Guild Wars 2

Hello guys, I play Elementalist since the Gw2’s release and now I would like to ask a question for developpers.

You see, every time I hear : " Elementalist is weak…, Elementalist is useless in PvE, look with the warrior we have a very high DPS with Hundred blades!", members from my guild say that I must to reroll because my Elem hasn’t got enough DPS for Speed Run!

Moreover, after the patch for the elementalist he became less resistant but he hasn’t DPS. Indeed, he has less DPS than the other class.

So now I would like to ask you this : " when the Elementalist will have a better DPS?"

thanks to answer me because each day I hear bad things about this class ( In PvE, in PvP I have no problem)

PS: excuse me for my English, I’m French x)

Elementalist can have extremely high DPS using Lightning Hammer. I belive the focused Lightning Hammer build is like 25/20/0/25/0. I’ve read people getting 8K crits with the auto-attack in a maximized damage group. And if something is against the wall, Fiery Greatsword pwns by using skill 4 with no target and 3 is as strong as Whirlwind Attack. The only difference is Ele’s are alot squishier than Warrior’s when using these weapons, but if you kill fast enough in a speed run, it shouldn’t matter too much I don’t think

Grok Krog.9581:

Elementalist can have extremely high DPS using Lightning Hammer. I belive the focused Lightning Hammer build is like 25/20/0/25/0. I’ve read people getting 8K crits with the auto-attack in a maximized damage group. And if something is against the wall, Fiery Greatsword pwns by using skill 4 with no target and 3 is as strong as Whirlwind Attack. The only difference is Ele’s are alot squishier than Warrior’s when using these weapons, but if you kill fast enough in a speed run, it shouldn’t matter too much I don’t think

Exactly. But boy do you go down fast if you aren’t paying attention. Those summoned weapons can be straight up nasty if you play it right.

I play staff ele in PvE, and I don’t have any issues. People that want to talk crap about my class can just go the kitten away. I will play what I want to play, and I have no issues grouping with other like minded individuals. Example…did HotW p2 with 3 rangers, my ele, and a guardian. No issues, took like 45 minutes. You know, 45 min of enjoyable play with fun people beats a 10-15 min speed clear where no one talks any day of the week for me.

I play a burst scepter/dagger build that has 25 stacks of might, 4000 attack, runs cof regularly and is more sustainable than any zerker warriors in a speed run. I don’t think ele needs more power buff (for dungeon). My advice is to try out different build

The hammer way is a good build. I can pull a max of 20k+ damage In a full autoattack set in any level 80 dungeon. I use D/D and FULL zerker gear. Escolar rune btw.

I die alot as elementalist. I feel like it is best with others to take the heat. Also, you have to know all your moves. When I started cycling through the attunements I did better, but Im sure if I knew a better order for them, Id do better.

i think that only one build based on a weapon you summon cannot be the solution.

Grok Krog.9581:

Elementalist can have extremely high DPS using Lightning Hammer.

14k crits.

Jeremthedevil.4793:

You see, every time I hear : " Elementalist is weak…, Elementalist is useless in PvE, look with the warrior we have a very high DPS with Hundred blades!", members from my guild say that I must to reroll because my Elem hasn’t got enough DPS for Speed Run!

IMO if your guild tells you that you have to stop playing a profession you like and to reroll the only thing you should roll is your mouse pointer over the leave guild button.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Jeremthedevil.4793:

You see, every time I hear : " Elementalist is weak…, Elementalist is useless in PvE, look with the warrior we have a very high DPS with Hundred blades!", members from my guild say that I must to reroll because my Elem hasn’t got enough DPS for Speed Run!

IMO if your guild tells you that you have to stop playing a profession you like and to reroll the only thing you should roll is your mouse pointer over the leave guild button.

I have to agree with this. OP should be in a guild that enjoys having him there for who he is, not what he plays. Everything is doable with every class, when it comes to PvE, but efficiency nuts aren’t going to let you ‘be you.’

JustTrogdor.7892:

IMO if your guild tells you that you have to stop playing a profession you like and to reroll the only thing you should roll is your mouse pointer over the leave guild button.

I agree with this! Ele can do a lot, outputting good damage in aoe as well as providing great support. If you aren’t running dungeon speed runs, but enjoying the challenge, you can be the best player on your team. Don’t feel bad about ele. It takes a while for an average player to really learn the skills, creative combos, rotations, and finally how to creatively use your combos to avoid a stale rotation. Even if you don’t do the stupid amounts of damage a warrior/guardian does, it is loads of fun getting to do everything.

I agree, noone should be forced to reroll a class they love to play. While part of the blame is on your guild, rest is on Anet itself.

True, conjure hammer build does pull out A LOT of dps. However, with zerker gear and this weapon, you will die a lot. I’ve tried it countless times, it works decent at dungeons that you don’t take too much damage. Otherwise you are worse than paper and your team will lose dps trying to revive you all the time.

You may never pull the dps of a warrior but you have amazing supportive options. Try to make combo options with fields.

I hope you can just ignore your foolish guildmates and start enjoying the game the way you want to play.
All the best.

You should leave your guild, I think.

However, I will say that if you want to speedclear dungeons, having a Warrior is a good thing. If you wanna do FOTM seriously, you should roll a Guardian. But if you just sometimes do dungeons and not very often at that, then just having your Ele is fine.

For what it’s worth, Pure Glass LH Ele is good for speedclears, but is hard to pull off. There are some Ele builds I put out there, though, for PUGing and for if you’re still getting used to a piece of content.

As others have said the biggest problem isn’t your build, it’s your guild, a good guild would accept you and work with what they have or find out other builds that would deal higher damage for your ele…ditch them and move on

Elementalist DnD is the hardest class. We are the Jack of all trades and master of none. We can heal, heal friends, heal every second, do decent damage with fury up, decent signets, we have CC , alot of PBaoe damage, we are really versatile.

We are good in 1v1 dnd, good in 3v3 with dnd, good in zergs with staff.

We have mistform , which even nerfed, still can heal cause u can dodge heal during mist for 3k.

Only thing that anet did wrong was screw up RTL.

Whoever keeps arguing Eles are in a good shape is delusional… or I don’t know how else to call it.

Whoever thinks that the solution is using a conjure weapon is even worse. Conjured weapons entirely remove the ele’s class mechanic. You’re not even playing an ele at that point.

So no, you can’t be saying eles are fine because some conjured weapon can make some damage in very squishy and very special – almost gimmicky – situations.

And it’s not his guild to blame for wanting a more effective character in their teams. It’s ANet’s lack of interest in pve balance to blame.

Sure – most content you won’t care. But where you do care (dungeons / fractals) you get tired indeed trying so hard for mediocre results even when played flawlessly. I for one am with the OP.

Tired and tired of all the fanbois who think we’re doing just fine cause their gimmicky build is “okish”.

Well until we have unintended glithces that pushes FGS over the top, people will see ele viable, and the best part is that even so you need a party carrying you because you have no access to your skills.

Not to mention, that class identity is in the worst situation ever when you are locked in 5 skills with a greatsword or a Hammer.

Its an elementalist not a bad copy of a warrior.

I foresee a strong scepter nerf…..maybe then they will think to rebalance the profession.

Until then i m not playing ele :/ i hope just to have my character back one day.

Ele will never have the DPS of a warrior. The devs clearly stated that they want the ele to be jack of all trades. For some that translates into “good at everything” for others it reads “suck at everything”, because they cannot be brought into a spot where they can do something (like DPS’ing a target) as good as another class can. A heal specced guardian will heal more than an ele, a DPS specced warrior will outdamage an Ele, a condition specced engineer or necro will deal more conditions, a thief will do more burst dmg, a mesmer will bring more useful utilites for a DPS party.

The major flaw here is not your guild or class, its GW2’s current dungeon design that does not require conditions (because there are no targets with insane damge reduction) or good condition remove (if you take COF P1 for example, the endboss will not deal buring very often) or good heal if you can kill the enemies before they can kill you. There are no hexes (like in GW1) that need to be removed or key skills that must (or even can) be interrupted.

Another issue is the diminishing result of more toughness, but the increased dps gains by using zerker, so you are better off dealing more damage than having more sustain.

Ele does indeed shine in tPvP, and thats all arena net cares about at the moment. On a side note: you should really try running a full DPS warrior just once – trust me, you will like the numbers that you will see.

according to PvP forum ele deson t shine at all in its current situation.

it has a gimmick burst build that is considered unfair but not OP.
And in ranking among professions is in free fall since a month in the topic.

Also the thing about dps is not right.

A thing is not being to be the top DPS another is being the worst dps.
Being the worst in several areas of the game doesn’t equal at jack of all trades…..

And when a guardian outDPS a D/D ele while having more support/survivability, you know that there is a problem.

Jeremthedevil.4793:

but he hasn’t DPS. Indeed, he has less DPS than the other class

I am quite satisfied with my DPS

but I do recognize we have to make ten times the efforts than certain other classes and still never surpass ‘em, just get similar results with incredibly superior difficulty.
This is what I always say about Elementalist: it’s not a rewarding class.

Ele will never have the DPS of a warrior. The devs clearly stated that they want the ele to be jack of all trades. For some that translates into “good at everything” for others it reads “suck at everything”, because they cannot be brought into a spot where they can do something (like DPS’ing a target) as good as another class can. A heal specced guardian will heal more than an ele, a DPS specced warrior will outdamage an Ele, a condition specced engineer or necro will deal more conditions, a thief will do more burst dmg, a mesmer will bring more useful utilites for a DPS party.

You are right, but currently a guardian that is completly specced into dmg does more dmg than an elementalist could ever do AND has higher party usefulness. A ranger that is complelty specced into power/condition dmg does still deal more direct dmg than an elementalist. No matter how you use your trait points you never have a chance to get good at something.

If I do specc my elementalist for raw dmg, then I want to be able to deal raw dmg and to be extremly squishy. Less dmg than a full dmg warrior. Less dmg than a full dmg mesmer. Less dmg than a full dmg thief. But for the god’s sake, more dmg than a full dmg guardian.
If I do specc my elementalist for full bunker, then I want to be able to be very tanky and durable with low dmg. Less tanky and durable than a full bunker guardian, but therefor a bit more dmg.

Elementalists don’t just and only complain because they don’t deal the dmg of warriors and mesmers, that is currently too much for PvE. We don’t complain because we want to be broken op. We just want to have a kittening place being in a group, having a chance to specialize or not, being useful.

The class needs a lot of reworks to get into that place, generally I do believe that the game needs a complete overhaul of the boon, cc and AoE system.

Trust me, elem is not that bad…
I play guardian for FoTM, levelled it to 49 and do quite a few dailies with it (100+ pristines)
Yesterday i just had my fastest FoTM 28 with pugs (35mins from mossman 1st hit to maw kill with Guard, Guard, War, War, Elem comp) and it was mostly because of what the elem brought the the group. Thats what made me curious about elementalist and thinking about rolling one, and brought me to this subforum
Almost throughout the fights our party managed to keep 20+ stacks of might thanks to the elem, and thats where i think elementalist hold their place in groups right now, providing great amount of support in the form of boons, healing, cleanse, combo fields while still doing reasonable amount of damage

Hello~

I’ve been playing an elementalist for 2.4k hours now out of my total 2.7k. There are some glaring problems with the class, but I won’t go into them in this thread, instead just wanted to reinforce the idea that eles can do good damage if you use a nice setup.

The lightning hammer is very, very powerful, and I’ve got crits up to 14k on auto-attacks, but it can be really boring and to make it worse, you can become ill-accostumed and see your skills as an elementalist to deteriorate for overuse of it and not actually playing the class to its full.

The fiery greatsword is ridiculously powerful in terms of DPS. My record so far was 32k against Subject Alpha (Boss in CoE) using the skill number 3, but granted, all the conditions were right for it to happen, and it’s something that you won’t see all the time. Regularly, the auto-attack chains end in 14-18k.

My current gear is full berserker armor and weapons, with full berserker ascended rings, amulet and earrings. And of course, my pink berserker ascended quaggan backpack~ =3

As for build, I am using 10 (III), 25 (VI, VII), 10 (VI), 15 (IV), 10 (V). (Don’t forget the food consumable that gives you extra 10% critical damage)

For utilities I use the arcane spells, to keep Air Trait VII always up 100% of the time.

Sigils: Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Bloodlust (Dagger/Dagger – or Scepter/Dagger). Forget staff if you want to do damage, leave it for fights where your team needs you to be a bit more support’ish~

The only downside of this build is that you’re, well, ultra super mega squishy… it’s not a build to run with pugs or people you’re not used to working together with them, but I promise that you’ll do a really respectable damage with it, if you round up some friends you trust to go dungeoning with you~ =)

Hope it helped some!

No offense, but I consider lightning hammer a gimmick build. You are squishy to a level where you need a group that assists you (something a warrior doesnt need while dealing equal or even more damage). You are basically removing the entire mechanic of an ele in GW2 (which is attunement switching) to stand in melee with a hammer. Sorry, but if I wanted to do that I would have rolled a warrior or guardian. Both classes do this job much better, even if its just for the heavy armor.

Right now the ele does not bring anything another class does not do better, but thats not the actual question. Since we are supposed to do something of everything the question is rather, does the ele bring so much combined value (boons, heals, damage, condition…whatever) so that it is equally good than taking a guardian or warrior for example. And the answer for GW2 dungeon content is sadly “no”. I don’t want to say it cannot be played to very good or doesn’t bring useful utilities. But currently a player with the same experience level playing a guardian or warrior is preferable – especially since new players usually try to bring their damage up you are better with a class that is designed around exactly that. Even I started with 30 in fire, which is generally considered a waste of 30 points that are better put into water or acane.

Perma 20 stacks of Might and perma Fury would seem to put the Ele where they might not do the best damage, but will increase everyone else’s to make up for it, and then surpass that mark.

Am I wrong? This is not talking about bringing a warrior who can also do Might stacking with a bow. Not everyone likes to play melee and such hardcore speed running min-maxing has a place, in WoW raids.

Especially might and fury and the two boons that warriors already stack for the party using “for great justice”, elite warbanner and for themselves using greatsword trait und signet of rage (Warriors have even more ways to stack these boons, but the aforementioned are the most common). In fact, they are much better at stacking these boons than an ele. So if you want a damage party then take a warrior.

The problem, as mentioned earlier, is the GW2 dungeon design, that allows skipping difficult encounters or objectives and then presents you a boss thats just a big hit point sponge with a special attack that you need to learn and dogde. A prime example of this is subject alpha in crucible of eternity. You can dps all the way and when the circles appear you start counting and then dogde in the right moment. Then its back to dps’ing the boss down until the red circles appear. Since you cannot tank these special attacks consistently even with max bunker builds its better the take the boss down as fast as possible to be exposed to as few special attacks as possible. I don’t know what useful support a defensive/utility build could bring over a full dps build in this type of encounter. COF P1 is another example, where the boss has pretty strong regeneration so you need to out-dps the regenration for one. Its main attacks are a big dodgeable fire circle and throwing those crystals. So the whole encounter comes down to dodge these attacks and full dps in between.

I fully agree that not everyone likes to play melee – I mean, that’s why i rolled an ele in the first place! But in GW1 I could deal very competitive AoE damage on long range with my ele, at the price of being squishier than melee classes and more susceptible for interrupts or energy drain. This is something that I can not really see in GW2.

Grevender.9235:

Jeremthedevil.4793:

but he hasn’t DPS. Indeed, he has less DPS than the other class

I am quite satisfied with my DPS

but I do recognize we have to make ten times the efforts than certain other classes and still never surpass ‘em, just get similar results with incredibly superior difficulty.
This is what I always say about Elementalist: it’s not a rewarding class.

Slight problem with that CE, whilst it isn`t bad damage, it is a 3.5 second cast in which unless you have arcane blast/wave etc on the bars, that is 3.5 seconds you are doing nothing & even zero damage if you get knocked, stunned etc

I also bet that any other class can beat that damage & then some in 1-2 seconds.

Fishbait.6723:

Slight problem with that CE, whilst it isn`t bad damage, it is a 3.5 second cast in which unless you have arcane blast/wave etc on the bars, that is 3.5 seconds you are doing nothing & even zero damage if you get knocked, stunned etc

well it’s not a skill you are going to use in a duel, that’s obvious, but in an organized team used at the right time with a good amount of stability ecc you are going to single-handedly turn the tides of the skirmish.
With some more efforts, I can break the 10k barrier with CE which – let me underline this – is AoE damage.

I also bet that any other class can beat that damage & then some in 1-2 seconds.

I am unaware of other PBAoE skills as bursty as CE… maybe there are, would be interesting to know.

But at least we do great single target damage at range! Right? Right!?

/cry