Guild Wars 2

I get the basic attack (1) and heal (4), and then I can root the guy who’s right next to me, pounding me into the dirt (or the guy shooting me, who didn’t plan on moving, anyway), or I can turn into mist and move a few feet away, only to be followed, then let the beat down recommence. Seems a little weak sauce to me? Not to mention Elementalists go down in 4 hits, anyway. Well, at least mine does. And I have on all vitality gear, too. Maybe I’ll try toughness next? Does it even get better, or am I doomed to die this fast forever? If so, maybe they should add a (5) ability where I can take out a pistol and shoot myself to save time?

They do suck.

Less damage than other classes (with no aoe like thief)

rooting something next to you is silly. If we also had a knockback this would be more useful

as you mentioned, Mist form doesn’t break agro, so mobs just follow you beating on the mist. Hell, if you’ve got a condition the damage keep ticking during mist form, and can result if you dying as soon as it ends (as it also counts as re-downing you).

Many other classes have downed skills good enough to kill mobs and rally. Ours only let us rally if the mob is almost dead anyway.

Ele would be fine if the 2nd and 3rd abilities were reversed. They are currently completely defenseless in their downed state.

The thief’s downed abilities were nerfed into the ground due to complaining, but I think they went a bit overboard on the cooldown. Basically my thief is always dead before he ever gets a chance to use it. But even still, my thief gets to bleed enemies to death, and I usually manage to survive. Usually. The elementalist, however… as I said, just please give me a (5) Kill Self ability so I can spare myself the humiliation of being molested to death every time. Because there’s no hope. Once I’m down, it’s over. Maybe if they added burning to the (1), that would make a difference, but still the squishy factor pretty much dooms me.

First of all, being downed is supposed to mean that you’ll likely die without help. So the skills for all classes are deliberately not very powerful. Think of them more as ways to possibly help your allies save you, and they become a lot more useful.

I play an elementalist and I actually think their downed skills are some of the best.

All of them have the basic attack and heal, as you mentioned. So it’s mainly 2 and 3 that vary. The ability to immobilize a foe (2), combined with the ability to run away from them (3) is actually quite nice. While #2 does usually seem to be fairly un-helpful, like you said, it can be helpful at times. Especially if the mob is not attacking you, you can often use it to save your friend’s life by keeping it off him, enabling him to kill it and revive you. Or you can use it for a little head-start for getting away with #3.

1. is also helpful for getting to a place where somebody can revive you more safely than in the middle of everything where you died.

It’s true that if you’re always playing solo, some of the other classes /might/ let you deal out a little more damage in order to save yourself, but not much. Mages tend to be a little squishy. I die constantly. lol.

Well, as someone who’s rolled all 8 classes, I can tell you that the downed abilities are not balanced. Period. And by far, I would say the Elementalist’s downed abilities are the most useless of the bunch. I do play solo. No one is going to play with me all the way to level 80. Not even my girlfriend, for that matter. Sure, in WvW or sPvP, you’d be right. But it’s a bit unfair, for now.

I agree, their downed skills are lame. I think a possible solution would be adding interrupt to skill#2

Mist form or w/e it’s called has saved me many times. I think it’s worth the rest of them sucking.

so, this is what my characters 1, 2 and 3 abilities are:
Mesmer:
1. decent damage confusion causing attack
2. random direction teleport with invis to break targetting that leaves a clone that causes confusion
3. summon a phantasm that does pretty good damage, and benefits from traits

Necro:
1. life drain that is powerful enough to double time in downed without succumbing to “bleeding out” damage (note this is just base healing, I’m not specced into healing power or self heal increases at all, if it benefits from those perks and stats, it may even be better than the 4 healif you’re not being targetted (and it isn’t interrupted by being hit))
2. fear, nice and simple, causes an interrupt
3. AoE poison attack

Elementalist:
1. Lightning shock, no additional effects
2. single target immobilization, doesn’t interrupt or break targetting, takes time to start the immobilize effect, effect must be maintained to keep working.
3. vapor form, doesn’t drop targetting, counts as being downed on end of effect, doesn’t stop conditions, doesn’t stop CC, doesn’t stop environmental damage like falling (who knew mist can break its legs?) requires time to cooldown before use

one of these things is not like the others…

It’s pointless in PvP but somewhat useful in PvE for Mistform. You can break aggro with Mistform if you move far enough through multiple use.

1) Basic attack. Also causes vulnerability so subsequent basic attacks do more and more damage, allowing you to rally faster.

2) Immobilization skill. REALLY useful. In PvE, it’ll keep melee enemies at bay, and in sPvP, it’ll keep foes in place so they can’t run up to you and use a finisher before someone else knocks ‘em out. I’d cry if we lost this one.

3) MIST FORM. In PvE and WvW it can get you out of a huge mob. The biggest perk about this skill that not enough people realize is that, when you’re downed and low on health, it’ll restore your health once you go back to being downed. So if I use it right as I’m about to be defeated, not only do I have a chance to escape while invulnerable, but I also get the health bar restored back to half to have a fighting chance. My only qualm about this one is that they should reduce the cooldown on it by one or two seconds. The thief can pop that pesky teleport before a finisher can go off, but we can’t pop Mist Form in that span of time.

4) Heal, everyone has it.

tl;dr our downed skills are great, learn to use them properly.

Calcifire.1864:

so, this is what my characters 1, 2 and 3 abilities are:
Mesmer:
1. decent damage confusion causing attack
2. random direction teleport with invis to break targetting that leaves a clone that causes confusion
3. summon a phantasm that does pretty good damage, and benefits from traits

Necro:
1. life drain that is powerful enough to double time in downed without succumbing to “bleeding out” damage (note this is just base healing, I’m not specced into healing power or self heal increases at all, if it benefits from those perks and stats, it may even be better than the 4 healif you’re not being targetted (and it isn’t interrupted by being hit))
2. fear, nice and simple, causes an interrupt
3. AoE poison attack

Elementalist:
1. Lightning shock, no additional effects
2. single target immobilization, doesn’t interrupt or break targetting, takes time to start the immobilize effect, effect must be maintained to keep working.
3. vapor form, doesn’t drop targetting, counts as being downed on end of effect, doesn’t stop conditions, doesn’t stop CC, doesn’t stop environmental damage like falling (who knew mist can break its legs?) requires time to cooldown before use

one of these things is not like the others…

One of these things should die alone ^^

XD
I have to admit that our downed skills …. bite the big one

….

BUT ….it’s due to our Burning dmg that lasts even after we die :

• unlike other professions, our burning can last for 5-10 seconds after we die and THATS what kills our enemies, with the help of Lighting and earth ….+
• Mist refunds you to 50% downed HP …tehnicaly a HP reset
• our Earth grip is a real LIFE SAVER for our allies in Dungeons, it’s the longest lasting snare in-game and has COOL animation

I admit, our skills could use a buff, especially 1st, but, for MY personal oppinion, I like how they work ^^

Not many people seem to have noticed that most classes can use their downed skill 1 about 3 time more often than us. Like when i tried out warrior and thief, Their skill 1 animation is so quick they can throw 3-6-9 rock/shuriken thing by the time we shock the target 1-2-3 time.

(and no our skill #1 doesn’t do more damage)

Lillian you get an A for effort but it falls apart upon closer scrutiny. So what burning damage lasts after we are downed? Poison is one of the longest lasting conditions and that sure lasts after we down other classes. You’re also forgetting that many classes run with some form of condition removal.

Mist form refunds 50% of hp in downed state but takes ~5 seconds to become available. Plenty of time for them to kill you within that time frame. Plenty.

Earth grip has very situational uses. That doesn’t make it good.

Also if you’re nearby water deep enough to swim in mist form into the water generally breaks aggro and allows for you to heal.

Mister Stranger.3986:

2) Immobilization skill. REALLY useful. In PvE, it’ll keep melee enemies at bay, and in sPvP, it’ll keep foes in place so they can’t run up to you and use a finisher before someone else knocks ‘em out. I’d cry if we lost this one.

Lolwut? The reason you died is because the melee mob is RIGHT NEXT TO YOU. Why would you want to ensnare it some place where it has no choice but to hit you? Not to mention it’s absolutely useless against ranged mobs.

Also what are you gonna do in sPvP when there are, I don’t know, TWO people? Alright I got the ranger that killed me ensnared! I bet his buddy totally won’t stomp me because that’d be KS or something! Think again.

3) MIST FORM. In PvE and WvW it can get you out of a huge mob. The biggest perk about this skill that not enough people realize is that, when you’re downed and low on health, it’ll restore your health once you go back to being downed. So if I use it right as I’m about to be defeated, not only do I have a chance to escape while invulnerable, but I also get the health bar restored back to half to have a fighting chance. My only qualm about this one is that they should reduce the cooldown on it by one or two seconds. The thief can pop that pesky teleport before a finisher can go off, but we can’t pop Mist Form in that span of time.

Nice, just that inside a huge mob you’re long dead before you even get to activate Mist Form. Even if you manage to pull it off the mob can still follow you, you can get dotted to death or simply ensnared on the spot.

In PvP you get stomped long before you can activate it, unless you got buddies helping you out, which is kinda the point we’re the only class that can’t do anything without somebody around us to save ourkitten

Also the regen on Mist Form also works the other way around. Friend is healing you, you see boss AoE popping up so you have to move and voila, you respawn with low health again and got an additional downed counter added for free.

tl;dr our downed skills are great, learn to use them properly.

Yeah it’s great that we’re the only class that can’t do anything about getting stomped the moment we have died and got to pray our enemy forgets about us after downing us so we can trigger Mist Form, which results in nothing more than us returning into the down state with slightly less hp than before.

Sorry but how does a single target ensnare measure up against AoE push, the ability to RALLY for 15 seconds with all skills available, AoE fear, loads of illusionary bodies, teleport + stealth or an interrupt + pet skills?

I think that downed skill #3 could come off cd maybe a second or two earlier to balance us with other classes that have a knockback, fear or vanish that they are able to execute before the first person attempts to down them.

Grasping Earth is definitely too niche compared to other professions. Maybe it could knockdown at the end of the channel? Would add a bit of skill.

1 or 2 seconds off Vapor Form would help a lot too, especially since it stacks up downed penalty (bug?).

Lillian Wandom Hale.7102:

One of these things should die alone ^^

XD
I have to admit that our downed skills …. bite the big one

….

BUT ….it’s due to our Burning dmg that lasts even after we die :

• unlike other professions, our burning can last for 5-10 seconds after we die and THATS what kills our enemies, with the help of Lighting and earth ….+
• Mist refunds you to 50% downed HP …tehnicaly a HP reset
• our Earth grip is a real LIFE SAVER for our allies in Dungeons, it’s the longest lasting snare in-game and has COOL animation

I admit, our skills could use a buff, especially 1st, but, for MY personal oppinion, I like how they work ^^

the problem is, mist DOESN’T refund 50%, it brings you back to life, makes you immune to DD, then downs you, and that down adds 1 to the downed penalty, so if you’ve been downed before, you’re only at 25% health, even if you survive, you get a bigger downed penalty

lets compare to the warrior’s self rez ability shall we?
Ele: immunity to DD, conditions still affect us, return to downed with 50%/25% health depending on down penalty, all skills locked out
Warr: instant res, if they kill an enemy they rally, full access to all skills, if they don’t kill an enemy in the generous amount of time they get, they are defeated

how likely is it that an elementalist, even with the 5 seconds of no incoming or outgoing direct damage, will kill an enemy before dying?
how likely is it that a warrior with all of their skills will be able to kill an enemy within 15 seconds? (and even if not, 15 seconds is enough time to get to a place where you can be rezzed)

immobilize is HUGELY situational, the only time it is of any use whatsoever is if:
you are fighting ONE enemy AND that enemy is melee only AND it is not next to you AND it doesn’t have a snare breaking ability AND it is sufficiently weakened enough to be killed by the immobilize’s damage component (or you have an ally nearby who can rez you in those precious seconds)

if a single one of those aren’t true, you’re kittened right in the K-hole

in PvP every class has either a snare break or ranged attack, and in WvW the chances of you only facing one enemy are remote at best

1 and 3 are fine, but 2 is worthless. The only thing it’s good for is rooting a ranged player that downed you from max distance. Otherwise they’re going to be on top of you regardless. We really need a knockback since that will combo well with mist form and at least give us some way to defend ourselves when downed. RIght now elementalists are the easiest kill and a good first focus target.

Lillian Wandom Hale.7102:

Eclipses and Calcifire won’t be happy untill we get for 2nd skill 2 second cooldown AoE 900 radius instant death -.-" (~50000 DMG ^^)

Learn to play ?

what I’d be happy with is a 0 damage blast of air that does nothing but interrupt enemies in melee range

what I’m saying is that breaking wind would be more useful than what we’ve got right now

oh wait, you told me to L2P, well that shoots down all of my points doesn’t it?

HEY EVERYONE! MAKING WELL THOUGHT OUT ARGUMENTS ISN’T NEEDED ANYMORE! JUST TELL THEM THAT THEY ARE BAD AT SOMETHING AND YOU INSTANTLY WIN THE ARGUMENT

sorry, but reductio ad absurdum doesn’t work in this case, learn to play works as an argument if you can improve, but the ONLY thing we can do with our 2 skill is either root an enemy that doesn’t care about being rooted because unless you died to a condition or AoE, will be ranged, or standing next to you.

Lillian Wandom Hale.7102:

Calcifire.1864:

Lillian Wandom Hale.7102:

Eclipses and Calcifire won’t be happy untill we get for 2nd skill 2 second cooldown AoE 900 radius instant death -.-" (~50000 DMG ^^)

Learn to play ?

what I’d be happy with is a 0 damage blast of air that does nothing but interrupt enemies in melee range

what I’m saying is that breaking wind would be more useful than what we’ve got right now

learn to play works as an argument if you can improve, but the ONLY thing we can do with our 2 skill is either root an enemy that doesn’t care about being rooted because unless you died to a condition or AoE, will be ranged, or standing next to you.

Instant death ~ 0 seconds CD interrupt …

Yep , same page ^^

aaaand reported, nothing but a troll.
even the thickest person I’ve ever met couldn’t accidentally mix up “no damage, no effects other than stopping the instadeath stomp” with “lolol instakill everyone everywhere lolol”

if you’re happy with the skill that is literally less useful than a fart, fine, leave the thread, you’re in the minority here, you have nothing to bring. all I can imagine is that you’re another class who doesn’t want to lose their free kill

Mist form is great for a downed skill, it’s very useful. Too bad you won’t see mist form 99% of the time in PvP because you have no way to interrupt the stomp. Every single class besides elementalist can interrupt one stomp, many of them can do it to everything (so that multiple stomps at the same time still fail). Elementalist is the only class that can’t prevent a stomp, mist form takes too long.

Why should every class in the game get the chance to interrupt it, except the class that is the squishiest in the first place?

I think elem is the only prof without some sort of interrupt in downed state, 2-3 sec channel root seems like crap

On my thief in both PvP and PvE I could often use my downed state abilities to rally.

On my elementalist I usually just give up, if I am in a position to die then it’s pretty likely my #2 skill won’t help at all and #3 will at best buy me a few seconds of false hope (or at least a better position to be rezzed at, I guess).

The best way I’ve found to rally on elementalist (only really works in PvE) is to make sure I stack something which is already low on health with as many bleeds or burns as I can when I see my hp dropping and nothing left to do. Often it’s better than wasting a heal cooldown, lol.

Elementalist downed state is very weak compared to other classes, and I have played most (from the first beta).

I like my elementalist a lot, it’s my “main” right now, but downed state could really use some reworking:

Namely a #2 skill comparable to other classes, instead of something that has one single situational use, in a situation that doesn’t even happen, unless you’re fighting one single melee enemy, and are dying of condition damage, and have the melee enemy nearly killed and knocked back or immobilized already when you go down.

To the Elementalists defending our downed state abilities… You OBVIOUSLY have not done any spvp. I cannot tell you how many fights I have had where I downed my opponent only to be downed while trying to finish them, then they kill me before I can kill them, even though I downed them first. It is so frustrating to win a fight but still die because they can take you down before you finish them. WHY is our #1 skill SO FREAKING WEAK!???

Rhoto.8791:

To the Elementalists defending our downed state abilities… You OBVIOUSLY have not done any spvp. I cannot tell you how many fights I have had where I downed my opponent only to be downed while trying to finish them, then they kill me before I can kill them, even though I downed them first. It is so frustrating to win a fight but still die because they can take you down before you finish them. WHY is our #1 skill SO FREAKING WEAK!???

You for real? While I agree our down state is weak, never have I lost a fight where me and another guy both entered downed state (provided no one comes to help either of us).

It wouldn’t matter if our #1 skill only did one point of damage, as long as it interrupts their heal. Did you not notice that because of Mist Form we can outlast ANYBODY?

Not only does it keep us immune for a few seconds but it also resets our HP back to fifty percent the first time we use it. No other class has that kind of HP recovery in their downed state. Just keep interrupting the guy’s heal, then Mist Form when you’re about to die, and the other dude will eventually bleed out. GG.

I really like the mistform one in PvE
In PvP I would say they are not so good, but then I don’t enjoy the downed state mechanic in pvp at all.
I would very much like a “kill yourself” option in the downed state, because I think you are doing less good on the ground than you would be starting the timer for a respawn.
I have seen this exploited in some pvp matches where if you lose a battle, the enemy player/s will stand around capturing the point then only finish you off when it has been captured, so long as they still have you targeted and know that your hitpoints aren’t getting too high.

Yeah downed vs downed Ele does well thanks to mist form.

The problem is downed with teammates around. Other classes can postpone the stomp by themselves to give teammates a chance to help. Elementalist is a free stomp.

It depends on a lot of things. I solo exclusively and so being downed can be stressful but I have this trait ability that creates a Lava Font at my location when I’m downed. So unless its a ranged guy I generally rally before I can start spamming Discharge Lightning. My biggest gripe with downed is that there’s no AoE spell for Eles. Replace the second spell with an AoE that causes Weakness or Chilled and things would be about right.

I find it highly ironic that a RANGER is able to call down lightning and interrupt nearby foes but an elementalist isn’t.

yeh ive given up doing anything while downed as my ele , if someone isn’t there to cc fast and res , you die. My ranger is so hard to Finnish 1v1, and if we are both downed i can kill them no problem while my pet heals me.

Yes, they do suck.

I actually like Elementalist’s downed state after playing with it for a few days in tournaments. While you lack an interrupt like every other class, you have an immobilize that can be an immense help to your team and can also keep someone away from you long enough until you have mist form up. Mist form, in itself, is by far one of the best downed state abilities. Able to get up, invulnerable, and reset your downed state HP has saved my life countless times already.

Only gripe is perhaps the relatively long cooldown on your (2) ability considering it’s effects and the low damage on your (1) ability. Other than that, I was definitely on the majority’s side and saying that Elementalist’s downed state really sucks, because you lack a reliable interrupt and you’re the only class that does. On the contrary, my Ranger has an AOE interrupt but her (3) ability is complete trash and doesn’t work 50% of the time.

You’re in a decent spot as far as downed state goes Eles. Find something else to complain about.

If they at least changed it, so that the sodding vapor form doesn’t count as an additional downed state.
Who the crap thought this was a good idea?

Other things to fix: Make Skill 1 apply burning, Skill 2 AoE.

Yes they are weak. They also seems to do no damage at all. In a WvW “duel” with a warrior he can easly bring you down and then you use your downed skills. It looks like you re giving them health instead of taking it from him… Skill Nº1 is the weakest in my opinion.

As if we`re not squishy enough already, no interrupts once in downed state.
Grasping Earth is a tad very bad as chances are the player/mob is already chewing on our bones.
Mist CD is weird & on the rare occasion I get to use it when I need it most, I`ve already pressed 2 & can`t interrupt that cast, by which time GE is half way through casting & I`m already dead.
ty Mist, perhaps see you next time (in The Mists ;p)

Fully agree that Elementalist downed skills aren’t that great, but you’d have to be an idiot to compare it to Thief downed skills. Thieves don’t have many options for causing a Rally, so obviously the #1 downed skill has to be fast-attacking and multi-target, as it’s our only offensive option period. Maybe it’s better in PvP where people can be fooled/tricked and have a hard time finding you, but PvE mobs? Nope.

I do think that they should add a Blind effect to the #1 spam skill, and the #2 skill should be a PBAOE launch instead.

I agree that their down skills are pretty pathetic. Generally ele’s down when their enemy is on top of them. There are obviously exceptions but I’m just saying for the most part… that root doesn’t really help much at all. Every class has some sort of gap closer or ranged skill so it’s not nearly as useful as an interrupt like other classes have. If you get downed (in pvp) as an ele.. you’re pretty much dead. It takes WAY too long for the mist skill cooldown to activate.