Guild Wars 2

There. I said it.

9/8/2013 edit – Here we are, nine months later. Elementalists have gotten worse and worse and nothing’s been done about it.

Nine months later and I still believe elementalists aren’t hard to play. Hell, I find it very hard to understand that there are still elementalists at 80 being poor examples of their profession.

I’ll give Anet this – they made the class more challenging by making us far too weak to compete.

Shocking suggestion!

It’s true they aren’t that hard, but they’re still harder than most professions.

Yeah compaired to a standard mmo mage type they really aren’t hard at all, i mean in Rift on my mage i had full bars of stuff to manage (it really wasn’t a macro friendly class/build).

However as Hekmatyar states, in this game they’re harder to play than nearly all other classes just because there is more to manage – but it’s a case of really easy (other classes) VS just easy (elementalist) .

MajorMelchett.6042:

Yeah compaired to a standard mmo mage type they really aren’t hard at all, i mean in Rift on my mage i had full bars of stuff to manage (it really wasn’t a macro friendly class/build).

It is quite silly to think that the amount of skills is proportional to the difficulty of a profession.

Great. I kept going through the forums, seeing all the posts of “wtf ele’s are for pros”

No. Just no.

I think it’s mostly mechanical and less of being smart. I mean, you have to be smart for each class. Ele’s are the same, just requires a little bit more on the mechanical side as opposed to others, due to having to attunement dance to stay up to par.

I think most people who say that, are looking at daphoenix’s videos and think that you have to play like him to be effective.

I think for me the issue was that the class was so squishy in comparison.
A lot of times i was left trying to figure out what happened. Thats not really different than a lot of other games but its just that in this game the ele is lowest on the straight up defense chart.

Makes it hard to learn the combo that are needed to live.

i played a theurgist in daoc a long time ago. I played it like crap but in comparison the ele is considerably easier just due to more effective spells and less options. There is also the bountiful training available in GW2. mists and full level 80 in spvp.
i can see what the ele is capable of very quickly… at least more quickly…

I think Azunai is just trolling.

Dedalus.3065:

MajorMelchett.6042:

Yeah compaired to a standard mmo mage type they really aren’t hard at all, i mean in Rift on my mage i had full bars of stuff to manage (it really wasn’t a macro friendly class/build).

It is quite silly to think that the amount of skills is proportional to the difficulty of a profession.

Thank you. Someone finally said it.

I picked this class up and did well, no problems with using it. Sure, it’s a bit glassy, but nothing vitality and some toughness couldn’t fix. After doing so well with it in sPVP and WvWvW from the get-go, I’m baffled with conflicting statements from the forums and my experiences with the class.

Azunai.5974:

I picked this class up and did well, no problems with using it. Sure, it’s a bit glassy, but nothing vitality and some toughness couldn’t fix. After doing so well with it in sPVP and WvWvW from the get-go, I’m baffled with conflicting statements from the forums and my experiences with the class.

All that means is that you’re an above average player. If you don’t think Ele is hard, you won’t think any other class in the game is either. Comparatively speaking, Ele has one of the highest skill caps in this game.

Kudos to you for being a good player. Doesn’t mean it’s an easy class to play for the average player.

Life isn’t hard to live.

I actually find the Ele easier to play than other professions. I can’t imagine not having four Attunements. I guess the class just ‘clicks’ with me but I find I die more often on my Necro than I do my Ele.
I’m far from a master but I’m always in the top 3 In Spvp with my Ele, I just love the class.

I kinda agree with Autumn, I find Elementalists easier to play then most others. Recently started playing a theif and a warrior as an alt and i find them harder to play then Elementalist. Yeah I find Theif harder to play than Elementalist, get that.

People are all like “where got freakin’ FOUR TIMES the skills the others have, we’re freakin’ Einsteins for being able to play”
I’m like “Whaaat?!?!?!?!?! O_o”

First of, it’s still 1-5 skill points while using f1-4 to change the skill, but the skills still remain in the same spot. Now if it was 1-16 then ye, it would be hard but now – no.

Second of all Elementalist got the ability to make several diffrent combos to play while all the other proffesions are locked down to a very limited amount. On my Elementalists I got combos for almost every situation while the other proffesion has to chose 1 or 2. Tank, heal, damage, sneaky, speedy and so on and on. We Ele’s got em’ all.

Calle has a point actually. With my Thief is much more tricky to land that C&D on a decent moving player and reposition for a stealth skill (when two AOE damaging skills can down me); instead with my Ele I do an extremely adaptable rotation and when things get too much, just switch to water, cleansing wave, dodge (EA cleansing wave) and maybe cone of cold and back to full HP again (not taking into account RTL and other escape or control manouvers). You have to manage more things, but you’re safer doing so (IF properly specced, sadly).

Elementalists have the highest difficulty cap and learning curve steepness.

Other professions may be hard to learn too, but not as difficult to master as the Elementalist imho.

People have trouble playing eles.
Eles can be played well.
Ele is hard to play for those people, maybe not you or me but for many it apparently is.

I think its more about the higher skill cap. Not necessarily harder, but your mastery of the class is just more apparent. Of course these days you just have to find the right skill combos on the forums :p

The skills aren’t that hard too learn though, since many have similar function. ex. on d/d, air 2, water 2, fire 2 all have similar range and angle, water 2 and earth 3 are both an pbaoe snare, fire 3, earth 3, air 4 are gap closers.

Azunai.5974:

There. I said it.

Have you tried playing a thief?

Elementalist so far for me is the most frustrating class, I cannot even contemplate taking on the numbers of mobs I can take on my thief or warrior. The damage sucks and they have very poor survivabiity…unless of course you nerf your damage into the ground, and even then they’re not great.

pricer.5091:

Elementalist so far for me is the most frustrating class, I cannot even contemplate taking on the numbers of mobs I can take on my thief or warrior. The damage sucks and they have very poor survivabiity…unless of course you nerf your damage into the ground, and even then they’re not great.

Sounds like you’re using D/D. Try Scepter/Dagger for open world PvE. MUCH higher damage and survivability.

Dedalus.3065:

MajorMelchett.6042:

Yeah compaired to a standard mmo mage type they really aren’t hard at all, i mean in Rift on my mage i had full bars of stuff to manage (it really wasn’t a macro friendly class/build).

It is quite silly to think that the amount of skills is proportional to the difficulty of a profession.

You should have tried Defilemancer before Storm Legion was released (haven’t played much since so don’t know how mage specs are now in Rift). There was no rotation, just a priority system for dot management and cast time reducing procs. With full BiS gear it was the best possible DPS spec if played perfectly (by quite a small margin). If you were not one of the top 5 Mages in the world you could not do it (myself I could not quite master it, though I did do quite well). An example using an older spec (sc/ele before nerf) I did 3x the dps of one our mages who had better gear with both of us using the same spec. For averagely skilled players a rogue or warrior would do vastly more damage with 1/5th of the effort and keybinds.

The number of skills you actively use and how they have to be used play a large role in determining the difficulty of a given class.

The difference is not quite so pronounced in this game but it is still there. The effort required to play an ele well is a lot higher than to play a warrior (I have no experience with thieves so can’t say for them). My warrior I can pull everything in sight and not worry about anything at all while my ele has quite a tough time if I pull more than 4-5 mobs.

Hard to play? With practice not really.

Harder than other classes? Yes by far.

pricer.5091:

Elementalist so far for me is the most frustrating class, I cannot even contemplate taking on the numbers of mobs I can take on my thief or warrior. The damage sucks and they have very poor survivabiity…unless of course you nerf your damage into the ground, and even then they’re not great.

Ha ha ha. That was good for a laugh any D/D ele in the standard build can survive better than just about any other class. The most mobs I have fought at once is 10. The most vets 4 taking supply camps solo. Its not that tricky.

TheGuy.3568:

Ha ha ha. That was good for a laugh any D/D ele in the standard build can survive better than just about any other class. The most mobs I have fought at once is 10. The most vets 4 taking supply camps solo. Its not that tricky.

Well, I dont PvP as I dont like it…but what I’m saying is that in PVE (currently 66 and very bored with it), levelling is nowhere near as easy on this character. So 3 or more undead of the same level as me and it’s pretty much game over. I just don’t have the capacity to do the damage required before the mobs roll me over. And yes I’m attunement switching and using what CC there is. And it’s also about speed…so lets assume you are a much better elementalist player than I am, there is no way on the planet you can go through the mobs quicker on your elementalist than I can on my thief. Fact. Therefore…levelling an elementalist is slower than levelling a thief. And as I have a warrior too, I can definitely say with confidence that the same goes for a warrior. And this appears to be true all the way from level 1 up to level 80.

If I wanted to spend 10 minutes kiting mobs around, then yes I am sure it is possible…but its as boring as hell.

it bothers me that I hear about warriors doing 30k crits…but the most an ele can get, and it’s not easy to do, and you have to be spec’d just right…is like…11k…yet ele’s get kittened on weapon swapping, and kittened on armor…and apparently kittened on damage as well.

that just doesn’t seem right.

pricer.5091:

TheGuy.3568:

Ha ha ha. That was good for a laugh any D/D ele in the standard build can survive better than just about any other class. The most mobs I have fought at once is 10. The most vets 4 taking supply camps solo. Its not that tricky.

Well, I dont PvP as I dont like it…but what I’m saying is that in PVE (currently 66 and very bored with it), levelling is nowhere near as easy on this character. So 3 or more undead of the same level as me and it’s pretty much game over. I just don’t have the capacity to do the damage required before the mobs roll me over. And yes I’m attunement switching and using what CC there is. And it’s also about speed…so lets assume you are a much better elementalist player than I am, there is no way on the planet you can go through the mobs quicker on your elementalist than I can on my thief. Fact. Therefore…levelling an elementalist is slower than levelling a thief. And as I have a warrior too, I can definitely say with confidence that the same goes for a warrior. And this appears to be true all the way from level 1 up to level 80.

If I wanted to spend 10 minutes kiting mobs around, then yes I am sure it is possible…but its as boring as hell.

First off read my sig 80 ele and have been one for months. Second the stats on my gear are in accessible at your level so there’s that. You judge by how fast you can drop a mob. I get that. What you fail to understand is that every skill I have is aoe. So I don’t fight one mob at a time. While its true vs one mob a thief will do more dps than me but anything more than 3 and its a reversal because I’ll be clearing more mobs faster.

Now here’s my guess. Your playing ele glass and you want to pew pew like the big boy classes. Well guess what that’s a recipe for disaster. Ele plays best when you learn how to kite and dps all at the same time and when you balance your stats.

Without knowing your weapon set i cant give you a lick of advice except gear better. the reason for that is D/D D/F S/F S/D and Staff have vastly different play styles.

I really wish guys like you would read the numerous post that come up and explain that your doing it wrong, Warrior is simple beyond simple high health high armor straight forward attacks your not the first person to complain warriors kill faster. Thief stealth nuff said. These class are easy. Ele is too with time but it still requires more work.

BTW in WvW you play with PvE stats so taking a camp is a PvE experience as you are literally facing the AI. Now the 4 vets there all hit hard 2 are ranged and blind the other 2 knock down and stun. Its basically a test of know the class how it plays and your gear.

3 tips to help you I would listen but you don’t have to

1. Leveling is a joke pick up a craft and hit 80. Leveling is boring by its nature most players like me once you have funds craft alts to 80 if they like the play style its significantly faster and relatively cheap.

2. For D/D air 4->5 fire 3->4->5 Earth 4->5 do this and most mobs are done. (note you should have some stacks of might after pulling this off)

3. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tanky-DPS-Elementalist-Videos-11-21-12/first (I dont actually use this build exactly but its in the same vein.)

Read its months ago and never looked back. Ele in the right hands solos champions plus there vet adds and can pretty much 1 v 10 any regular mobs.

Last thing if you don’t like the play style or feel its too hard quit. I don’t say that with the kitteny bullkitten you hear nowadays on forums. If you don’t like the class don’t play it. The goal is to have fun not be frustrated. If you find ele to be a chore and constantly compare it to classes you like more and then come and kitten here not only are you doing your self a disservice but us as well.

Lat little bit if you still want to play the class I suggest at your level going half carrion half cleric. It should significantly take the pressure off surviving multiple mobs if your build has any form of survival (earth water arcane) built into it.

Oh no, I LIKE the class. I’m definitely going to take it to 80, it is a frustrating levelling experience though sometimes for sure. I’ll see how I feel about it at 80, because as you say…its a different ballpark once you have full exotics. It was on the thief too….

pricer.5091:

Oh no, I LIKE the class. I’m definitely going to take it to 80, it is a frustrating levelling experience though sometimes for sure. I’ll see how I feel about it at 80, because as you say…its a different ballpark once you have full exotics. It was on the thief too….

Hmm, I used to feel that way and then when I hit level 30, I just thought “kitten it” and went for tons of vitality. Never looked back. Being able to solo a huge mob with a d/d elementalist is the greatest feeling. Hell, if you attunement dance well, you can actually solo certain champs and their veteran aids. Building tanky instead of for damage is AMAZING.

Even more exciting, Ele goes through these power boosts – hitting 60 a couple days ago and got 30 in arcana, and now I am far far more stronger. I’m even able to go into WvWvW and blitz a small zerg, disrupt it for about 6 seconds, and then escape while my allies close in for the kill. I love this class, it’s so… Rambo-like, you know? I can actually roam around on my own or with a partner specced for damage and be able to take supply camps and flags on our own.

I’m now level 68 and am extremely excited about hitting level 80 soon. I can’t begin to imagine what I can do with exotics. I feel like God when I play an elementalist.

I think people may find ele awkard due to the nature of our skills and weapons which causes the frustration. Also the building may not be the most intuitive – I’m sure people would look at the videos of skilled d/d players and think they are power based, putting points into fire/air for the damage and not realizing the emphasis on survivability.

Also scepter could do with some work… I know it’s useable and you can certainly take down mobs with it, but the damage in water and dragons tooth’s timing could use some refinement. I have hung up my daggers to learn scepter better, hopefully the next patch helps this a little and we will see more S/D players instead of so many d/d or staff support.

I love my elementalist (also playing something close to the tank D/D spec linked above), but I will admit that sometimes I’m in a tired and lazy gamer mood and load up my warrior alt. I can do almost anything I want with my elementalist, but it’s a pretty active playstyle and the warrior works just fine with very little effort.

Most of the time I prefer the elementalist. I just find it more fun to play.

TheGuy.3568:

Hard to play? With practice not really.

Harder than other classes? Yes by far.

pricer.5091:

Elementalist so far for me is the most frustrating class, I cannot even contemplate taking on the numbers of mobs I can take on my thief or warrior. The damage sucks and they have very poor survivabiity…unless of course you nerf your damage into the ground, and even then they’re not great.

Ha ha ha. That was good for a laugh any D/D ele in the standard build can survive better than just about any other class. The most mobs I have fought at once is 10. The most vets 4 taking supply camps solo. Its not that tricky.

Properly played in PvE, a Mesmer can do the exact same thing, if not more mobs. It is possible to be completely untouched in PvE as a Mesmer if you know what you’re doing. Different builds are required for different mob situations though, you can not use the same build you use for melee enemies against things that just keep you targeted with ranged, in that regard the Ele is maybe better if you can do it all in one build.

That said, my view of PvP is that every class is both easy and difficult. What I mean is that anyone can learn good 1v1 tactics for their class and stick to them, true skill comes into play when things go awry and you have to improvise. So, in that regard, if you can improvise difficult fights with whatever class you enjoy, you are good. Some classes that come off as easy for 1v1 have a much more difficult time dealing with different scenarios, whereas some classes are not great in duels, but can handle multiple threats better.

My point is, pinpoint what any given class struggles with and work on getting better in those scenarios, that is how you truly become good at a class. Just like in real life, maybe a sports team dominates another team using a certain type of playbook, but then they struggle with a seemingly weaker team’s scheme. You have to get better at your weaknesses.

I do not believe Ele is more difficult or more skill-based just because of attunement swapping. Heck, WoW was not a complex game, but any class you play there is managing more skills than anything in GW2. The number of buttons you potentially have to press has little bearing on things at the end of the day. Because then you could just say playing the piano takes more talent and skill than being a drummer, for example, or the drummer could say “well I have to keep time with my band and I have to manage the sticks, so drumming takes more skill!”, but neither is actually true.

ashleydoll.8563:

Properly played in PvE, a Mesmer can do the exact same thing, if not more mobs. It is possible to be completely untouched in PvE as a Mesmer if you know what you’re doing. Different builds are required for different mob situations though, you can not use the same build you use for melee enemies against things that just keep you targeted with ranged, in that regard the Ele is maybe better if you can do it all in one build.

I do not believe Ele is more difficult or more skill-based just because of attunement swapping. Heck, WoW was not a complex game, but any class you play there is managing more skills than anything in GW2. The number of buttons you potentially have to press has little bearing on things at the end of the day. Because then you could just say playing the piano takes more talent and skill than being a drummer, for example, or the drummer could say “well I have to keep time with my band and I have to manage the sticks, so drumming takes more skill!”, but neither is actually true.

I have had this convo before with a thief. Yes other classes can 1 v 10 mobs. Mesmer aoe shatter staff whatever is simply less spread out than my own. Combine that with the way ele stacks might in such a quick fashion that our big hits actually hit big. So yes mesmer can but like I have said time and time again its just not as efficient as ele aoe. Single target a properly dps speced memser should out dps me due to the length of shatter cooldowns. AoE vs multiple mobs its a pipe dream.

One more thing I quipped that to play ranger effectively actually requires me to hit one more button than ele. Ele is not difficult to play because our combos are hard to pull off or anything like that. But I honestly cant imagine a “Well my class is harder to play” discussion with anything other than an engi or ranger. Between mesmer stealth through clones and actual stealth and the same goes for thief there is an argument for the skill challenge being considerably less as you level. I will concede mesmer low level game play is rather pitiful.

So i agree attunements aren’t the skill based part its the lack of tricks or raw defense. We are literally required to know our class to play well. Its way so many new ele gets stomped by old eles. Time with the keyboard will make you realize that factually other classes have it easier to pull off simple combos we just have better upper level potential. Simply put we can do more in the long run. Overall we are more flexible and we are allowed to spec that way.

Consider a case in point. If a mesmer wants to go true support that have a few options. The main one is for mantras. The traits for reduced cd don’t really matter all that matters is for you to heal you have to have pain spam (since the trait only heals on cast pain has no cd). With a 4 1/2 second cast this has a huge window for error. If you go with phantasms granting regen its 4s every 8s and you have to be in 150m range (melee basically) of the phantasm. You could also spec for staff (to give boons).

Now for ele by attuning to water I heal my team mates (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Ripple) grant a passive regen (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soothing_Mist) and actual regen (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Attunement) even on D/D I also clear (condtions when I do this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave_ ) forget about the 2 other 2 group condition wipes I have (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave). All the while I’m on D/D (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dagger) so I can stack might for my team as well. Forget about the cc which is on the immense side. The amount of dps I sacrifice is marginal considering the coefficient on power to precision and I usually sit around 2700 attack that’s without might which is usually up and access to fury (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr%27s_Boon) for every big hitting skill I have.

My overall point is while on another class I could spec pure support or dps or tanky etc and be of use to my team and myself I could play ele do a little extra work and cover most roles and do it all AoE. Basically we need to juggle more to maximize our capabilities.

Azunai.5974
Impersonator detected! ;D
Ele is my main! goway!

strange to have someone else playing the same class with the same account name

Im Asura and you? :P

Am not going to lie, I have always played the mage class in any game I played. But I almost gave up on it its kinda hard compared to other mage’s in other game, But you know what I read you guys post and I am just going to grow a pair and learn to play it. So I thank all of you guys for posting about the class… you guys help a fellow mage player to continue on the path.. Also just got this game yesterday and loving it

I would say it takes more work just to be decent with them. From then on, it isn’t really a big deal.

I hear people say the class has the highest skill cap. I think they just have the lowest skill floor. Once you play one for a bit the nuances and extra keypresses are pretty second nature. Beyond that, improvements in skill are just a matter of strategy rather than execution, as is the case with the other classes (and in fact, as is the case in virtually any MMO pvp)

a question:
Wich other class punish you for an incorrect rotation of skills?
And also for an incorrect judgement on opponent?

If you miss your combo, you enter wrong attunement or use the wrong skill, you are cut out of your efficiency for even a minute and possibly dead…

Its not even mechanical….unless you are playing in full exo in a lvl 1 area…

That again because you NEED to adapt even in PvE (not to mention www).
Add that you need spacing perfectly and lot more inputs…

Its not impossible to play for sure, but its harder than almost any other class, and anyone playing an ele decently has no doubt about it…

Ele expecially D/D can just remember when they die and they are not oneshot, how they died……no other proof needed.

Azunai.1065:

Azunai.5974
Impersonator detected! ;D
Ele is my main! goway!

strange to have someone else playing the same class with the same account name

Im Asura and you? :P

I will find you, and I will kill you, because there can be only one.

Oh, and I’m human.

Azunai.5974:

Azunai.1065:

Azunai.5974
Impersonator detected! ;D
Ele is my main! goway!

strange to have someone else playing the same class with the same account name

Im Asura and you? :P

I will find you, and I will kill you, because there can be only one.

Oh, and I’m human.

Someone cue “WE ARE THE PRINCES OF THE UNIVEEERRRSE!!!”

Anyways OP, you’re right. Ele is not hard to play, but it does have a higher learning curve than many other professions.

/cast resurrect on thread.

Competitive PvP in WoW was and is incredibley complex, and the skill floor and cap is directly proportional to the number of abilities you’re REQUIRED to use.

What is more difficult?

Using 5 different abilities with 5 different effects?
Or only using 1 ability with same 5 effects?

The more work there is that needs to be done, the greater the chance for human error….
Hence, increased difficulty.

Don’t confuse the challenge of ‘PvP’, with the difficulty of class play, because every class from easy to not as easy, is required to learn the basics, and advance tactics of PvP.

With that said, every class needs to be more difficult, even elementalist.
I’d like every class including my favoured (ele), to have an increased skill cap and floor…

They’re relatively hard to get the hang of.

But hard? Nah.

Azunai.5974:

There. I said it.

I agree.

Elementalist is really not that hard to play. And it’s not fragile either.

In WvW and PVP, my elementalist is far tankier than my warrior, and it’s not full bunker/cleric either.

It just requires a bit more piano play from the fingers.

But once you get used to it, it’s stronger than a warrior, tankier and more sustainable and easier to do well with.

This is a computer game. No profession is really hard to play. Its a matter of practice. Some professions are faster to practice, other professions need more time to practice.

It really depends on the player whether he find practicing eles hard or easy.

What I find hard about playing an ele compared to the other professions is becoming aware of all the cooldowns. Ele has some strong skills on huge cooldowns. At the same time only 1/4 of your cooldowns are visibile. You have to remember 3/4 of your cooldowns so you dont accidentally switch to the wrong attunement.

For example: You need to interrupt your opponent in the next couple of milliseconds while being in either water or fire attunement. Now you have two options: Switch to air for backdraft or switch to earth for earthquake. Which one is ready?

Compare this to another profession, e.g. a sword/shield + hammer warrior. You are on sword/shield and need an interrupt. The decision is easy: just look at your skillbar. Use shield bash when ready, otherwise switch to hammer.

tl;dr IMO an ele is indeed harder to master than other professions due to the fact that cooldown recognition is much harder. While to the other professions 50% of their cooldowns are visible at any time, an ele has to actively recognize the cooldowns of their skills.

>Switch to air for backdraft or switch to earth for earthquake. Which one is ready?

even if both are ready still going to one attunement is better than going to the other and it depends on your other cooldowns, your current boon/hp status, your party boons/hp status and party type, your party placement, mobs placement/status etc, etc, etc… (ofc this all does not matter if you use corner/pull bugs, have 2 guardians in party or use other bugs like perma fear from event items)

Playing ele is all about maximise skill usage. Some skills like for example earthquake do dame, cc, blast – perfect usage will be to save some party member from getting killed with additionaly cc mobs for warr to easy 100b, make blast on fire or watter and finally do some medicore aoe damage.

The problems is with current terrible mobs AI many encounters are exploitable and hi-level fotm requires the party to know and exploit the bugs rather than actuall have the skill. Perfect example is dredge freactal 30+ where you pull and insta corner kill minions and then kill the boss. Its probably still possible to do it the normmal way but then you will have to be perfect… at least as elementalist.

Lavadiel.6231:

>Switch to air for backdraft or switch to earth for earthquake. Which one is ready?

even if both are ready still going to one attunement is better than going to the other and it depends on your other cooldowns, your current boon/hp status, your party boons/hp status and party type, your party placement, mobs placement/status etc, etc, etc… (ofc this all does not matter if you use corner/pull bugs, have 2 guardians in party or use other bugs like perma fear from event items)

Playing ele is all about maximise skill usage. Some skills like for example earthquake do dame, cc, blast – perfect usage will be to save some party member from getting killed with additionaly cc mobs for warr to easy 100b, make blast on fire or watter and finally do some medicore aoe damage.

The problems is with current terrible mobs AI many encounters are exploitable and hi-level fotm requires the party to know and exploit the bugs rather than actuall have the skill. Perfect example is dredge freactal 30+ where you pull and insta corner kill minions and then kill the boss. Its probably still possible to do it the normmal way but then you will have to be perfect… at least as elementalist.

ele is forced in comboing a lot in PvE….unless you just want to use your skills and do subpar damage for a tank profession while being full GC.

That means you have to hit enemies, position correctly to avoid being hit, and spam might stacks to allies at the same time.

Timing is also crucial…..when you have skills like RTL, burning speed etc etc…you risk being 1shot during the animation.

And its quite obvious this game is based on exploiting AI….by design.

Mobs are lame as hell you meet elementalists with your same skills and 10X the damage/health…..and even in a bigger number than you.

Obviously if they had a good AI they would just roflstomp any player.

>And its quite obvious this game is based on exploiting AI….by design.

its obvious that exploiting AI is current “meta” but I hope GW2 was not designed to be played like this.

If you think Elem are hard because of the numbers of skills and cooldown management, try a multikit Engineer. It’s the same issue, but with more skills.

Lavadiel.6231:

>And its quite obvious this game is based on exploiting AI….by design.

its obvious that exploiting AI is current “meta” but I hope GW2 was not designed to be played like this.

it is……
like any other mmorpg.
Seems its still early to see some sort of AI in mmorpgs…

Easy to play? Yes, sure…..once you understand how the class works, and IF you’re able to reach a point where it becomes natural to swap between all four attunements and track the cooldowns in your head, to use the ability you need when you need it, without having to stop and think about it.

To use a driving analogy: It’s like the difference between an automatic and manual transmission vehicle.

Most classes are like the automatic. Not having to worry about the clutch and shifting, and the RPM of the engine allows them to better focus on other aspects of driving, therefore increasing their overall effectiveness with the vehicle.

The elem is the manual transmission: If you’re able to master the clutch, up-shifting, down-shifting, keeping track of RPMs, etc, you can actually get just a little bit more performance out of the vehicle, even if it otherwise has identical stats to its automatic counterpart. But if you screw up, you’re going to burn the clutch, shift into the wrong gear, or shift at the wrong time or RPM, and end up worse off.

Easy to learn to reach this level of playing the elem? That’s the crux of the matter. For some this will be easy, and feels natural the entire time; from the moment they start playing the class. For others it’s not natural at all, but they can train themselves over time until it does become second nature. And for still others, it just never clicks, ever.

This is true for most classes since they all offer different playstyles, but I think the Elem profession has this problem at a higher magnitude. I think this is why you get such polarized statements like the one from the OP, while others disagree completely.

This is guild wars 2, it isn’t hard to do anything.

Eles have a little lower skill floor and take a little practice to get rolling. Any experienced player (Or even someone new to MMOs that just puts in a little time) won’t have any problem using one though.

shimmerless.4560:

TheGuy.3568:

So i agree attunements aren’t the skill based part its the lack of tricks or raw defense. We are literally required to know our class to play well. Its way so many new ele gets stomped by old eles. Time with the keyboard will make you realize that factually other classes have it easier to pull off simple combos we just have better upper level potential. Simply put we can do more in the long run. Overall we are more flexible and we are allowed to spec that way.

Consider a case in point. If a mesmer wants to go true support that have a few options. The main one is for mantras. The traits for reduced cd don’t really matter all that matters is for you to heal you have to have pain spam (since the trait only heals on cast pain has no cd). With a 4 1/2 second cast this has a huge window for error. If you go with phantasms granting regen its 4s every 8s and you have to be in 150m range (melee basically) of the phantasm. You could also spec for staff (to give boons).

How exactly is a bunch of passive traits and some skills any more demanding than dealing with phantasms that are very fragile? Most phantasms don’t spawn in range of melee, and you have to be traited (to Master no less) to get the fairly underwhelming regen in the first place.

I’m just somewhat baffled that you chose Mesmer of all classes as an example of an ‘easier’ support for your spiel. Water Attunement hands any Ele their defense on a platter, I’d say that a support Mes has their work cut out for them.

So let me get this straight. You quote a post I made months ago after several back and forth conversations with other players. Then you butcher it into 2 of 6 paragraphs and then take the whole kittening thing out of context. Ok troll I’ll bite.

If you had taken the time to read the whole kittening post you would have realized I was speaking about how ele can spec diversely and cover multiple roles vs most other classes who when they want to be something like support have to focus down certain trees limiting their overall capability in battle.

Now the first part (please learn to read) was a discussion on how hard classes are to play and as i said before on engineer and ranger (due to pet mechanics and 1 handed sword) can really engage in a “My class is more difficult to play” discussion. The other pint was that thief and mesmer due to stealth need considerably less skill to play ( I have some what recanted the statement) however my point that shatter mesmer is a simple build still still stands.

If you really read it you would have realized I was discussing mesmer’s lack of support options compared to ele.

“I’d say that a support Mes has their work cut out for them.” No kitten Sherlocke.

If you read little bit lower I point out the huge gap in support

“Now for ele by attuning to water I heal my team mates (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Ripple) grant a passive regen (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soothing_Mist) and actual regen (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Attunement) even on D/D I also clear (condtions when I do this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave_ ) forget about the 2 other 2 group condition wipes I have (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave). All the while I’m on D/D (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dagger) so I can stack might for my team as well. Forget about the cc which is on the immense side. The amount of dps I sacrifice is marginal considering the coefficient on power to precision and I usually sit around 2700 attack that’s without might which is usually up and access to fury (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr%27s_Boon) for every big hitting skill I have.

My overall point is while on another class I could spec pure support or dps or tanky etc and be of use to my team and myself I could play ele do a little extra work and cover most roles and do it all AoE. Basically we need to juggle more to maximize our capabilities."

So we done here?

Oh and BTW water attunement is meant to be our healing defense all rolled into one place it was designed that way.