Guild Wars 2

Zelyhn.8069:

It’s called theorycrafting because it sounds cool, but the real name for it is “meauring the white numbers that pop on your screen”

And sometimes we do a bit of “huge would these white numbers be if I changed this little thing here”

Theories don’t take into account the actual behavior of certain skills, which makes them effectively useless in real world scenario. A theory is to be as guide, but not actually take the place of real world test IF it is feasible and it is feasible to test that; it is just that a lot of people like yourself choose not to or are afraid to.

Nonono, theorycrafting is just the modelling of what happens in game. Efficient TC reflects everything, from feasibility to server bugs.

>Theories don’t take into account

Theories take, hypothesis dont, but the stuff presented so far by the gw2 thorycrafters community are not even close to hypothesis… its almost pure fantasy.

Fortus.6175:

mshinga.6540:

To be honest ice never really felt that Ele was kitten but then I’ve never played eek quite the sane way as I have other classes so I cannot make a good comparison. I keep reading that zerk warriors can do much more dmg than a comparable Ele. My eek can hit for over 5k and I’m not running zerk, what is it a warrior can do that so badly dwarfs that?

well, try this; a warrior hit 43k damage with One Hundred Blades on CoF first boss, thats at lvl 75, one skill, if by any chance you can top that with only one skill, on about the same cooldown, please show us. Heck, even Meteor shower on 3 times the CD cant hit that hard even if most of the meteors landed…

I’m not going to pretend i know anything about an elementalist other than i saw one build that did more damage than anyother class(thats not the point of anything im about to say, nor do i remember the person). BUT the dungeon is level 75, but that doesnt mean the warrior was, and even if he was he would have to be full zerker with a high crit chance, also he would have to be buffed immensely which is probably what happened considering you said CoF. If you are not familiar with most zerker warriors when they do CoF they generally run with other zerker warriors and one mesmer. what this does is they run one banner to each of them, and let the mesmer use time warp. thats 300 power, (150 from banner and 150 from a trait warriors have if any of them had it just speculation) 150 precision, and 150 for the other banners but they aren’t much for dps. They also all run “For great Justice!” If your not familiar with this skills it gives 3 stacks of might and fury. so thats 12 stacks of fury plus whatever the mesmer can give. with full zerker gear, and banner buffs. ALL of that makes 40K hundred blades incredibly easy to achieve, I’ve heard of 60K before. It’s not OP, its teamwork. Massive stacking of damage buffs on a build thats made for damage. if you didnt do more damage it would be redundant. Again i dont know anything about elementalist but i am familiar with warrior and 40K isnt impressive in CoF.

Zelyhn.8069:

snip

I’m gonna break this down so we’re sure we’re on the same page.

LH ele, 0/25/20/20/0: Bolt to the Heart, Serrated Stones, Vital Striking, Piercing Shards
Full berserker with Scholar Runes
Sigil of Slaying
Sigil of Night
Empower Allies
Banner of Discipline
Banner of Strength
Potion of Slaying
25 Bloodlust
Bowl of Sweet & Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
Signet of Fire
25 Might
25 Vuln
Fury

Unscaled base DPS: 461.7
Scaled buffed DPS: 14941.2

For comparison, 30/20/10/10/0 Fire Staff: Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Alacrity, Persisting Flames, Bolt to the Heart, Stone Splinters, Vital Striking
Full Berserker, Scholars, Ascended Staff
Sigil of Slaying
Empower Allies
Banner of Discipline
Banner of Strength
Potion of Slaying
25 Perception
Bowl of Sweet & Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
Signet of Fire
25 Might
25 Vuln
Fury

Unscaled base DPS: 544
Scaled buffed DPS: 15871
With your unscaled base DPS number of 523, scaled buffed DPS: 15252

So there’s something screwy going on somewhere with one of us. And honestly I think it’s you cause 16.7k on LH seems really high given LH’s relatively low base damage.

Nice, this is what I was looking for, thanks for taking the time to do this!

I do not have my spreadsheet available right now, but I will check tomorrow.

I notice that you have not included stone splinters for LH, is it just an omission while typing?

Zelyhn.8069:

Nice, this is what I was looking for, thanks for taking the time to do this!

I do not have my spreadsheet available right now, but I will check tomorrow.

I notice that you have not included stone splinters for LH, is it just an omission while typing?

Yeah, just a typo.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Karazul.2934:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Karazul.2934:

Elementalists are good for PvE, but so is every other profession. Some of them are too good though.

Like the elementalist?

There are better professions out there that brings more to the group.

Go ahead and name one then.

Warrior with banners + FGJ + Empower Allies.

Guardians and Mesmers in fractals.

I plugged that LH build in your spreadsheet with the appropriate buffs and I got 16k5 dps

Edit: you should check the gear tab of your spreadsheet, it is a it oudated

Ele is fine.

For PvE, play a LH Ele or Max-DPS Staff Ele if you want super DPS.

If you want something more survivable or less mind-numbing, play a Fresh Air Dagger/Focus DPS build.

CMstorm.8679:

Elementalist might be able to top that using Bolt to the Heart, Ember’s Might/Burning Rage, Stone Splinters, Shard of Ice+Piercing Shards lightning flash +arcane wave or churning earth with a brutal zerker build.

Some many skills at so little time. Plus all the cds until u use them again. Warriors have hundred blades every 6 seconds.

Dreysman.2087:

Or is it just trolls trolling the forums

That. Trolls gunna troll hehe.
Quite doable with dps. If they had heavier armor, everyone would be crying OP! But when you suck up all the aggro, find yourself down, you already know you have a downed skill to get you out and back up, then your cool-downs are ready by then, so you dump more quick nuke-like DPS to get more aggro.

Zelyhn.8069:

From June 25th patch:

Lava Font: Reduced the cast time from .36 seconds to .2 seconds. Reduced the aftercast from .34 seconds to .2 seconds.

Try it ingame, you can see that the cooldown does not start until a bit after that spell has finished casting. You can estimate this time because the sort of white haze on the skill ticks after the spell is cast.

I may be wrong but, if you don’t wait for the aftercast and use Fireball yourself, it seems to interupt the aftercast and start Lava Font cooldown immediately

For pve, fresh air 30/30/0/0/10 to get some basic survivability. For pvp, wait for meta change.

Yopaye.9053:

Zelyhn.8069:

From June 25th patch:

Lava Font: Reduced the cast time from .36 seconds to .2 seconds. Reduced the aftercast from .34 seconds to .2 seconds.

Try it ingame, you can see that the cooldown does not start until a bit after that spell has finished casting. You can estimate this time because the sort of white haze on the skill ticks after the spell is cast.

I may be wrong but, if you don’t wait for the aftercast and use Fireball yourself, it seems to interupt the aftercast and start Lava Font cooldown immediately

It could be true. In fact Sabull has showed me that there are many weird little things with casting mechanics. There might be some server-client issues as well.

Kodiak.3281:

Or are you just trying to strawman one aspect of game play that was intended to be solo’d in an attempt to justify playing solo in another aspect of game play that wasn’t designed to be played solo?

so if 1vs1 is not supposed to happen, what if you want to reach your precious cuddling zerg when first logging in the game and you have to lonely travel from WP to zerg and you find a bad bad unattended really unforeseeable event like….meeting an enemy on the war field?
Will you pm him “hey, this is not supposed to happen!”, “this is not what the game was designed for!!!”.
Maybe it works.

Grevender.9235:

you find a bad bad unattended really unforeseeable event like….meeting an enemy on the war field?
Will you pm him “hey, this is not supposed to happen!”, “this is not what the game was designed for!!!”.
Maybe it works.

You’ve just made my day m8, thanks

Or Kodiak would yell something along the lines of:
Let me join my zerg the way I want!
Don’t impose a fight on me!
Let’s wave our arms around and pretend to fight, no one can tell we are dealing no damage to each other anyway!

Grevender.9235:

so if 1vs1 is not supposed to happen, what if you want to reach your precious cuddling zerg when first logging in the game and you have to lonely travel from WP to zerg and you find a bad bad unattended really unforeseeable event like….meeting an enemy on the war field?
Will you pm him “hey, this is not supposed to happen!”, “this is not what the game was designed for!!!”.
Maybe it works.

If I ran into someone 1v1 I’d more than likely end up dead cause I usually run around with a staff on and most 1vX roamers are usually geared/spec’d for 1vX encounters. However this pretty much rarely happens (but still does) because on the top tier servers of the game we actually care about winning and doing well and 1vX contributes almost nothing to that.

I suppose it’s better than the alternative of crying about how there’s a whole world sized Zerg in World vs World while simultaneously boohooing about how we’re unbalanced in 1v1 in WvW even though there’s already a huge number of baked in unbalancing factors (gear quality, food/consumables, wvw bonuses, prebuffs such as bloodlust stacks, etc etc etc) which can lead to countless different outcomes. You’d think any person of intelligence would attempt to grade balance entirely off of a clean environment like SPvP where everyone already knows we lack instead of attempting to claim imbalance in an environment that promotes imbalance by default.

Zelyhn.8069:

Or Kodiak would yell something along the lines of:
Let me join my zerg the way I want!
Don’t impose a fight on me!
Let’s wave our arms around and pretend to fight, no one can tell we are dealing no damage to each other anyway!

1/10 effort.

haviz.1340:

For pve, fresh air 30/30/0/0/10 to get some basic survivability. For pvp, wait for meta change.

I’ve settled into 30-10-30-xx-xx. I never use earth though, I just use it to trait enhance fire and grab some more toughness. Then gear and weapons with power + fill in the rest such as with more CD, vitality and/or accuracy, various gear. I do a lot of temples with it (commander on), world bosses, some dungeons, possibly fractals soon. Use staff, scepter, focus, FGS, glyph of storms, fire ele’s. Good stuff! Oh don’t forget the fire imp pet heh molten gauntlets, Asure in T3 cultural (transmuted exo), flame & wrath colors with those recent dragon wings and then destroyer weapons. Look good while fighting good

Zelyhn.8069:

Or Kodiak would yell something along the lines of:
Let me join my zerg the way I want!
Don’t impose a fight on me!
Let’s wave our arms around and pretend to fight, no one can tell we are dealing no damage to each other anyway!

You will probably try to LH him to death right? Or use FGS. then be shocked once you get stream rolled and wonder but I thought the ele had the highest dps

Grevender.9235:

so if 1vs1 is not supposed to happen, what if you want to reach your precious cuddling zerg when first logging in the game and you have to lonely travel from WP to zerg and you find a bad bad unattended really unforeseeable event like….meeting an enemy on the war field?
Will you pm him “hey, this is not supposed to happen!”, “this is not what the game was designed for!!!”.
Maybe it works.

The fact that it happens doesn’t mean the game needs to be balanced around that fact.

Would you like it if they nerfed all your precious warriors skills because a few players can solo Lupicus? Or half your damage because with all buffs you can get, you can deal a 5digit number on a non-moving mob?

Then why do you insist on making all balance around 1v1 duels when most of PvP (and most of PvE too) revolves around group fighting?

And yeah, if I make a group-optimal build, I’ll likely go down when fighting a player that has optimized for single targets. That’s like saying the police are weak because the firemen can put out fires so much better than they can.

The good d/d elementalist i know in wvw seem to do fine against anything except Necromancers (we all know how broken they are though, this isn’t a testament to how bad d/d ele is) and perplexity spammers. I see them winning otherwise and being very good in team play too though. Maybe the complainers are just bad but to be fair some of the eles i know are some of the best in game. But I do admit, necros are broken and perplexity simply needs to just be removed from the game.

ThiBash.5634:

Grevender.9235:

so if 1vs1 is not supposed to happen, what if you want to reach your precious cuddling zerg when first logging in the game and you have to lonely travel from WP to zerg and you find a bad bad unattended really unforeseeable event like….meeting an enemy on the war field?
Will you pm him “hey, this is not supposed to happen!”, “this is not what the game was designed for!!!”.
Maybe it works.

The fact that it happens doesn’t mean the game needs to be balanced around that fact.

Would you like it if they nerfed all your precious warriors skills because a few players can solo Lupicus? Or half your damage because with all buffs you can get, you can deal a 5digit number on a non-moving mob?

Then why do you insist on making all balance around 1v1 duels when most of PvP (and most of PvE too) revolves around group fighting?

And yeah, if I make a group-optimal build, I’ll likely go down when fighting a player that has optimized for single targets. That’s like saying the police are weak because the firemen can put out fires so much better than they can.

I’m okay with a Warrior nerf.

Saying that “most of PvE revolves around group fighting” is absurd. PvE content is sometimes easier when done with a partner or a group, but it is predominantly designed to be completable alone. I explained my logic for individual balance in WvW and PvP on the previous page of this thread.

Imagi.4561:

Saying that “most of PvE revolves around group fighting” is absurd.

Is it really that absurd? Granted, questing and hearts is mostly solo stuff. However, the tougher open world content (world bosses and Living Story stuff) is made for groups. And that’s where balance really comes into play. The story stuff everyone pretty much agrees doesn’t matter what you do, it’s head-into-keyboard-easy.

ThiBash.5634:

Imagi.4561:

Saying that “most of PvE revolves around group fighting” is absurd.

Is it really that absurd? Granted, questing and hearts is mostly solo stuff. However, the tougher open world content (world bosses and Living Story stuff) is made for groups. And that’s where balance really comes into play. The story stuff everyone pretty much agrees doesn’t matter what you do, it’s head-into-keyboard-easy.

In my opinion, yes, it is. Group events and dungeons are the only PvE content that is designed with group dynamics in mind. Altogether, there are 255 group events, and 26 dungeon paths.

Everything else, from regular events to map completion, is designed with the individual player in mind. That’s about 1,526 events, 301 hearts, 487 waypoints, 647 points of interest, 189 skill points, and 226 vistas that are all soloable. For argument’s sake, I left out holiday events, Lion’s Arch events, meta events, and the map completion from the four WvW maps.

I’m not saying that group balance should be disregarded, by any means. But individual balance is a crucial part of the game, and I’m not sure why anyone is arguing that it isn’t.

The first rule of the forums is that you NEVER listen to the forums. These people dont know what they’re talking about 90% of the time. The only thing i’d suggest is trying it and if you like it, play it. Yes bunker ele doesn’t have as much dps as a warrior but it has a kittenload more aoe heals and team support & survivability.

Inverted.7439:

The first rule of the forums is that you NEVER listen to the forums. These people dont know what they’re talking about 90% of the time. The only thing i’d suggest is trying it and if you like it, play it. Yes bunker ele doesn’t have as much dps as a warrior but it has a kittenload more aoe heals and team support & survivability.

I’ll follow your advice and won’t listen to you then

silvermember.8941:

You will probably try to LH him to death right? Or use FGS. then be shocked once you get stream rolled and wonder but I thought the ele had the highest dps

Before you make fun of someone that theorycrafts pve make sure he’s complete pvp noob.

When discussing the ele, remember to state if you mainly use yours for pve,spvp or wvw.

As far as spvp, i dont know and i dont care

As for PvE, the last time i was in fractals, i was kicking kitten with my dnd setup

As for WvW, the Rank abilities, i.e. Fortitude/Pow etc + Food buffs + top gear + DnD makes the ele fun. As i say again, its not easy to fight 3v1 anymore on a dnd ele. ’

So for WvW, a few tweaks(buffs) to RTL , mistform and signets would the very least they could do

Ele is weak guys. You ele Apologists need to give it a rest. I’m not even going to get into wvw or pvp. I just started the game up again three weeks ago. It took me about three weeks to level the Ele up to 80 because she just sucked so kitten hard at PVE.

Then I rolled a Mesmer and had no issues levelling up. Mobs couldn’t touch me, whereas with Ele I had to rally and rally and rally and teleport to waypoint and get my armor fixed. Then I rolled a Ranger, oh so easy with a pet tanking for me! Then I tried a guardian, I didn’t even need to dodge, I as tanking it like a champ all by myself!

There alone you already see how sucky the Ele is.

She has her place supporting all the better classes with her staff in parties and dungeons but other than that all the other classes have it sooooo much easier.

Mochann.5298:

Ele is weak guys. You ele Apologists need to give it a rest. I’m not even going to get into wvw or pvp. I just started the game up again three weeks ago. It took me about three weeks to level the Ele up to 80 because she just sucked so kitten hard at PVE.

Then I rolled a Mesmer and had no issues levelling up. Mobs couldn’t touch me, whereas with Ele I had to rally and rally and rally and teleport to waypoint and get my armor fixed. Then I rolled a Ranger, oh so easy with a pet tanking for me! Then I tried a guardian, I didn’t even need to dodge, I as tanking it like a champ all by myself!

There alone you already see how sucky the Ele is.

She has her place supporting all the better classes with her staff in parties and dungeons but other than that all the other classes have it sooooo much easier.

Sorry to disappoint you, but if you had any trouble levelling an Elementalist, you’re just playing it wrong. And that’s the obvious proof of why Elementalist can’t be played by everyone, therefore why it probably looks so strong in the DEVs eyes, because of most Ele community being at least decent players…

A decent player can make even the crappiest class seem good. Yeah I can take on 4-10 people on my ele, that’s all well and good. But I can take on those same 10 people on any other class and kill them 4 times faster and with far less effort. That’s what you people saying that ele is fine don’t seem to grasp. Yeah it’s ok in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, but that can be said of any class. It doesn’t change the fact that ele is still weak in comparison to other classes.

Mochann.5298:

She has her place supporting all the better classes with her staff in parties and dungeons but other than that all the other classes have it sooooo much easier.

That’s your problem, you are trying to support in a dungeon. That doesn’t always work so well. Even a mesmer isn’t going to support so well if going for DPS like mine does at times. Same with guards, I’m doing less support outside of DPS and some heals for melees standing next to me. Sometimes support is useful, but not really the main mechanic of this game.

Your personal experience with leveling is of no concern to me, some stand by mesmer being the hardest to level. In the case of leveling, it doesn’t really matter one bit. it’s just a matter of which litter of kittens you are massacring in this game to level. I know for a fact that at times leveling my ele I was killing kittens +10 levels over my eles level, though that is pointless since -5 will level you much faster than anything and with any class and build. This game isn’t that complicated.

Nikkinella.8254:

It doesn’t change the fact that ele is still weak in comparison to other classes.

And I play all those other classes, and I still just don’t agree. Ask the world boss obsessed with killing off my fire ele, he dissagrees too. If what you are saying is true, then the other 30 people attacking something they have attacked 100’s of times before, well they must be that bad? Doubt it. And I have all the other classes to compare.

Maybe people are confusing difficulty or DPS with solo vs group play? If I want the best solo I pull out my warrior and use zerker or soldier gear. The same for my stealth thief, really nice solo ability. Ele I run in groups. But then I’m not really much enthusiastic about solo gaming. Plus with my build, I need to play close, so I’m not missing out on the group buffs you or others playing the ele are missing out on.

Like last night, I ran my warrior in invasions. Straight up my fire ele does better, delivering far-far more DPS. Why? because my warrior was disabled half the time lol. My ele at range delivering uncontested devastating nukes.

I prefer to solo everything. I rarely group with anyone. And in that regard ele IS extremely weak compared to other classes. And If your warrior is disabled half the time, you have a bad build and aren’t doing it right.

Ele is god for solo, what is this conversation even on about.

The class is a “jack of all trade” so its not supposed to be a class that you look on the battlefield and thing oh my gawd its an ELEMENTSLIST!"

Nikkinella.8254:

I prefer to solo everything. I rarely group with anyone. And in that regard ele IS extremely weak compared to other classes. And If your warrior is disabled half the time, you have a bad build and aren’t doing it right.

There were others in the same boat. You only have so much stability and the fights last long. Unless you are talking a rifle or bow, which imo is not an acceptable way to play warrior as primary.

Yeah solo, roll something else… like a broken ranger hehe. This is an “mmo” game after all. Players make the best pets and freedom to build big aggro to be downed by. Sometimes, once in a while, I even need to back off from DPS a little, to try to match aggro with someone else so my ele isn’t the boss favorite all the time. Awesome when it’s all zerker warriors keeping him busy, so there is always at least one zerker warrior doing heavy aggro so I can more safely trail behind.
__________________

So there is your answer, OP. I agree that ele is not the best class to solo with. I only solo my ele if I’m crossing a map to a group event. Ele has no broken pet to tank, doesn’t have huge amounts of armor like a warrior… or even guard in comparison. No turrets to attack everything but your target, no minions to dog pile a mob, no transparent doppelgangers, no perma-stealth. You are just bringing raw power to a group fight in most cases, you do best if someone else attacks first. So it’s not “bad”, just a class some people are better off not playing. If you tank it out for solo, you are sacrificing some really nice DPS, where DPS/Pwr is king in this game. I never rolled my ele for anything other than a group DPS class. Some go with water/healer, and well more power to them… but too is a group oriented build.

Daywolf.2630:

Some go with water/healer, and well more power to them… but too is a group oriented build.

I run 20 earth, 20 water, 30 arcane with an eye to support. If I slap on berserker armor I have no problem soloing efficiently in PvE. It might not be WTfast but I also can recover from overpulls with ease. Don’t forget, you benefit from all of the group buffs yourself.

To the person struggling, it took me awhile to get the “hang” of ele in PvE when I first started playing. Once I did though, it’s fine. Glyph of Storms in earth is a great survivability tool, especially w/ D/D imo.