Guild Wars 2

Okay, I play a power necro as my main so I am no stranger to uphill battles or broken mechanics, but now that I’ve started to take my elementalist alt into sPvP, I understand why people say the class is UP. It’s crazy how much effort you have to put in just to get mediocre results back. I dance through all four attunements for a full minute and use all three utilities… only to do less damage then a thief pumps out in three buttons (steal, C&D, backstab) and a mesmer in two (phantasmal berserker/duelist)

Using D/D, it feels to me that no matter what I do or how I spec, the damage just isn’t there, so I have switched to a tankier build just to feel like I’m not hurting my team.

Can anyone give me some recommendations on traits + utilities? Right now I’ve gone 0/10/10/20/30 since that seems to be the most useful, but some of the descriptions on the traits are incredibly vague, so I’m not sure if I should be taking them or not. I assume the run bonuses for wielding a dagger mainhand doesn’t stack with swiftness? It doesn’t for necro

Finally, are any of the conjure weapons worth it? I’ve tried making use of all of them briefly, but the only ones that seem semi-decent to me are the Magnetic Shield and Flame Axe, and this if only running a condition spec, for the extra burning on the #3 4 5 abilities… everything else is ho hum, not to mention how summoning a weapon locks you out of all your other skills.

Anyway, the class has the potential to be very fun in pvp and I’m sure it is already powerful in hands much more capable than mine, but wow — the effort involved is intimidating!

If light bulbs existed in the Guild Wars 2 universe, IMO it would take an elementalist seven attunement swaps, mist form, arcane blast, and a greater earth elemental to change it

Welcome to the club. The profession is mediocre and overly complex by design.

On the upside, it’s fun to play.

Can anyone give me some recommendations on traits + utilities? Right now I’ve gone 0/10/10/20/30 since that seems to be the most useful, but some of the descriptions on the traits are incredibly vague, so I’m not sure if I should be taking them or not. I assume the run bonuses for wielding a dagger mainhand doesn’t stack with swiftness?

That is also the breakdown I’m using, though I do WvW much more than sPvP.

Don’t take Windborne Dagger. It’s broken. Imo glance at our (very) long list of bugs before choosing traits. There are still plenty of good ones in Arcane but some of them don’t work or only work on about half of the skills they’re supposed to, lol. (But no, speed bonuses don’t stack.)

As for conjures, Frost Bow 5 is amazing for taking down the treb. Extra vuln from 2 isn’t bad, and the chill from 3 can last quite long if shot from point blank.

Can you put a HARD on there? I’m always like T_T when I see a Guardian tanking and healing himself without even sweating while I’m jumping, dodging and attuning and, hell, confusing my own fingers on the keyboard just to end up dead and he getting out almost full hp..

The good news, after playing an elementalist well everything else will seem like easy mode =P It’s been my main character and I’ve learned to use it rather well in PvE. In PvP, well…I still play it, but I am not a good PvPer to begin with…In PvE I usually run Staff with a 20/20/10/10/10 build (I prefer to stick to the background when possible). I do great in dungeons since team usually can keep most monsters from getting in my face. In PvE like orr, I can usually handle mobs of 1-4 with staff (but usually die and then rally myself for mobs of 3+). I haven’t learned daggers enough to comment though.

Some of the problem with ele frustration is trying to force a role. People say “I want to solo gank people and get the kill no matter what.” Or they say “I want to tank against three and stay in the circle.” Sure, these things are possible, but there are other classes designed to fill those extreme roles.

Elementalist is about versatility. Middle-of-the-road strategies can actually work as ele, and this is something that few classes have ever been able to do in mmo pvp. When its time to pwn, you can put out moderate damage with frequent control. When things are iffy, you can support allies in a significant way. When things get bad, you can escape the situation and move to another point. Nobody will say, “thank god for that ele,” but your contribution is huge if you play smart.

Killing blows are for other classes. Outlast is for other classes. If you believe that there is nothing fun outside those two categories, then there are other classes you will have more fun with. Never underestimate the power of shenanigans.

BioMasterZap.4350:

The good news, after playing an elementalist well everything else will seem like easy mode =P

This is absolute truth. I switched to thief and god theres a dif in dps AND survivability. In pve i can tank 4 same lvl mobs rather easy. And aoe… lol what aoe… sword/pistol and im doing aoe dps of a full exotic ele at lvl 50 already.
In wvw its same. AMAZING survivability. I can actually force people to disengage (need better equipment to make kills certain) if not outright kill em. If im in trouble… leme just say i rarely die :p

Gavoll.9085:

Some of the problem with ele frustration is trying to force a role. People say “I want to solo gank people and get the kill no matter what.” Or they say “I want to tank against three and stay in the circle.” Sure, these things are possible, but there are other classes designed to fill those extreme roles.

Extreme roles? lol 1vs1 is extreme role? Not dying instantly (in inquest gear) to a passing thief is extreme role?

Support ele will not die to a “passing thief” if they are played semi-decently. As for 1v1 against a thief… you realize that most of them pretty much design their build to kill you 1v1 right? If you are a soft-target alone, then you are exactly the right target for most thieves. If they couldn’t kill you 1v1, it would make them cry and switch classes.

And yes, I think that designing a class specifically for 1v1 fighting is choosing a very specific role, and probably sacrificing a lot of other uses for the ele class. If I encounter a thief I say, “come on little buddy lets go for a walk” and I drag him toward my teamates.

If your spec is so glass cannon that all thieves are instapwning you, then take solace in the fact that they are doing the exact same thing to each other. Which thief wins? The one that opens first.

Valk’s Ammy/zerks jewel, Lightning Flash, Signet of Earth, Cleansing Fire. 2x runes of the monk, water, and earth. 0/10/0/30/30 taking Evasive Arcana and Zephyr’s Boon.

You should have no problems in 1v1s. You do fine sustained DPS with spike potential through Churning Earth and Fire Grab. Signet of Earth was used prior to this latest patch to land Fire Grabs, so you might be better of with Arcane Wave now.

I manhandle most Thieves, and only rarely die to them anymore. Usually in teamfights when CDs are down, and I’m focused on other things.

As i said.. full inquest like gear (combined dungeon/karma gear for same stats) and thief kills me in 2s flat before i realise im even beeing attacked by thief. I rolled thief now and knowing how thief plays and its dps i still dont see how to survive that burst. Sure if he fails miserably hitting his skills i got a chance since he’ll be starved of points… but this isnt a discussion about dumb thiefs.

And fyi all prof should be able to 1vs1… else its a fail balance. Buff to d/d clearly shows its intended to fight that way as well.

it’s an mmo bond, if you’re in a 1v1 you’re doing it wrong.

You guys are definitely doing it wrong. I dont play ele but Ive foughten alot of them, and Ive seen them bunker and become near unkillable, support and be kitten amazing, and go glass cannon burst and have thief like burst yet still have incredible survivability to outlast being melted. I honestly think you guys should look around, there is a ele in game I played with a few times named cranberry vodka, he is good, pm him.

Dante probably get ban. Worst troll ever.

“it’s an mmo bond, if you’re in a 1v1 you’re doing it wrong.”
Worst excuse ever. They might as well delete all but guardian and ele than.

Played my wife’s 80 Engineer yesterday. Wow! Talk about easy mode! Rifle Burst is awesome! Turret belt kits, turret overcharge shots, and turret detonate AoE was almost instagibbing Orr mobs. It was surreal. Her gear is terrible, and not optimized at all. Stats are all over the place, and her build is pretty strange.

And it was like someone had flipped the “Easy” switch in the game. I was almost bored it was so simple just facerolling the zone. I still got killed by a Champion that I accidentally ran into, but wow…

I actually never believed it when people said other classes had a lower skill floor than Elementalist until then.

funny i always thought it was the other way around. the times i came upon good elementalist as a necromancer im amazed at the amount of buffs they have the healing they bring and the boons they bring the tankiness and the 2 uninteruptable stomps i could be wrong but it seems to me both that earth armor and the wind mode cant be interupted at least not as a necromancer in downstate

some of em can do amazing burst dps too and they seem to be in a lot of guild teams.

i don’t say the class is easy i think its about compareable to a necro wich isnt easy to play also in comparison to a thief or a warrior, but they seem to have a lot more going for them a lot more mobility and are in general more wanted then necromancers in pvp who bring tankiness and broken ai pets and some sub standard melee capability and 100s of bugs but hey that could be just me also.. i’m gonna try to play one tomorrow for a bit and keep you updated on my findings.

Well I’m trying necromancer now, as elementalist, and boy do I miss my skills.
Whenever I’m low hp and used my heal I keep searching for water attunement but I don’t have it. When I want to escape I keep hitting ride the lightning, but it’s gone.
Whenever I get pinned down by multiple mobs I want my mist form.
Necromancer seems harder!

Bond.4813:

“it’s an mmo bond, if you’re in a 1v1 you’re doing it wrong.”
Worst excuse ever. They might as well delete all but guardian and ele than.

Lol. But he does have a point Bond. One has to wonder why the game has no 1v1 option like duel availalbe. It certainly appears each of the professions have some glaring weaknesses which are exposed when 1v1 with at least one other profession.

I for one don’t expect the devs to have created the ele profession to be everything. Everything would be:
1) 1v1 on par with every other class
2) aoe dps leader
3) party healing leader
4) tank
5) single target dps leader
6) crowd control specialist
7) combo fields and finishers for party boons and mob effects
8) burst dps leader
9) condition dps leader
10) the list goes on
11) ranged aoe dps leader
12) ranged single target dps leader
13) the list goes on

However, players have done a pretty good job of scoring well in all of these catagories with the seemingly endless variety of builds they have created. To simply dismiss a class because they may not be on par 1v1 with every other profession’s possible build is ridiculous. That ignores every other aspect of the elemental profession’s contribution to the game.

A glasscannon thief has more survivability than a toughness specced ele. It’s really sad.

Fireball for example, has the lowest dps of any auto attack in the game, apart from other elementalist auto attacks heh.

For fireball to be competitive, it would have to be cast at 1/2s instead of 1s, or do +100% damage, it is half as efficient as it should be to be useful. Imagine your warrior, or ranger, and cut his damage in half, that’s where elementalists are at, except their health and armor are also cut in half.

Necromancer doesn’t even come close to being as useless and underpowered as elementalist. It really irks me because I looked forward so much to playing this profession.. I started out as an elementalist and I thought the game was supposed to be hard, but then I played other professions and saw how useless elementalists really are.

Elementalists are underpowered to such an extent, that they will never be fixed.. nothing the devs will ever consider will place elementalists on par, since they will never increase elementalist damage enough for them to be as good as other professions.

In fact I’m quite sure that the devs think elementalist damage is good as it is, otherwise they would have adjusted their damage already in the weekly updates. Why they think that having the lowest armor, the lowest health and the lowest dps all combined in one profession, is a good thing, I’ll never know.

The profession descriptions talks about “doing massive damage in a single attack”.. even though except necros, no other profession has both such low sustained dps and such low burst damage, as elementalist. But at least necros have other strong points to offset that, elementalist does not.

Other than rp there is no reason to play this profession, and lord knows I tried.. I made five elementalists between other professions, before I finally gave up.

Baladir.2736:

Lol. But he does have a point Bond. One has to wonder why the game has no 1v1 option like duel availalbe. It certainly appears each of the professions have some glaring weaknesses which are exposed when 1v1 with at least one other profession.

I for one don’t expect the devs to have created the ele profession to be everything. Everything would be:
1) 1v1 on par with every other class
2) aoe dps leader
3) party healing leader
4) tank
5) single target dps leader
6) crowd control specialist
7) combo fields and finishers for party boons and mob effects
8) burst dps leader
9) condition dps leader
10) the list goes on
11) ranged aoe dps leader
12) ranged single target dps leader
13) the list goes on

However, players have done a pretty good job of scoring well in all of these catagories with the seemingly endless variety of builds they have created. To simply dismiss a class because they may not be on par 1v1 with every other profession’s possible build is ridiculous. That ignores every other aspect of the elemental profession’s contribution to the game.

No he does not. He’s implying there is no 1v1 in mmo. I see 1vs1 in wvw constantly, it keeps happening in spvp as well. There isnt a single game in spvp that doesnt have 1vs1 happening (yes, i am claiming pvp exists outside zergs). The fact that he claims thief exists for 1vs1 contradicts his statement completly. And lets not forget that this “1vs1 thief” has pretty good ranged aoe as well.

Baladir.2736:

I for one don’t expect the devs to have created the ele profession to be everything. Everything would be:
1) 1v1 on par with every other class
2) aoe dps leader
3) party healing leader
4) tank
5) single target dps leader
6) crowd control specialist
7) combo fields and finishers for party boons and mob effects
8) burst dps leader
9) condition dps leader
10) the list goes on
11) ranged aoe dps leader
12) ranged single target dps leader
13) the list goes on

However, players have done a pretty good job of scoring well in all of these catagories with the seemingly endless variety of builds they have created.

Hmm, I think this actually may be the ele’s central problem. Anet seems to have been going for the “jack of all trades, master of none” design with the elementalist, but unfortunately it seems that the “master of none” part is really crippling the class in a PvP environment that is ruled by either extreme burst or extreme bunkering.

We have access to 4 attunements and 20 weapon skills by default, more than any other profession. In theory, this gives us extreme versatility and the flexibility to handle any situation. In practice however, most of the skills seem like they’ve been undertuned and as a result it takes a lot of keyboard spamming (read: 4x the effort) to do anything worthwhile.

I wish speccing heavy into Fire would make you a “Fire Elementalist” so to speak, significantly increasing DPS and burst capabilities at the cost of healing power and survivability. Maybe they could make it so you couldn’t even attune to Water if you went 30 into Fire for the Grandmaster trait. And the same would be true if you wanted better heals — Water cancelling out Fire. This would make the way you build your character much more tailored to your specific play style, while reducing the amount of skill spam.

Atm, it seems that no matter how you spec, you have to either constantly swap between attunements or go home. Kind of limiting IMO, and much more demanding out of the player

And this is without even getting into the Conjured Weapons, which add even MORE semi-useful abilities to be summoned midfight

Hey, at least the Rangers get a Dev to come on their forums and post that they are going to get some love to further increase their damage!

My main character is an ELE, right now she’s lvl 27 and I think it was pretty easy to play. I don’t know about the higher levels, pvp and wvw, but i’m doing fine by now (soloing 2~3 monster sometimes).

BTW, I only use staff and I think I will try scepter + dagger to use in PvE.