught up in WoW playing where one strong ability means the class is OP, without remember that a well used dodge is there specifically for that.

I have only known thieves lacking in gear to go with a ‘glass cannon’ build. A competent thief sets up his traits and gear for the most likely situations he/she will encounter. As a thief, most glass cannon builds are easily countered.
My main is a thief. I have only lost to an elementalist once, and that was a pre-80, which was as a sPvP roamer, and I have yet to lose 1v1 to an elementalist post-80. I have won the majority of elementalist encounters on my warrior and ranger post-80. I think I may have lost three or four encounters with elementalists in all (one on my warrior and the others on my ranger out of nearly 20+/day), mainly due to ethanol/meperidine intoxication.
I recently began my journey as an elementalist (lvl 54) and have been greatly disappointed in the class’s burst and survivability in pve and pvp compared to my thief, warrior and ranger. Even my lvl 21 guardian does more damage with a higher survivability rate in comparison to what my elementalist was capable of at a similar level.
I feel that the elementalist class definitely needs some attention from the devs. Playing an elementalist has been far less enjoyable than any other class I’ve played thus far.

Elementalists are squishy without Toughness which means u have to focus on dodging a lot, mine’s based on Power/Prec/Tough, which is pretty useful when it comes to damage taken. I use D/D for fast cast rate with the fire CD time reducer trait. Every atunnement can help you avoiding damage. Use your weapon skills wisely, think about cooldowns and dodging damage, use AoEs and stick around hem. Sometimes its better to know your opponents class skills/traits to give you an advantage to deal with, I suggest you play every class even if they’re level1 on sPvP, to know you’re enemies skills better.

“Lowest defense and low DPS: Elementalists are forced to combo in order to output as much damage as another profession (as a result of them having 20 skills available via attunement swapping); the time it takes to swap attunements, execute skills, and wait for their animations results in attack patterns that necessarily take longer than other professions just to equal their damage output hence Elementalists’ low DPS.”

This. And don’t forget we pretty much have to be in meele range…

There is something missing about the elementalist class that I can’t put my finger on. Here are some of my views:

1. I don’t like the fact that we are forced to do these “combos” to execute damage. It feels like a “one-shoot macro” from WoW. I know that an elementalist is meant to change between attunements, but the motivation should be only because we want to. These “combos” are forcing us to.

2. Our #1 skills are so boring (mostly for staff). For me there is nothing funner than sneakly casting a fireball from a far and hitting my opponnent for maxium damage. I hate these weak 1/2-sec. cast-fireballs, that don’t seem to make a difference and do not feel special at all (specially if you have auto-cast enabled)…it looks like I’m playing volleyball while I’m moving. I know this game promotes movement, but I also think there’s such a thing as too much movement or too fast-paced; I love when I get the cast off on my warrior’s rifle for F1. I though hard-casting was suppose to be implemented into the game where the longer you hold the cast, the more damage you do (that’s what I heard from some of the demos). The constant movement is cool, but sometimes I wish I could just cast my long fireball…I’ll move when someone shoots an arrow at me or something. This one is a complicated one for me, and haven’t decided 100% how I feel about it yet.

3. The attunements don’t seem to make a difference (may be wrong on this). I thought you were suppose to have extra armor while attuned to earth, more healing while in water…etc, without having to trait into it. I think they tried this by giving you a buff for 10 sec. or something, which is kinda lame; the buff should remain.

4. The fact that everyone can do ranged damage puts us at a disadvantage because of low-armor. I know this game isn’t exactly based on kitting (I haven’t really seen it fuction too well), but this reminds me of mage vs hunter in wow, were the hunter gets to do meele dmg as range so you can’t avoid it, but this time all classes can do it…

5. Let us swap wep., just not in combat…we do it anyway. For example, if I’m running d/d, but there’s a large group of people I just go to my hero tab and change to my staff before getting into combat and then change back when I’m out of combat.

I may start a new threat expressing these concerns, or not…idk. I’mjust trying to improve a game I really like, never cared enough about other games to post something like this.

juanitobgoode.1079:

I don’t like the fact that we are forced to do these “combos” to execute damage.

Except that’s EXACTLY what the staff is all about. Combos and Attunement Swapping. Your heal is weak without the combo and strong with it. Your burning may be weak, but the rapid firing ranger using your fire fields does a bucket of damage with it.

Even your auto attack skills have secondary effects that make them useful depending on the situation. You should swap attunments all the time, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Mono-attunement is Guild Wars 1 (ancient history).

The staff is a support weapon, which deals 25% or so of its damage through combos. And when you learn how to utilize them properly, you’ll blaze through enemies liek they weren’t there.

Like how Eruption+Evasive Arcane+Arcane Blast+Lava Font create 9 stacks of might…that’s how the staff was designed.

ThiBash

Even your auto attack skills have secondary effects that make them useful depending on the situation. You should swap attunments all the time, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Mono-attunement is Guild Wars 1 (ancient history).

Actually half of the auto attack skills have no secondary effect whatsoever making them little more than filler skills with different coloured particle effects.

Also, our traits are apparently designed WITH mono-attunement in mind. Which is the entire problem. We have Traits that reward you for being in one attunement on a class that’s forced to constantly rotate said attunements to be effective. Essentially devaluing your trait points.

Ele is a sad sad excuse for a class right now. The idea is sound and there’s potential for it to work. But the execution is terrible and I’m sick of waiting for Anet to do anything about it.

one of the things that bothered me with elementalist is that its aoe effect damage only hit 5 ppl maximum while other profession have aoe damage skills that can do more damage and hit more ppl at once

I started out with thief and then an elementalist. I found myself in trouble trying to keep up with the learning curve. I had initially thought that elementalist is a high dps class and went cannon build. I later found out that most the direct damage skills are in fire. But the cast time of fire 1 is horrible and made it hard for me to kite. So I eventually swapped to lightning and I am able to kite 3 or more mobs at least. But it is still extremely dangerous since one stun from the mob and I-am-dead-again.

Naturally, I gave up and went on to try guardian. I was so pleased with the survivability and range of a staff guardian. Even the elite of tomb of wrath is pretty impressive. But what I learnt most is the effects of boons and all the 15 mights that can be cast upon with staff 4. I went on to do research about elementalist and decided to combine my knowledge to respec into a DD boon achiever. Sure, it requires more complex attunements and key shifting just to achieve a full 15 might (if the final blast of churning earth pulls off, that is) as compared to a single channel of staff 5 from guardian (yea it’s channel, but with 4s block from focus, it’s easy to pull off). But all in all, I became pleased with my Elementalist. She now has perma shared Fury, Swiftness and always maintained at least 12mights to make up for her loss in precision and power since I’m using 0 10 0 30 30.

I haven’t fought in pvp so I cannot complain or compare if it is indeed underpowered or not. But my one and only problem is that in DD, there is really little skills that can hit objects that requires range. I found myself having to swap weapon from inventory before every encounter in dungeons. I kill things fast using DD but when it comes to having to kill trap statues in AC, I had to run out of battles just to swap to staff before swapping back to dagger again before entering another mob fight.

I have no solution for this sadly. If we’re allowed to swap weapons, we would be having 40 skills in total and that’s hardly fair either. I can only suggest that they balance some of the skill ranges a little. Say, Earth 1 should theoretically be able to spike out of walls as well, so long as it is still within 50 melee range, and skills like breath and water projectiles should point towards the target’s angle instead of roaming about ground level.

I’ll chime in here even though I’m not 80 on my elementalist and only been playing about a month on my own account (my friend tricked me into getting this game by letting me play his warrior… why in the world I rolled a ranger is beyond me! And to make it worse I made an elementalist next!).

The problems with this game have more to do with Warriors and Guardians being too good in PvE, and Guardians and Thieves being too good in PvP with Warriors thrown into the mix when you factor in WvW.

If stealth worked properly, guardians were focused more in single target damage and group support, and warrior damage was actually put in check when you consider their 20k+ life in berserkers things wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the elementalist.

The problem I have is while some of the tree traits aren’t necessarily bad, they aren’t nearly as good as arcane is which makes arcane almost a mandatory 30 point investment. This is something no one wants. The other probelm is when you do invest in a true glass cannon build, it doesn’t net you much increased damage over the support builds.

But the skill selection seems strong and a lot of the traits aren’t really that bad so it shouldn’t take much to actually fix this class. At least compared to the Ranger and Engineer who simply don’t work at their very core, have absolutely crap trees, and 75% of their skills are 100% useless.

Elementalists are clearly in the middle of the pack and it’s a shame that Thieves, Guardians, and Warriors are so clearly overpowered as them staying so far ahead is realy what makes this class feel so far behind.

d/d elementaist with

30 in arcane 30 water and 10 in thoughness is awesome nice survability and nice dmg

but it would be nice to see other good viable specs ( staff i use for WvW zergs but more like 1 v 1 or 2v1 fights against me to survive like i do in this d/d spec)

Atherakhia.4086:

Thieves, Guardians, and Warriors are so clearly overpowered as them staying so far ahead is realy what makes this class feel so far behind.

Guardians are not op at all just l2p. They have very bad mobility, no range dps just kite them or run.

Warrior is indeed the best pve class for farming trash mobs due to the 1 skill 100b. But its boring as hell. Warrior skills are super simple and easily readable by opponents in PVP.

If you dont like Eles attunement swapping and skill combinations, then Warrior is probably the right profession for you!

But dont except Warrior to be both a great tank and damage dealer. You have to decide which way to go like every other profession. Glass canon warrior is squishy like everyone else.

Few more defense and hitpoints is barely noticeable.

All i hear is D/D this S/D that and with that specific build you don’t suck. I want to play with my staff, is there anyone here that claims ele is not an underpowered class if you choose to play with a staff?

beeh.5134:

Atherakhia.4086:

Thieves, Guardians, and Warriors are so clearly overpowered as them staying so far ahead is realy what makes this class feel so far behind.

Guardians are not op at all just l2p. They have very bad mobility, no range dps just kite them or run.

It’s not a L2P argument. Just because you play a guardian and you don’t want it nerfed doesn’t change the simple fact that it, along with the thief and warrior, are simply overpowered in this game.

I mean we can all sit here and pretend that the Warrior’s single condition remover somehow keeps it balanced in PvP and yet 9 out of 10 players will list it in the top 3 classes in this game.

Necro forum is that way →

If you don’t know what I mean; look at the little red numbers right of the post’s text.

i want to see A-Net show us how to play the elementalist since " The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional" and not do the same old predictable combo that anyone who has played pvp for a while can avoid….

I am D/D open field and Staff in a siege. I can break a siege with my staff….

Moral of the story, use the appropriate weapon for the appropriate situation.

My first character to 80 was a Warrior. I thought I had it made. I cleared through PvE no problem. Farming was stupid easy. It just felt a little… boring. Then one day in WvW my group of around 6-7 people kept getting obliterated by one pesky elementalist. I didn’t even see what weapons he used he moved around so quickly and escaped so easily. I had to know what he was doing and that’s when I found daphoenix’s D/D guide. It’s ruined all other classes for me. The sheer versatility is amazing. We are not meant for burst dps. We are not meant for tanking or healing. We are meant for all of the above.

Granted I still use my warrior for farming but that is all he’s good for anymore.

Warrior only seems better because you can achieve a similar result with less work. If your average player is somewhat bad, and you’re comparing a bad Warrior with a bad Elementalist, the Warrior will likely do better. However, a good Elementalist can bring just as much, if not more, to the table as a good Warrior (in Dungeon runs, and especially tPvP).

Maybe ele isn’t the right class for u, but eles are not underpowered at all our commander in wvsw is very very strong against all classes. check out his stream if you need help with ele.
http://www.youtube.com/user/JetstormTV?feature=watch

I wonder.. JUST WONDERING. If it would be any good to have elemental/ magical attack and defense aspects to this game. Meaning magical attacks will somehow penetrate certain % of non-magical character. Making warriors extremely strong in physical aspect but weak in magical. And elementalist and other scholarly classes stronger in magical, weaker in physical. So they sort of counter each other. Rangers, engineers and thieves might have different thresholds of these. Guardians probably mediocre in both attacks but strong in both difference.

Of course, I’m just thinking out loud as it would dramatically change the whole game play and might kitten even more people off :P.

Would probably make things too difficult. Because then we’ll see people asking for specific school resists, and then slashing against light armor, bludgeon against medium, piercing against heavy etc.

That said, Shadowbane probably had one of the best PvP systems of any modern day MMO I’ve ever played and they pulled it off very well.

selan.8354:

Maybe ele isn’t the right class for u, but eles are not underpowered at all our commander in wvsw is very very strong against all classes. check out his stream if you need help with ele.
http://www.youtube.com/user/JetstormTV?feature=watch

Your commander is using another tank build…..being limited to a single playstyle is UP to me

It seems that eles are completely balanced then! Many that play them say they are UP, and many that play against them think they are OP.

:D

In the right hands, eles can be extraordinary with staff, scepter, focus, or dagger.