Guild Wars 2

Before i start, im talking purely pve here as i havnt touched pvp at all yet.
Title should say it all.
My first character made and to 80 was a ele.
Ive run all the dungeons and done most exp modes.
I also run D/D exclusively in dungeons and pretty much everywhere.

The ele class itself is an awesome idea, like i said elsewhere, it kinda plays like an old prot warrior with stance dancing ( back when warriors in wow where actually good, bc era ).

For this reason i like the classes PLAYSTYLE better then my warriors.
Warrior is basically dps for dummies.

Theres no comparison between the 2 in terms of which class is harder to play.
Ele is WAY harder then the warrior to play and play correctly.
So my question is this, since the warrior is SO much easier to play, why is he stronger in nearly every aspect of the game?

He runs duel axes and a greatsword so aoe is top notch. His aoe is miles better then my eles.
Heavy armor and more hitpoints means he can take ALOT more of a beating and survive longer Whilst my ele wears a tablecloth for armor.

My ele dies SAOOO much in explorables whilst my warrior ( with a sword and shield sometimes ) barely dies anywhere near my ele.

On my ele, i avoid underwater combat like the plague, on my warrior i cherish underwater combat, he mows stuff down.

The list goes on….
Im just totally at a loss here as how these 2 classes are so far apart from each other balance wise…

I made a executive decision 3 nights ago, my mage is only a dungeon runner now, my warrior is going to be the farmer, the map explorer AND my dungeon runner.

Its such a shame as i really enjoy the design of the ele class.

No doubt they will get fixed in the future, but for now, my greatsword is going to be the thing leading me into battle……

Well I don’t really feel the same, I normally don’t have much trouble with warriors in PvP or WvW. Can you tell me what kind of build/gear you were running with your ele?

You say that ele is so much harder than warrior but you die much more easily on ele compared to warrior…I think you’ve answered your own question

Go check out the warrior forums. They are also complaining about being an underpowered class.

The warriors complaining about being underpowered are out of their small minds. They need some tweaks and some sPvP group support but that’s about it. Every profession needs some tweaking though. Warrior is a very solid profession. Sometimes I think that the people posting about how bad they are were guardian or thief transplants. Of course they’re not as good as the game’s biggest powerhouses. They’re actually somewhat balanced.

Part of it is, I think a plot by a few very loud individuals to prevent the nerfs they fear are coming. You’ll notice it’s the same handful of people posting about how bad the warrior is over and over again. On the elementalist forums, you’ll see a lot more names posting concerns for the profession.

FYI If any of you are having trouble in PvP on the warrior, try a hammer build. It’s very effective. There are several hammer builds posted in the warrior forums.

I agree with you, in pve the discrepancies are very noticeable and I really think the ele deserves more damage output.

In pvp the picture is more complicated. The bunker builds can be effective, but even so they are about outlasting your opponent and whittling them down, not about killing them fast or efficiently like some of the other classes can.

I missed the notorious beta nerfing event so I really don’t get what ANet was so afraid of that they decided they had to make ele have the worst survival stats and damage output in the game, all in one class.

Your title is wrong. Your warrior is way stronger than your elementalist until you learn how to play the elementalist.

Warrior = Low skill cap

Elementalist = High skill cap

if you are using d/d thats pretty much going dps.
*/focus has some very good defensive abilities as does staff at higher levels.

my suvivability with my ele is higher in dungeons than my mace and board warrior.

It might have changes a lot since beta, but I found ele easier to play than warrior. Warrior had little choice but to get in the face of mobs while ele could kite/strafe/dodge. Guardian was different due to the heals and damage avoidance, it was just so much more tanky. But I probably only got to 20 or so on warrior.

I think it’s a different sort of difficulty. The warrior is difficult to position. The elementalist is much easier to position but has survivability issues. In a big group the elementalist can really shine. The elementalist needs something to get them by when they aren’t in a big group though. They just don’t have it right now. More damage probably isn’t going to happen.

I think shortening the reuse times is the best thing to do. Elementalists have to use every ability at their disposal because of the recharge timers on them. Whereas pretty much every other profession can spam abilities with a relatively high frequency.

It is easier for most people to position the warrior than it is to memorize and understand every skill the elementalist has and know when to use them. If you are better at skill use than at positioning, good for you.

Zonzai.2341:

I think it’s a different sort of difficulty. The warrior is difficult to position. The elementalist is much easier to position but has survivability issues. In a big group the elementalist can really shine. The elementalist needs something to get them by when they aren’t in a big group though. They just don’t have it right now. More damage probably isn’t going to happen.

I think shortening the reuse times is the best thing to do. Elementalists have to use every ability at their disposal because of the recharge timers on them. Whereas pretty much every other profession can spam abilities with a relatively high frequency.

It is easier for most people to position the warrior than it is to memorize and understand every skill the elementalist has and know when to use them. If you are better at skill use than at positioning, good for you.

Not sure what you mean about warrior being harder to position, ever tried to land a fire grab? Easier or harder than 100 blades? Also on a 45 sec cooldown instead of 8, so if (I mean, when) you miss, it’s a lot more costly to your damage output.

Sure, you can use a staff and stand back a good distance, but most of your damage skills are GTAOE so mobs and players can just walk out of the damage, and again, there’s nothing in the elementalist staff that hits like kill shot. Warriors have a ton of CC options to hold their targets still, elementalists have to sacrifice a utility slot if they want one single immobilize on a long cooldown. The attack radius on melee weapons autoattack makes them all aoe, most with wider attack radius than elementalist melee-autoattacks (the ones that are even aoe, that is, most are single target).

I can beat any class with elementalist, but I’m not under the illusion that I am more skilled than any of them. In fact, I’d wager that an equally skilled warrior would beat me every time, at best I could just escape or force a stalemate. Higher defense, health and damage, more CC options and dang near as much regeneration/condition removal/healing if built a certain way doesn’t really point to balance between classes.

No. Elementalists are a class that have a strong support function. Warriors do have some support functions as well but not intended to have as much as the Elementalist.

However, once you have made a full DPS build, there shouldn’t be any discrepancy on who is what. A DPS Ele should be similar to a DPS Warrior. If a glass cannon Warrior can drop crazy damage, so should a glass cannon Elementalist.

Normally, I would blame the problem on the way the stats or gear work in the game. Most MMOs don’t make the ability to reduce magic damage a staple in gear/stats, or don’t have a stat to balance it altogether. Guild Wars 2 has a stat for it, so I’m lost as to why they have kept the damage so low.

Speaking of the Focus being a defensive weapon, the thing I hate the most about the Focus is that it has no heal despite the fact that it’s supposed to be a defensive weapon and it leaves you without a defensive skill in Fire and Water; I hate Fire Aura so much. You’re already inflicting burning with most of your Fire spells, and then they give you an aura that…inflicts burning.

I wish they had made the Elementalist similarly how they did the Engineer. Even if the class seems to have issues (their forum looks a lot like ours) the concept is a lot better than “you can’t switch weapons because you have elements that don’t always do what they’re supposed to do”. People are already saying you need “skill” to play the Elementalist well. Why not make it as complex as the Engineer to make that statement closer to the truth while giving us the versatility we were shown in the early stages of the game?

Zenrei.6398:

No. Elementalists are a class that have a strong support function. Warriors do have some support functions as well but not intended to have as much as the Elementalist.

However, once you have made a full DPS build, there shouldn’t be any discrepancy on who is what. A DPS Ele should be similar to a DPS Warrior. If a glass cannon Warrior can drop crazy damage, so should a glass cannon Elementalist.

The problem is that a DPS Ele still has access to that above mentioned support while a DPS Warrior has virtually no support; if you would give them a comparable DPS the Ele would be OP.

@DesertRose
Exactly, the ele wasnt made to be a full DPS class, if you spec it to full DPS that is your choice it shouldnt be “comparable” to a class made for dps, imagine the same logic backwards, you should be able to make support warriors as strong as ele ??? no, just no.

Each class has specific class roles, that doesn’t mean they cant do other roles but an offspec role is never going to compare to another classes main spec…

Also ele does require skill…it is the truth, the amount of good ele’s I have seen in tPvP is minimal, the amount of “Genuine Teldo” engineers who manage to hold points easy is vast in comparison to the amount of good eles in the game…

Livewire.4216:

@DesertRose
Exactly, the ele wasnt made to be a full DPS class, if you spec it to full DPS that is your choice it shouldnt be “comparable” to a class made for dps, imagine the same logic backwards, you should be able to make support warriors as strong as ele ??? no, just no.

Each class has specific class roles, that doesn’t mean they cant do other roles but an offspec role is never going to compare to another classes main spec…

I thought the profession-specific roles were meant to be eliminated in this game, guess it is all a lie from ANet and they should update their profession description to reflect this and stop cheating all the new players.

From the official site:
Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

If we are not meant to have massive damage in a single attack, please give us back our HP pool and toughness.

Problem with ele is that it´s too versatile to have that massive damage, like pointed previously.

Eles have decent damage and condition abilities (if they hit, that is), metric crapton of boons, lots of cc, nice heals, protective abilities to last an armageddon and awesome mobility…at the same time.
Other classes can certainly outshine eles in any single department…but generaly suck at every other while doing it.

I don’t get it. Why do people keep saying that Ele is weak? Don’t we have the largest AoE damageing skills ingame? My Churning Eart for example has a large AoE and can hit up too 12k. Cone of Cold stacks up too 6k regulary and also provides 1k healing.

Besides the mass AoE skills we seem to have alot more escape/crippling skills then other classes.

If the enemy surprises us then yes we will be dead in 2-5 seconds. But even then we can save ourself fairly easy using mist form/arcane shield and set ourselfs up for the counter for example using earthquake to knock the enemy down or use shocking aura to stun him.

As a Warrior you have more HP/armor but you lack in escape movements/crippling /knockdown/stunning. The 1v1 dps is awesome but the aoe damage is low and covers a small area.

Both are evenly matched IMO

Loosifah.4739:

Again you morons are forgetting about the “Able to inflict massive damage” part of the description of an elementalist. We have the worst stats in the game and the lowest damage. You don’t see warriors having kitten damage because they can survive more hits.
Or Thieves having kitten damage because they can mitigate so much damage and escape(survivability)
Or Mesmers having kitten damage because they have clones and can stealth.
Or you know Guardians having kitten damage because they have the highest survivability and support ability.

Will you already shut up about that bad piece of marketing? It has nothing to do with game and imho they should just kittening edit it out.

The point is that the damage potential for anything other than AoE skills for an elementalist doesn’t justify all of our other stats being so terrible.

Yeah the high skill cap and low damage were a major turn off for me. I don’t like the fact that Anet forces you to only one weapon, and I wish you could focus more on a single attunement. I really like Air with S/D, but using only one attunement is just silly because you’re only using one forth of the weak kit.

Aretas.8370:

From the official site:
Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

If we are not meant to have massive damage in a single attack, please give us back our HP pool and toughness.

Remember that according to that description “lack in physical toughness” is not only compensated by “the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack” (and btw, that wording implies that Eles don’t have good DPS) but also with “versatility”. Sure, give Eles more toughness but remove all skills expect the fire ones and see how far you can get.
Also I would say that up to 5*8k+ damage with a single attack (note that the description doesn’t state that the damage is instantaneously) qualifies as “massive damage”, but maybe that’s just me…

The Ele Staff AoE isnt that great. Its easy to avoid and meteor shower is to random.
I made a Warrior for sPvP and Ele for WvW and dungeons right from release becouse i played both in beta and realized Warrior has better utilities, better ST, more damaging AoE with shorter cooldown and more base stats in everything and heavy armor

I love my Elementalist, but I have spent two months learning how to play him. The first month was painful, but I feel confident in fighting any 2 classes at once and love being an initiator of combat with RTL and my cantrips.

If you want to be good now, play a warrior or thief. If you want to be great with practice, play an elementalist.

Korath.7402:

I agree with you, in pve the discrepancies are very noticeable and I really think the ele deserves more damage output.

In pvp the picture is more complicated. The bunker builds can be effective, but even so they are about outlasting your opponent and whittling them down, not about killing them fast or efficiently like some of the other classes can.

This is why I’m a huge supporter of keeping the UI and things utterly separate for PvE and PvP. That way any …erm…“balancing” needed for PvP will not effect those same things in PvE and vice versa. PvE players would no longer be forced to deal with “tweaks” made to the classes simply because of PvP issues and the same can be said for PvP’rs if PvE tweaks occur. I -really- wish MMO developers would understand this concept and apply it in their game design from the get go. [Le sigh]

I’m leveling my newbie lvl 16 warrior at the moment, and I would have to say that I miss the survivability of my level 80 d/d elementalist. Its just not fun when I can no longer solo 10+ enemy mobs at the same time, champion mobs solo, and all the mass AoE burst I get from D/D. I do however like my single targeting DPS much more, b/c an elementalists does have some rather poor single DPS bursting.

I don’t understand why people think the elementalist is so crappy. I’m having a much harder time surviving as a warrior in PvE than my ele in PvE, maybe its b/c I’m used to aggroing everything in sight and kiting >_>

daphoenix.4283:

I’m leveling my newbie lvl 16 warrior at the moment, and I would have to say that I miss the survivability of my level 80 d/d elementalist. Its just not fun when I can no longer solo 10+ enemy mobs at the same time, champion mobs solo, and all the mass AoE burst I get from D/D. I do however like my single targeting DPS much more, b/c an elementalists does have some rather poor single DPS bursting.

I don’t understand why people think the elementalist is so crappy. I’m having a much harder time surviving as a warrior in PvE than my ele in PvE, maybe its b/c I’m used to aggroing everything in sight and kiting >_>

Yes, you answered your own question. Once you get used to ranged style fighting along with kiting, it can be difficult making the switch to the wade-in-and-kill-it types because you aren’t used to using your mobility keys to jump out of the way etc. I have the hardest time with that myself since I am primary a ranged combat class player -and- I have a hard time playing my keyboard like a piano, lol. It’s a learning curve I’m still trying to master. Good luck with yours.

daphoenix.4283:

I’m leveling my newbie lvl 16 warrior at the moment, and I would have to say that I miss the survivability of my level 80 d/d elementalist. Its just not fun when I can no longer solo 10+ enemy mobs at the same time, champion mobs solo, and all the mass AoE burst I get from D/D. I do however like my single targeting DPS much more, b/c an elementalists does have some rather poor single DPS bursting.

1)I have no idea where are you going to find 10 mob cubing together (not those lesser one that die in 2 hit) to solo. Even when I solo a event, the number of mob scale with number of players there so the maximum I get like is 4 .
2)No one can solo a champion with huge range dmg but EVERYONE can solo a champion that don’t have high range dmg. See the different? Given that rifle warrior has higher single target dmg, they have a much easier time solo a champ than elementalist.
3) While DD elementalist has good AOE dmg, it is nowhere comparable to hundred-blade.
4) the 2things elementalist has over warrior are group defensive buff (that why everyone spec into arcane) and escape tools(good for wvw).

Well everytime I see people talking about elementalist being able to kite in PvE, it may be true for lower levels. But its rather impossible to kite while in Orr, seriously I would love to see someone using an elementalist in Orr that kites frenzied undeads while not aggroing nearby mobs. Also keep in mind that the undeads just runs a tad slower then ride the lighting and they are practically everywhere around the map. IMO ele might not need a improvement in their dmg but a HP boost should be implemented as we are already a clothie, stacking with low HP just makes it brutal to play.

Warrior ,High HP, High DEF are way harder to kill.
Ele, Low HP, Low DEF are easier to kill.
If an Ele was High HP, Low DEF, they are slightly harder to kill(then the low hp/low def eles) and the versatility in ele makes up for the low DEF we have compared to the warriors.

KOK.2650:

daphoenix.4283:

I’m leveling my newbie lvl 16 warrior at the moment, and I would have to say that I miss the survivability of my level 80 d/d elementalist. Its just not fun when I can no longer solo 10+ enemy mobs at the same time, champion mobs solo, and all the mass AoE burst I get from D/D. I do however like my single targeting DPS much more, b/c an elementalists does have some rather poor single DPS bursting.

1)I have no idea where are you going to find 10 mob cubing together (not those lesser one that die in 2 hit) to solo. Even when I solo a event, the number of mob scale with number of players there so the maximum I get like is 4 .
2)No one can solo a champion with huge range dmg but EVERYONE can solo a champion that don’t have high range dmg. See the different? Given that rifle warrior has higher single target dmg, they have a much easier time solo a champ than elementalist.
3) While DD elementalist has good AOE dmg, it is nowhere comparable to hundred-blade.
4) the 2things elementalist has over warrior are group defensive buff (that why everyone spec into arcane) and escape tools(good for wvw).

That bold part makes you sound like a Warrior fanboy or you don’t understand an Ele. Hundred Blades has piss poor range and spotty hit angles. Specially from the side. Sure it hits hard. But we have MUCH better burst AoE. Burning Speed > Drakes Breath (1.6k Damage 5.6k Burning) > Fire Grab > RoF > Arcane Wave > Earthquake (8 stacks of bleed around 5.3k) > CE > Cone of Cold.

KOK.2650:

daphoenix.4283:

I’m leveling my newbie lvl 16 warrior at the moment, and I would have to say that I miss the survivability of my level 80 d/d elementalist. Its just not fun when I can no longer solo 10+ enemy mobs at the same time, champion mobs solo, and all the mass AoE burst I get from D/D. I do however like my single targeting DPS much more, b/c an elementalists does have some rather poor single DPS bursting.

1)I have no idea where are you going to find 10 mob cubing together (not those lesser one that die in 2 hit) to solo. Even when I solo a event, the number of mob scale with number of players there so the maximum I get like is 4 .
2)No one can solo a champion with huge range dmg but EVERYONE can solo a champion that don’t have high range dmg. See the different? Given that rifle warrior has higher single target dmg, they have a much easier time solo a champ than elementalist.
3) While DD elementalist has good AOE dmg, it is nowhere comparable to hundred-blade.
4) the 2things elementalist has over warrior are group defensive buff (that why everyone spec into arcane) and escape tools(good for wvw).

1. In frostgorge sound there is a pack of wolves and dogs to the far north near Jors spawn there are more than 10 and yes I have killed them all at the same time on D/D.

2. While I can say its difficult its far from impossible its just pointless. If you understand how strong RTL is while kiting you realize you can go in hit and move go out of range and heal to full and do it again. Second, I have and have seen other D/D eles solo the champions plus the vets. I am sure other professions can do this but its still possible to solo range.

3. Who cares?100B vs ele dps its apples and oranges. For all the mitigation and healing I do and the stupid amount of utility I have I could care less if 100b hits 10x harder than my best skill.

4. Missed group healing.

Look hate on ele its doesn’t matter at the end of the day the end game potential of a properly played ele dwarves just about every class save engineer. Isn’t that the point though? The skill floor is higher because you can do more its not a contest. I have met many great warriors and I never felt a need to point out how I was better than them. It doesn’t matter do your job play your role and all will be happy.

The skill floor is higher because you can do more its not a contest.

no. The skill CEILING is higher. The skill FLOOR is lower.

Imagine a skyscraper of skill.

Low skill floor means with not much skill you are at the bottom of the skyscraper of skill, ground floor.

High skill floor means you start on the 10th floor even if you suck, i.e. the class is easy to play at a decent level.

Low skill ceiling means..you can get to the 20th floor, but can’t get any higher no matter how good you are.

High skill ceiling means you can go all the way to the penthouse if you have the ability.

Skill floor/ceiling has to be one of the most mis-used terms in PvP.

@Rahmorak

Going to correct you quickly. There has been very little discussion over the proper use of the term skill floor and skill ceiling and its not even worth a post but off topic as it is I will respond.

Skill floor would be the lowest possible level of skill needed to accomplish a task ie the higher the skill floor the harder i is to get the simplest things dont. Think of it like level or ratings (forget the skyscraper stuff) 1-10 1 being simplest 10 being the most complex. Warrior starts at one ie the simplest build requires very little skill. The most complex build is maybe a 5 to play and play well. Ele starts at 3 ie the simplest build (for ele) requires marginal skill. The most complex build is maybe an 8 to play and play and play well.

BTW both the skill floor and the skill ceiling are higher for ele. Also your example makes no sense. Sorry its true. Your first definition describes a skill floor as the rating of how good the class is ie its effectiveness the second describes its potential. What I set up is a range both definitions work hand in hand to describe the difficulty of playing a class. Your post talks about 2 different things base effectiveness and skill requirement. Those are 2 separate topics.

to get a better grasp of this look up Tera’s class rating for warrior dps vs tanking.

To simplify this even more its minimum required skill (floor) and maximum allowed skill (ceiling).

i think its obvious that it is not skill. A warrior to kill a mob takes like two button pushes or the full number 1 combo. On the other hand an ele takes for example 4, 5, F4, 4,5, F5 4,5 to kill the same thing. Its not skill I think its just a broken class.

no F5 my bad haha mixing up my keys

hakurface.2619:

That bold part makes you sound like a Warrior fanboy or you don’t understand an Ele. Hundred Blades has piss poor range and spotty hit angles. Specially from the side. Sure it hits hard. But we have MUCH better burst AoE. Burning Speed > Drakes Breath (1.6k Damage 5.6k Burning) > Fire Grab > RoF > Arcane Wave > Earthquake (8 stacks of bleed around 5.3k) > CE > Cone of Cold.

And you sound like a Elementalist fanboy who has no idea how much dmg warrior do.
Who care if Hundred blades can’t hit everyone when a full cycle basically take out 80% of the Orr risen hp aka 10k dmg. With your cycle , my warrior can do like 3 hundred blade+ 8 auto dmg cycle(3 hit per cycle).
By the way, I don’t know how Earthquake are able to give bleed dmg (maybe some type proc that give EIGHT STACK,ps: please tell me what gear and trait you using)and your Drakes Breath Burning dmg is over-exaggerated(given that its burning duration is 2sec so you are telling me you can burn dmg is 2.8k per tick?) I am sure 99% of the elementalist can’t do that kind of dmg you boasting about , that why they have issue.

4. Missed group healing.

Shout/banner spec warrior do group healing as well. However it needed to be spec into and they lose dmg when soloing so you dont see them often in open world PvE, I see them in explor dungeon all the time

i agree how GW2 make mellee stronger and stronger and scholar classes weaker and weaker in pve i wonder if the team of GW2 even listen to us

i try ever class to see how strong they are in pve and vs groeps
and it seems all 3 scholar classes have a hard time

in keeping them alive and vs groeps you need to do so much to get the same result as
a mellee class that can do it in less time

i stil hope the GW2 team wil give all 3 scholar class in pve more damege and deff
so we can enjoy the world beter with out dieing so much

atm i see warrior and guardian the OP class in pve and maby ranger to

@KOK
I have seen banners too and no insult to warriors but its not really comparable to having a guardian or ele on the team. I would rather have a dps warrior on the team. Like I conceded the dps is higher than mine but I lose very little specing a more balanced generalist build. All this warrior vs ele stuff doesn’t make much sense to me but I will not under represent my class. Ele can do more better than a warrior (play multiple roles) but warrior can dps and face tank better simple as that. I have no hate for warriors.

Right now the “OMG my dps is so good so much better than yours!” argument is a bunch of bullkitten at the end of the day. It doesn’t even matter. These types of arguments breed big heads and over inflated egos. At the end of the day everyone on my server is on the same kitten team. I drop my ring of fire near my dps warrior do 3 blast finishers give him 9 stacks of might and hope he does well with it.

All this ele bashing is bullkitten too. We don’t have “issues”. Fact is I was shying away from it because I was looking for a class that I could run a balanced build on, and not get crushed, and the rumors it was too hard to play. Eventually I happened upon that tanky post by daphoenix. I said I would give it a try seven days later I was 80 4 days later nearly full pow/vit/tou (one piece cleric all are exotic). I am not bragging my point is I got so in tune with the class I tossed all my effort behind it. If someone like the OP felt that way about warrior then that’s good it means they found the class they wanted to play.

This is why I’m a huge supporter of keeping the UI and things utterly separate for PvE and PvP. That way any …erm…“balancing” needed for PvP will not effect those same things in PvE and vice versa. PvE players would no longer be forced to deal with “tweaks” made to the classes simply because of PvP issues and the same can be said for PvP’rs if PvE tweaks occur. I -really- wish MMO developers would understand this concept and apply it in their game design from the get go. [Le sigh]

As long as that involves the nerfing of clearly overpowered builds in PvE that are acceptable in PvP, like the entirety of warrior for example, then I’m a-ok with what you said.

I however have the suspicion you meant the opposite, a seperation so that the buffing and buffing of classes in PVE can go on unfettered. Which is horrible for the health of the game.

i stil hope the GW2 team wil give all 3 scholar class in pve more damege and deff
so we can enjoy the world beter with out dieing so much

And I hope your comment isn’t indicative of the demographic ANet listens to when balancing the game.

Guess I’ll add my two cents in also. I do not pvp at all, one day I’ll give it a shot, so I only have a purely pve experience. In a way, almost makes me a perfect juror for this coughs ‘trial’. My main (I think) is a level 80 mesmer, GS/Sw+Sw most of the time. I have a level 80 Ele, D/D (I’ve done staff and Sc/D too. Not a fan of the focus). Also have a 65 War Axe+Axe/Hammer, Rifle, Bow, or Axe+Shield pending on the situation. Oh and a 59 Guardian, my squishy toon (Yeah the hardest one to kill is my squishiest, laughs).

As for the debate as to which is stronger/better, I actually find Warrior and Elementalist to be about the same. The problem is your trying to compare an apple to an orange, the only similarity is they are both fruit, or in this case player classes. A Warrior is an orange. He’s got a sharp powerful flavor, but he only grows in a small region of the world. In other words, he can do stuff in a fairly small area of influence; dps, support, healing, or tanking. He suffers from the tough exterior, but squishy interior of an orange too. Get past the armor and he doesn’t have a lot in the survival tools. They are there, just not a huge amount, relying more on the tough outer shell.

Apples on the other hand; grow all over the place, have a less in your face flavor, a softer skin, and a harder ‘meat’. They may take damage easier, but their ability to get out of situations makes them harder to kill. They aren’t as super in the flavor department as an orange which is more like “Oh my god! Citrus flavor in my face!”. It’s more subtle and can kind of catch you by surprise sometimes, but it is no less powerful. Plus their ability to be versatile is a nice boost. They are not a tank, not a healer, not dps, or support. They are yes or E. All of the above. They can specialize in a role, but they can -always- still contribute to the other roles.

The apple might be more complex to play, but that’s just due to the fact that elementalist is generally more complex than Grok, who has a stick with a pointy bit and beats people to death with it whilst muttering, “ugh” and “urk”. I play my War on the days when my brain doesn’t feel like waking up any further than my caveman level of intelligence (we all have those days). Or when I just feel like “Hulk, smash” and eventually remember I’m not big and green. Often followed by eating dirt.

On a side note, Guardians are pineapples, maybe coconuts. Mesmers, I’m thinking are black grapes… kitten all those little seeds. Annoying till you miss one and bam….ow ow ow. Kind of like a shatter.

I seriously need less time on my hands.

I had a similar experience, in regards to PvE, so I agree with you.

What I Leveled as

Leveled as to 80 as an Ele.

Then leveled a Guardian (currently lvl 72) and I was laughing the whole way.Why? because the difference in ease increased substantially. I am leveling a Warrior now as well (level 26), so I know what you mean.

What People Think

Now, people will say something like “Eles are meant to be harder they have a higher skill-cap.” or “You suck as an Ele player, lrn2play noob.”

To which I have two replies:

1. Show me anywhere where Anet says that the elementalist is an elitist (non-core) class only for the more skilled GW2 players. Truth is, if you give a skilled Elementalist any other class and they will own. Meaning, that just because there is a higher skill cap, doesn’t mean there should be one. The fact that there is indicates there may be something wrong with the balancing of the class.

2. I am skilled with my Ele and with MMO gaming. I know how to learn a new class, test things for myself, build and rebuild specs. Not boasting, just believe me when I say, I have enough skill to make educated comments about this topic.

My Conclusion

I LOVE my Ele but I have come to the same conclusion. I play my Ele for dungeons and thats it. I would play my Ele in WvW but the build I would use would be a Staff build that conflicts with my Daggers build. And I don’t like re-speccing all the time, it’s a pain. Also Staff builds are…. kinda boring, effective, but boring.

Some Reasonings and Thoughts Regarding this Topic

The reason (or a reason) I believe, is that, Ele’s are far more gear reliant than other classes. You can have a great build, but without the right gear to support it can effectively become ineffective. While other classes, particularly, Warriors and Guardians, can swap around far more easily and with far fewer restrictions.

Also heavy armour is basically free toughness, which Ele’s are in short supply of. Which means we have to sacrifice even more offensive power to get to a similar level to these other classes, and when we do, we still have substantially less hp then they do. Effectively forcing some players into a tanking build just to “get by.” While if that player played another class, that same person wouldn’t even have to think about making a tank build. They would just play what they want. In other words, there may be an issue with Power to Survivability issue with Ele’s.

Thieves and Mesmers, for instance, get a lot of defensive capabilities passively built in. Ele’s don’t. What abilities we do get can often be glitchy or unavailable due to stance dancing CDs.

psh, elementalists are fine!

Yes, Warriors and Guardians can faceroll their way to top-of-the-line effectiveness. That probably isn’t going to change for awhile, as it would kitten the classes in PvE. When you decide to play an elementalist it usually comes with the caveat that you’re not interested in facerolling your way to victory… or so I figure.

That said, I mostly agree with Larth. Two entirely different classes here, that approach their group contribution in different ways. Warriors strike me as extremely one-dimensional compared to the Elementalist. Hell, I’d actually rate the Elementalist in the top three or four classes for PvE. And WvW. And maybe even sPvP. I’ve had a quadra-Elementalist group clear Arah at a rate that would rival pure Warrior/Guardian setups – on top of being really fun, to boot.