Guild Wars 2

Before I begin, I should state a few caveats:
1) I have only played ele up to lvl 30 in PvE.
2) I have only engaged in sPvP, no tourneys.
3) Playing keyboard piano is no problem for me, and, honestly, it isn’t as hard as some mmos. I cut my teeth on a vanilla WoW tank; stance-dancing comes naturally to me. AoC conqueror required so much more coordination than this “most difficult” class in GW2.

I don’t understand, aside from the bug complaints, why all of the kittening about ele. My serious question is am I doing things right or am simply I missing something?

I am having zero problems with this class, other than the bugs: RTL, MG, etc. I started on ele, died a couple of times, read the forums, got angry with the rest of the QQers, switched to thief and warrior, got bored, switched back to ele, flipped to DD. Now I am having a blast. To me, all the dodging and attunement switching simply makes the class more fun. (fyi: you have to dodge to survive with a bleed build thief too.) All the extra effort it takes to play one is WHY I play one. I like the control over so many aspects of the action; I also drive standard for this reason.

Let’s talk PvE:
Perhaps I have the golden build. I run a DD build. My gear is up to date and built around Vit, Tough, and Power. I already do so much killer AoE damage that I went for the defensive stats: 10 earth, 10 water. I know that at level 80 the traited stat points are largely insignificant, but, at level 30, 100 toughness and an extra 1000 hp is nice.

I love fighting next to a warrior or some such and charging in with him. He will, of course, push 2 and swing away with 100b. While he drops his ONE mob, I will have hit Earth Armor, Fire 3, 4, Arcane Wave, Fire 2, Fire 5 before he is done. Anything left standing will get hit for bleed stacks from Geomancy sigil as I switch to Earth and tap 4, 5, 2, and Mist Form. With the burning and 12+ stacks of bleeding, everything dies, while I sit invulnerable for 3 seconds. I love watching warriors try to hit something, anything, besides their first target as everything around them dies from my AoE. I picture the player thinking, “Hey, I am supposed to be the OP class here!”

If my Earth Armor is on CD, then I just rely on my 50% health Earth Armor trait. If any of the above abilities is on CD, then I do some freeze/knockdown kiting in water and lighting – takes longer but gets the job done.

As far as survivability goes, I died way more on my warrior than my current ele. Pull too much, water 3 for freeze, teleport away, Mist Form if it is up, heal with water 5 and 2, and use Frost Armor to slow any mobs who can catch up. I am quite hard to kill. If I pulled too much on my warrior, all I could do is pray I could kill them first.

Oh, and if I need it, I have an Elemental to summon too.

In PvE, I play my ele like a Cataclysm prot war. I gather up 3-4 mobs before AoEing the hell outta everything. Otherwise, the battle seems like a waste of cooldowns.

What I am saying is, I kill almost as fast as my thief, kill more mobs at the same time, have more mobility, and survive longer. My warrior did not even compare.

It seems to me that the ele class requires the right gear, coordination, and a solid build. So did a warrior in vanilla WoW. How many would-be warriors switched to rogue then. How many would-be eles are switching to other classes here. Warrior was pimp in WoW, and, so far, ele is pimp here. Get the gear, learn to dodge, learn to dance, kill with aplomb.

PvP:
Only tried it a little in sPvP. Built a 0/10/20/20/20 spec. Ran Tough, Vit, and Power gear. Had 19000K hp. Ran DD. Used default heal, Arcane Wave, Teleport, Mist, and Elite Golem. I would charge in with the front lines. Often I would charge in alone against 2-3. While I couldn’t kill them all, I could dump all AoEs, kill one, Tele/Mist/Heal out, and survive to come back into the fight. I rarely died, and I killed what seemed to be many. In short, I had a blast. While my team did not always win, in the 10-15 games I played, I scored in the top three every time. Most often I was #2.

It was nice to have people charge at me 1v1 thinking I was an easy target only to see me dodge the charge, AoE spam, and kite them as they bled and burned to death. After a while, people would stop charging me like I was a free kill. This is not a troll: I found thieves especially easy to dodge/teleport/mist around and AoE spam down. For a noob, I think that was pretty good. I must admit, however, I learned to fear and avoid guardians. I could not kill a guardian1 on 1.

Keep in mind, I did not know the maps, had never went up against other players before, and had no underwater abilities unlocked (much to my chagrin).

Also, I used Earth 5, the slow one, often in PvP. I just led it with a well-placed Earth 4 knockdown. The smart ones usually ran rather than risk trying to get up and land an interrupt. The dumb ones died. Fast. Smart and quick-thinking ones would interrupt it. Oh well, all part of the game. After all, I can always tele/mist away if I need to.

So, am I doing things right or am I missing something?

TL:DR
Elementalist rocks!

The secret to guardians is to NOT charge them head on. They will beat you everytime if you do not learn to recognize their combos and avoid their damage. Make sure you are paying attention to when they have stability and when they don’t, and they really just become fair game that takes longer to kill, since their main heal skills have long recharges. You should really be avoiding a head on fight with anything that has substantial amounts of stability, though I’ve been considering bringing the boon removing sigil on one of my daggers.

The people who are really into ele do not think it is an inherently terrible profession. Rather, we are irritated that the amount of effort we put into our gameplay doesn’t pay off the way it does with other professions. The amount of technicality that goes into playing an elementalist far outclasses everybody else. We are irritated that two out of our five traitlines are close to useless, since your survivability will be garbage if you try to specialize in them, being that the elementalist has pretty much the lowest base defense/vitality in the game, yet doesn’t have the sheer power to even get close to making up for it.

The fact that many of our skills and traits malfunction only makes us more frustrated that we are forced into certain builds, of which there are not many. Your build (judging just by traits) is really not that far from an optimal setup in the current ele iteration, but I’m assuming (based on your post) that this had more to do with what you happened to be aiming for with your build, and not with noticing what’s wrong with elementalist traitlines.

Interesting story, care to try vs my mesmer, engineer or guardian? because the only chance i am sure you would have would be surviving my guardian without killing me if you never made a mistake, other than that i see no competition.

When people complain about the class, it’s because of one of two reasons:

1. They’re doing it wrong. I know this gets said a lot on these forums, but with Ele it’s a legit statement. There’s very much a wrong way to play the class, and knowing the right way isn’t necessarily intuitive at all. Understanding how to use combo fields to stack Might, or using an Aura build, for example, are far, FAR more complex ideas than “immobilize guy, press 2.” You really need to have an understanding of the class mechanics and a solid build to do well with an Ele, much moreso than a lot of other classes.

2. They know what they’re doing, but they don’t like having to work ten times harder for the same results. Once you understand the class, it doesn’t require a huge amount of skill, but it does require a relatively high amount of effort. In short, an Ele takes 12 cooldowns to kill something that a Warrior could have killed with 3. That doesn’t mean the class is bad, it just means you have to try harder than other people.

I think the complaint is that if you’re going to work so hard, you should get more out of it. And to a certain extent, you do, in that you get a lot more versatility out of an Ele than “easier” classes. That’s enough for those of us that enjoy a challenge, but I can understand why it’s not for a lot of people.

I’m gonna get flamed for this, but as an Ele myself we have no excuse to lose to another class 1v1.

Maybe to a very good Necro, but that’s about it.

Hahaha daharahj its getting more funny to remember ur post in my thread after watching this one XD

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Interesting story, care to try vs my mesmer, engineer or guardian? because the only chance i am sure you would have would be surviving my guardian without killing me if you never made a mistake, other than that i see no competition.

In fact, I stated that guards were the class I feared. Thank you for your heartfelt agreement. Mesmers, when I played, did not strike me as a threat. Had a few who could bail, confuse me with their images, and get away. The others whom I saw sticking around got burned and bled just the same. Engineers… Meh, they all look like thieves to me. AoE spam and Dodge just the same. Mist and run at 33% health. No need to change strategy.

When u talk about confusion it semms you are probably talking about the nerfed warlock build, no try vs an experienced mesmer with a GS, as for running away with low hp that doesnt count as a win for you mate and u couldnt run from my pistol turret build anyways, yeah turrets must be sounding weird the way i play it works though.

Infact i can go as far as saying I honestly do not remember EVER loosing to an elementalist fight in 1vs1 and ive meet some, my mesmer won them in less than 15 seconds with my mesmer having 70% hp, they were too busy trying to heal their hp back to 50% to actually deal me some damage xD

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Hahaha daharahj its getting more funny to remember ur post in my thread after watching this one XD

Your english entertains me as well.

In all seriousness, your posts only show what a bad Ele you are -if you ever played as one- coming from someone who claims that he plays 4 different classes, I find it hard to trust your judgment, or take it seriously.

We can pvp whenever, if that’s what you want.

Leuca.5732:

I’m assuming (based on your post) that this had more to do with what you happened to be aiming for with your build, and not with noticing what’s wrong with elementalist traitlines.

Yeah, I guess I can understand that IF I wanted a single-target, insta-kill spec, a la Backstab or 100B, then ele is not the way to go. For PvP, I looked at my damage and thought,“I can bleed my enemies. I can bleed ALL of them. At the same time! If only I could survive…” So I did not spec in fire for the damage bonus. Besides, I rarely stay in Fire attunement for too long. I blow those CDs first and fast. So I took 10 air for movement speed instead. I took 20 in Earth, Water, and Arcane for obvious reasons. I guess some other specs would be unviable.

Then again, don’t other classes suffer from this? For thief isn’t it Backstab, Heartseeker or go home? And I never see anything but 2-handed guardians; how boring is that? The only class I ever see much diversity in is war. They put together all kinds of weapon combos.

Daharahj.1325:

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Hahaha daharahj its getting more funny to remember ur post in my thread after watching this one XD

Your english entertains me as well.
_____________ older post
.. Same old “I played this game longer than you” card,

Are you sure that is really meant to me lol?
Am i really going to have to talk about not caring for my english sucking as long as people understand what im saying? also do i have to explain to you that not everyone who lives in europe actually has his/hers native language as English?

Whatever, Eles aren’t bad biggerthanthesun, I would take anything TheWarKeeper says with a grain of salt, it just takes practice and a good build, eventually you’ll be 1v3ing people in spvp.

biggerthanthesun.2397:

Leuca.5732:

I’m assuming (based on your post) that this had more to do with what you happened to be aiming for with your build, and not with noticing what’s wrong with elementalist traitlines.

Yeah, I guess I can understand that IF I wanted a single-target, insta-kill spec, a la Backstab or 100B, then ele is not the way to go. For PvP, I looked at my damage and thought,“I can bleed my enemies. I can bleed ALL of them. At the same time! If only I could survive…” So I did not spec in fire for the damage bonus. Besides, I rarely stay in Fire attunement for too long. I blow those CDs first and fast. So I took 10 air for movement speed instead. I took 20 in Earth, Water, and Arcane for obvious reasons. I guess some other specs would be unviable.

Then again, don’t other classes suffer from this? For thief isn’t it Backstab, Heartseeker or go home? And I never see anything but 2-handed guardians; how boring is that? The only class I ever see much diversity in is war. They put together all kinds of weapon combos.

Thief has other viable builds, that is only 1 of them, as for bleeding, if you are going to play vs a team with microphones over a tournament, you will see ur condition dissapear long before they expire, there are only 2 or maybe 3 classes with bad condition removers.

Daharahj.1325:

Whatever, Eles aren’t bad biggerthanthesun, I would take anything TheWarKeeper says with a grain of salt, it just takes practice and a good build, eventually you’ll be 1v3ing people in spvp.

Please keep them comming i love your posts! Share with us your wisdom and your epicness!

TheWarKeeper.5374:

When u talk about confusion it semms you are probably talking about the nerfed warlock build.

No, no, I mean literal confusion, in my brain, as I could not tell who the real player was. Obviously, I did not fight you then. I was drawing attention my being a noob and holding my own with this “underpowered” class. To say that one particular build played by a particular player could beat me is irrelevant. I am no pro. And, yes, to compare, my BC prot war in wow would chew through a marksman-crit build hunter. That does not, by any means, mean that hunters were underpowered. My point is that, given that I am new to the class, if the class were, in fact, underpowered, should I not have had my kitten handed to me in the zergfest that is sPvP rather repeatedly placing in the top my first night out?

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Thief has other viable builds, that is only 1 of them, as for bleeding, if you are going to play vs a team with microphones over a tournament, you will see ur condition dissapear long before they expire, there are only 2 or maybe 3 classes with bad condition removers.

Well, I burn them too. Seriously, though, point taken. Like I said, I was wondering if I had something wrong. It seemed to me that ele was a fine class. I suppose I will be enlightened in higher-end PvP.

I saw you mentioned you played bleed build thief as well (or maybe I read that wrong), but I was wondering since you said you played that and ele, how would you counter a bleed thief build as an ele since the thief just hits 5 to stealth, spam auto attack and stealth skill, and stealth heal, repeat etc (not really difficult). I watched a few bleed thieves and it takes like 5 seconds to get enough stacks on you..and its gg..at least from their videos.

RayneOfChaos.9856:

I saw you mentioned you played bleed build thief as well (or maybe I read that wrong), but I was wondering since you said you played that and ele, how would you counter a bleed thief build as an ele since the thief just hits 5 to stealth, spam auto attack and stealth skill, and stealth heal, repeat etc (not really difficult). I watched a few bleed thieves and it takes like 5 seconds to get enough stacks on you..and its gg..at least from their videos.

TBH, I never got hit by a preemptive strike by a stealthed thief. Perhaps if I did, it would be GG. However, I did fight with a few thieves. They opened with either blossom or HS. Both are easy to dodge. A smart thief, I suppose, would have auto attacked in order to waste my dodge.

As far as conditions go… You ask a good question. I just logged back into my pvp build since we are now talking specs. In fact, my build is 0/10/20/30/10, not 0/10/20/20/20, and I notice that I remove conditions when attuning to Water and when regening. And I have various ways to regen. Perhaps that is why they did not bother me. I never much thought about it.

@biggerthanthesun

Im happy you play well with your build in spvp, ive seen others too, heck ive also seen a video of 1 ele taking down 3 guys in a single fight.

Btw ive seen in spvp other eles playing really hard to win 1vs1 fights, it impressed me to see an ele win a war i even told the ele himself i was simply amazed but it all comed down to who is newb and who is not, the ele was obviously experienced and the warrior was playing like garbage, i know that because i took that ele in every single fight we had 1vs1 not only downed but also obliterrated.
The funny thing is, it was my first day playing mesmer, i was really tired as i didnt sleep for around 18 hours in that day and still managed to win every single fight vs him, if that does not tell you the class is underpowered i dont know what is.

Also by no means im calling you noob. Noob is a player who refuses to play properly even after enough period of time to know how to accomplis that. From what i can read youre not one of them.

Yeah I plan to build my Ele something like 0/20/10/30/10 with a great amount of regen but since I’m not 80 yet, it’s hard to test out how effective the regen is at condition removal. But I just keep thinking about how fast and easy a pistol/dagger bleed thief can apply bleed with just auto attacks and I’m like…Idk if regen can keep up with that. I guess I’ll just have to hope it does or at least hope it keeps up for a certain amount of time until I can do enough damage to kill them. But then again that’s where their #5 dagger offhand comes into play and they can just keep repeating stealth since auto attacks take no initiative and they can use #5 quite a bit.

@OP: You’re playing against scrubs that’s why you’re doing good. Against good players that counter/dodge your CC you’ll see no chance.

To be honest, seems like a troll post to me.

- you’ve played til lv 30 in PvE (not that that makes your opinion worthless but wait til you have to play against risen by yourself)
- you do ok at PvP (not any different to most people here, also you play a tanking build)

Maybe you should play the class longer, you might get to understand the nuances of the class that people are taking about.

Seriously though, if you have played other classes and played an elementalists with any real degree of thought, you would see some gapping holes when you have them compared to other classes.

There is some not so great things going on with our traits. Our choice of truly effective builds seems quite limited.

Anyway, good to see your enjoying the class. I love my elementalist too.

Yes you can do well on ele. But as you even said and admitted it takes more effort(which you and some other masochist actually enjoy). When the fact is, the same amount of effort put into the “easy” classes will nine times out of ten yield better results. This is the issue reasonable people have.

I have to agree with Daharahj.

My build that I came up with (yes, I came up with considering I took the time to experiment and find what suits me) is a bit of a glass cannon but I absolutely love it. 0/0/10/30/30, S/D, power/precision/crit damage w/ toughness/healing power runes in them.

The only class that I face trouble with is Necro. Why? My low base health. All the necro has to do is throw bleed on me, fear, and keep ccing until my health drains.

Although, I did have trouble killing this guardian 1v1 in wvwvw today. He couldn’t kill me either though, so it was pretty much a stalemate until a teammate came along.

I sort of agree with the OP.

Decided to give my Elementalist a concerted push after getting bored with my Mesmer at 80. It is leaps and bounds more enjoyable and effective, especially in PvE. In PvP I generally have to watch where I stick my nose and can’t zerg-dive at random as I could with my Mesmer… but even then, I feel leagues more effective.

Mesmer gets a lot of flak for being effective in PvP, but I find a lot of the conceptual and mechanical issues held me back from enjoying the class. Elementalists aren’t perfect by any means, but it feels so much more active. I never feel like dead weight for my group; if anything, I feel like the MVP. My autoattack deals just as much damage as my shatters did.

0/10/0/30/30 D/D can 1v3 scrubs all day in Spvp. That does not mean that Eles are fine. What allows us to do so well in unorganized Spvp is our insane healing rotation. Supposedly that will be getting nerfed soon. But try playing against a good player that knows how to counter your CC’s, and knows how to keep you locked down. Thats when you notice the shortfalls of the class. Or try playing tournaments.. I highly doubt you will be 1v3ing very well against good organized players.(not that you should)

Honestly right now I feel we are OP in the healing department, but WAY Underpowered when it comes to dmg. Nerf our healing and give us a couple burst abilities like warrior 100b/evis or thief PW/HS, and change some of our traits to benefit us in ALL attunements… THEN I think we would be perfectly balanced.

@Rhoto Actually that means that Eles are unbalanced, we’re too strong when it comes to sustain and too weak when it comes damage, personally I don’t see how we could ever lose a 1v1 with the right setup and kitting, we can outlast pretty much anyone except Necros, who are able to stack poison through our condition removals and can turn our boons against us.

I love tanky mages personally, but wouldn’t reject a change either, bunker Ele is a tad bit too strong atm, while dps Ele is useless and can’t compete against other classes.

TL;DR Our dps is always going to be inferior, and that’s why people complain.
At risk of feeding a troll and or being a troll.
lvl 30? You haven’t even run into most of the game yet, probably all normal speed melee enemies…
PvE is PvE. Outside of dungeons, it’ll always be easy. The monsters are just AIs, so you can kite indefinitely and survivability shouldn’t be problem. What really matters is how long it takes you to do things, because that’s what many people use to measure how “good” you are. First of all, if that war is only hitting 1 mob with his 100b, then he’s doing it horribly wrong. 100b is a point blank aoe, so he should be killing everything around him with it. In case you haven’t noticed, GS war has loads of pbaoes, and war DPS is MUCH higher.(Blade trail with max targets can be pretty godly) Why? Because they have a viable glass cannon option (and still have moderate tankiness to boot). So they have similar attack range as DD, but do much more damage= “better”. You mentioned having to ball up your enemies before fighting them or else it feels like a waste. How long does that take? That’s and extra 5-10 sec that you have to include. or so As for being better than thief, people only call OP on them in pvp… If you consider good to be how likely you are to succeed, then yeah we’re well off, but if you consider by how long it takes to succeed, then we’re fairly lacking, simply because a war hits so much higher. They also have low cooldowns so they don’t have to worry about recharge between fights…
It’s not about being more “effort” or harder, it just straight up takes long for us to kill things.
Now, its my belief that eles actually only need a few small buffs and fixes, and that wars are just OP. But if war is considered to be in a good position, then we (and a few other classes) are definitely in need of tweaks.

Pvp? You’re using a bunker build, which is one of the things we’re good at. The complaints are mostly about the lack of other viable builds. We’re well off, but people want more working variety. Now that our downstate is much better, I don’t there will be as much complaining about it.

Oh and the site description is a lie.

Agreed with OP. I don’t care about the amount of effort. The effort pays off with the amount of AoE damage, boons, and healing/condition removal we can bring on a given build.

I burst down any toughness no HP build pretty fast, unless it’s a straight up bunker. Fire Grab is hitting more often, so I’ve been taking Arcane Wave over Signet of Earth lately, and it’s just made the burst that much more potent. RTL > Updraft > Shocking Aura > Burning Speed > Ring of Fire > Arcane Wave > Fire Grab can nearly kill Thieves, Warriors, and Rangers with no problem. They will be dead once I hit Earth. Often end 1v1s, and some 2v1s, with full HP.

I still firmly believe that, aside from the bugs, the complaints come from people either not seeing the big picture (everything we can bring to a team), or build/L2P issues.

I run 0/10/0/30/30 D/D Heal Auramancer. 14k HP, 2500 armor, 600-700 healing power. I do absolutely fine in any scenario. People can only dodge two of your CCs, and using stuff like Lightning Flash or Magnetic Grasp/RTL first can stop a lot of that. Delaying your CC against a skilled opponent who dodges as soon as you RTL, or breaks your Mag Grasp, can still net you the CC. It’s about playing intelligently. Shocking Aura auto-procs in melee range, and I’ve never, ever, been kited effectively.

If I run into an Engi packing tons of knockback, I swap to Tornado before engaging and cancel it immediately. Not a problem. Rangers? I can remove 5 conditions instantly, or blink out of Entangle, or just AoE the roots. Again, they aren’t a problem.

No, I can’t kill any good bunker without backup, but not many classes can.

Animosity.5231:

Agreed with OP. I don’t care about the amount of effort. The effort pays off with the amount of AoE damage, boons, and healing/condition removal we can bring on a given build.

I burst down any toughness no HP build pretty fast, unless it’s a straight up bunker. Fire Grab is hitting more often, so I’ve been taking Arcane Wave over Signet of Earth lately, and it’s just made the burst that much more potent. RTL > Updraft > Shocking Aura > Burning Speed > Ring of Fire > Arcane Wave > Fire Grab can nearly kill Thieves, Warriors, and Rangers with no problem. They will be dead once I hit Earth. Often end 1v1s, and some 2v1s, with full HP.

I still firmly believe that, aside from the bugs, the complaints come from people either not seeing the big picture (everything we can bring to a team), or build/L2P issues.

Again this only works against complete noobs who don’t know how to dodge or use defensive skills. So congrats you can have a chance against noobish players with your ele. Against good players neither of those skills in your looooooong combo will hit.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Animosity.5231:

Agreed with OP. I don’t care about the amount of effort. The effort pays off with the amount of AoE damage, boons, and healing/condition removal we can bring on a given build.

I burst down any toughness no HP build pretty fast, unless it’s a straight up bunker. Fire Grab is hitting more often, so I’ve been taking Arcane Wave over Signet of Earth lately, and it’s just made the burst that much more potent. RTL > Updraft > Shocking Aura > Burning Speed > Ring of Fire > Arcane Wave > Fire Grab can nearly kill Thieves, Warriors, and Rangers with no problem. They will be dead once I hit Earth. Often end 1v1s, and some 2v1s, with full HP.

I still firmly believe that, aside from the bugs, the complaints come from people either not seeing the big picture (everything we can bring to a team), or build/L2P issues.

Again this only works against complete noobs who don’t know how to dodge or use defensive skills. So congrats you can have a chance against noobish players with your ele. Against good players neither of those skills in your looooooong combo will hit.

On my d/d ele killed 5 times in a row a champion shadow, trashed in 10s a r30+ engy,guardian and champion illusionist and these are simply what I can remember right now…ha of course I’m talking about tournaments

Rhoto.8791:

0/10/0/30/30 D/D can 1v3 scrubs all day in Spvp. That does not mean that Eles are fine. What allows us to do so well in unorganized Spvp is our insane healing rotation. Supposedly that will be getting nerfed soon. But try playing against a good player that knows how to counter your CC’s, and knows how to keep you locked down. Thats when you notice the shortfalls of the class. Or try playing tournaments.. I highly doubt you will be 1v3ing very well against good organized players.(not that you should)

Honestly right now I feel we are OP in the healing department, but WAY Underpowered when it comes to dmg. Nerf our healing and give us a couple burst abilities like warrior 100b/evis or thief PW/HS, and change some of our traits to benefit us in ALL attunements… THEN I think we would be perfectly balanced.

I can win without huge problems against any class at tournaments levels in 1vs1 situations, I have simply learnt to recognize and avoid the biggest threats coming from other professions.

I see no reason for people asking on an healing nerf for a 1k healing amount every 10s min, if as ele you are not able to stack might-protection boons…than that’s your fault.

I dunno you guys build but my d/d ele eat 60-70% HP of any class after 6s while being extremely durable thx to all the boons on me.

When using staff I can hold off 2-3 people ( using not bunker build) while still being able to escape if necessary and in team fight the staff is equally devastating:

-eruption followed by frozen ground for frost armour boon on allies or followed by lava font for might boon
-unsteady ground/static field + meteor storm +lava font + eruption
…so many possibilities, as ele you’ve got no excuse to lose 1vs1 against any profession and you don’t need bunker build to do that

Aether McLoud.1975:

You think rank has anything to do with skill. /golfclap. Also no video = it didn’t happen.

Once was using a s/f build for testing, it was an hybrid between condition and bunker , used it against a thief (champion slayer ) and ranger, both used their elite…and both lost.

Lol haters appeared after that saying my opponents were noobs that’s why I won, the problem is not that the enemy need to be noob to win as ele, who use the ele need to improve

I enjoy Ele because I have a short attention span and Ele has a lot going on to keep my mind occupied. I feel like falling asleep playing any other class, so I get bored of them VERY quickly.
I always felt very powerful leveling as well, but the better people have become at dealing with Ele’s tricks the harder it is to beat them. I am finding more often of late that I need to switch specs and stratagies frequently to keep them on their toes as well.

Don’t ever focus so much on one weapon set and/or spec that you lose touch with the others or you will see yourself fall behind very quickly.

If you are playing an ele tank build, it is one of the most fun build in the whole game. I had 1v1 or 1v2 with really great pvp. Fights which lasted really long, where you have to use everything you have, until a high dps class did down you in seconds even with your high defence values.

You need time to down your opponent, time which you dont have in many situations.

Did you play a dmg build aswell already, condition or/and power ? If you do, compare the surviveability with other glass cannon builds and you will notice probably something.

You say your build rocks…..in comparison to what ?

Elementalists DO rock unless you compair it to the rest of the professions avalible, ignorence is bliss…

Why so much hate on the ele >-<
And does every single ele I meet always use D/D? D/D is too predictable imho.

Yes we’re a class that really is only 50-60% functioning but kittening, whining and all this theory crafting will get you no where, just play the class and enjoy it.

Aether, continue posting that sort of crap without any justification. I assume you consider yourself a good player, or know a good player, so feel free to add me. I’ll gladly show you what an Ele is capable of. You seem to think in that in a vacuum Ele is totally sub-part vs. good players, and you’re wrong. Your skill, and playstyle, also has an influence. If you just RTL in and have Updraft queued, sure, they’ll dodge it. But timing is important, and so is using other skills. Can’t dodge a Lightning Flash > Updraft very easily.

Updraft knockdown doesn’t last long enough to guarantee any skill hitting so why the hell are you arguing?

Am I understanding that an elementalist is strong enough to beat 3 elementalists?? That would be OP, careful what you say!

Trolling aside, its a great class, love it. Its not UP its just more work, but you “can” get more out of it than many classes. If they increase dps the people that are already playing it well will be very OP, so there is a problem. The only solution would be to dumb it down, like making the attunement switch delay longer and increasing the damage of the longer CD skills, which would make a lot of people upset too that like it as it is.

Kilger.5490:

Am I understanding that an elementalist is strong enough to beat 3 elementalists?? That would be OP, careful what you say!

Trolling aside, its a great class, love it. Its not UP its just more work, but you “can” get more out of it than many classes. If they increase dps the people that are already playing it well will be very OP, so there is a problem. The only solution would be to dumb it down, like making the attunement switch delay longer and increasing the damage of the longer CD skills, which would make a lot of people upset too that like it as it is.

If you would increase the dps by adding good fire/ air traits/ trait synergy, then people who would wish to play power elementalists would have to sacrifice their defenses.

Because, at this moment, a 30/30 fire/ air ele with an offensive amulet is absolutely terrible in spvp, pretty much an even squishier thief with no stealth that takes twice the time to deal the same damage.

Our defensive builds are fine and strong. That does not means our damage does not need to be buffed. It needs, just in a way that it does not makes our defensive builds stronger.

pve is always easy for an ele, except for dungeons. Not saying dungeons are hard, but every single mob in every dungeon will 2-shot you, regardless of your spec or gear. You have to avoid all damage, or you’re screwed.

In pvp, try a tournament, you’ll see a huge difference in skill level even with the free tournaments. Good luck even killing a single person.

biggerthanthesun.2397:

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Interesting story, care to try vs my mesmer, engineer or guardian? because the only chance i am sure you would have would be surviving my guardian without killing me if you never made a mistake, other than that i see no competition.

In fact, I stated that guards were the class I feared. Thank you for your heartfelt agreement. Mesmers, when I played, did not strike me as a threat. Had a few who could bail, confuse me with their images, and get away. The others whom I saw sticking around got burned and bled just the same. Engineers… Meh, they all look like thieves to me. AoE spam and Dodge just the same. Mist and run at 33% health. No need to change strategy.

Who was your Conq in AoC?

And yes, nothing to hard about the Elementalist, people who came from other games and not AoC are not used to having more than 5 keybinds…

My only complaint about the elementalist is that the DPS is somewhat low on some of the longer casts, but when you factor in the amount of ultility and healing I guess it makes sense.

Suctum

…people who came from other games and not AoC are not used to having more than 5 keybinds…

I think you vastly over simplify other games. I had 30+ key binds in wow on my Mage, and unlike gw2 you could have off-target targets (focus) so you could be attacking x while cc’ing y, and healing self/other.

I imagine a lot of other recent MMOs were similar so you are being a bit conceited.

That said, Ele only has about 14 excluding movement/dodge. But just burning through them on rotation is far from optimal, and there are other factors to allow for. I pretty much suck at Ele but it is not the key binds, it is the situational awareness as I can’t simply watch unit frames and interrupt a cast bar.

I won’t go as far to say you’re wrong but I’d place a lot greater credence in your opinions after you hit 80ish, or are successful in tournaments.

PvP is heavily based on skill, so you can hold your own in sPvP as an ele Great. Are you a more appealing than another profession doing the same role though? Could another profession do your job more effectively or easier?

PvE I strongly believe that while a other classes might not bring out utility they can do any and near all our jobs we try better, excluding perhaps support. Doesn’t help we tend be tissue paper, glass cannon without the cannons either.

I’d agree with everyone else feeling that elementalist should see greater rewards for the amount of effort we put it to do the same jobs. Otherwise I believe ele needs trait tune-up, skill tune-up, and to get rid of a couple bugs and we’ll be in a much better spot.

I’m still learning how to play my keyboard like a piano, LOL. That doesn’t come naturally to me at all as I often mix up which skill is what key and I rely heavily on visual aids in my hotbar to know which is what. Being dyslexic doesn’t help and the pictures on the hotbar are so much easier on me than the keyboard keys. (And thank GAWD for spell check because you would not believe the amount of transposition of letters I do when I type these comments, lol.) I get all nervous and then I’m hitting the wrong ke and doing something I never wanted etc.

Hmm

1 v 1 as a D/D ele vs just about any class I can sum it up to this. Either I win or I run simple as that. May seem cheap but that is just the way it is. I have enough healing to be back at full health in a second and enough speed and cleanses to out run just about anything. I wont say I win all the time, but be sure that if pushed I will blow a cool down or 2 heal up and come right back.

For those who complain about ele just practice. The stance dance gets to be second nature after a lil while and it’s very rewarding if your willing to get used to your capability to set up your own combos.

In P v E (level 80) I am sitting on about 2500 armor and 16k hp which seems low but with the amount of healing I can put out and the uncanny ability to kite I feel pretty much like a tank. 5 pieces of Pow/Vit/Tough and 1 cleric (I didn’t like where my heals were coming in at without it) all exotic.

At the end of the day I feel versatile enough to be a good support to my team. With the exception of the first 10 levels ele has been the easiest class for me to level and the best overall endgame. It’s a good feeling to know that you can bring something to the team beside dps. There is a lot of really good dps players out there but being able to keep them up cc mobs etc. makes runs that much smoother.

There are still issues. Sometimes RTL on uneven surfaces self roots me the same issue with magnetic grasp. I still feel squishy vs some crit builds (however arcane shield and other tools help with this a lot). Despite the minuses over all ele is one of the best classes for multitasking and I feel over all it has the most potential. First time I soloed a champoin plus his vets I realized that the rumors were true ele can be good. If you play it right.

TL;DR

Ele is a good class just got to give it time.

Animosity.5231:

I burst down any toughness no HP build pretty fast, unless it’s a straight up bunker. Fire Grab is hitting more often, so I’ve been taking Arcane Wave over Signet of Earth lately, and it’s just made the burst that much more potent. RTL > Updraft > Shocking Aura > Burning Speed > Ring of Fire > Arcane Wave > Fire Grab can nearly kill Thieves, Warriors, and Rangers with no problem. They will be dead once I hit Earth. Often end 1v1s, and some 2v1s, with full HP.

I run 0/10/0/30/30 D/D Heal Auramancer. 14k HP, 2500 armor, 600-700 healing power. I do absolutely fine in any scenario.

I love how someone claim that he can kill a geared anyone with basically 3 combo damage (most of your other attack is CC who do little dmg). Even that noob standing there and take all the hit, he won’t die. That a fact. Every single class other than yours has more than 15k hp, hell even my elementalist has more the you do. Plus your build has zero fire trait and you claim you do higher dmg with fire ? Really?

Rahmorak.2318:

Suctum

…people who came from other games and not AoC are not used to having more than 5 keybinds…

I think you vastly over simplify other games. I had 30+ key binds in wow on my Mage, and unlike gw2 you could have off-target targets (focus) so you could be attacking x while cc’ing y, and healing self/other.

I imagine a lot of other recent MMOs were similar so you are being a bit conceited.

That said, Ele only has about 14 excluding movement/dodge. But just burning through them on rotation is far from optimal, and there are other factors to allow for. I pretty much suck at Ele but it is not the key binds, it is the situational awareness as I can’t simply watch unit frames and interrupt a cast bar.

WoW and AoC are completely different games. Before 1.5, I doubt any casual gamer would have enjoyed it. which is why ever since 1.5, they have progessed it to the almost WoW state of 3.2 where everyone runs at max speed and spams instant abilities and everyone has 2-3 bubbles.

I played WoW for 30 days with some of my guildies from AoC, the fact we crushing people in less than 10 hours after hitting 80 in 3v3 against people who played for 4+ years is a testament to the learning curve in that game. Pally is no easy. lol