Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying that I love playing my elementalist. It’s possibly the most visually stimulating, complex, and challenging class I’ve had the pleasure to experience in GW2. In particular, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to master the profession in spvp/tpvp (currently rank 43). Until recently, it’s been my opinion that the ele is “fine”; not especially underpowered or overpowered relative to other classes. Until recently… I’ve attributed most of my failures to my own mistakes and imperfections as a player. “The elementalist is potentially very powerful,” I said, “if only I could coordinate my attacks just a bit better,” or “if I could just find the right build,” I kept telling myself. I told myself these things over and again even after being defeated by some very inexperienced players.

I am now ready to admit, however, that I’ve been disillusioned about the state of the elementalist in spvp/tpvp. I believe the devs are suffering from the same misplaced idealism. I want to be clear when I say that the elementalist is only “potentially” balanced. It is potentially balanced if you can time your attunements perfectly, memorize every cool down and build, master every skill combo, keep track of every boon and condition on yourself, your allies, and your enemies, avoid all the potentially devastating aoe fields in your vicinity, anticipate your opponent’s invisibility/invulnerability/block, and somehow… magically target your enemy in a sea of clones/phantasms, minions, pets/spirits, and etc. If you can do all that, you’re certainly a better player than I. Unfortunately for me, and the vast majority of players, this potential “balance” evaporates under the fact that it requires an inhuman skill level to reach it. In psychological terms, there is simply too much cognitive load to play the elementalist effectively in a competitive pvp context. That is the main problem to my mind.

It’s well known that the combat system in GW2 is complicated. We like this for the most part, I think, as it adds a high level of challenge and personal satisfaction to the game. However, when it comes to the elementalist vis-à-vis other professions this complexity becomes unmanageable. This is an intangible aspect of the game that isn’t spoken of very often. But please consider the amount of effort required to create this kind of confusion. The necromancer easily summons his minions, the ranger his pets/spirits, the mesmer his clones/phantasms, and the thief can drop into invisibility at any time. In each case there is very little skill required, and yet each one is able to generate this immense confusion for other players. What is the cost of these game mechanics? None that I can see. The mesmer, necro, ranger, and thief can all dawn full berserker and retain their survivability due to their abilities. Warriors, guardians, and engineers, on the other hand, can cope with these mechanics fairly well. For one thing they have higher base defensive attributes, and can attain a reasonable balance between dps and survivability. What does the elementalist get? The lowest base armor and vitality rating, which forces us into a purely defensive support build that renders our damage output meaningless, or a full offensive burst build that spells instant death in almost every pvp scenario. The hard truth is that there is no middle ground for the elementalist. There is no way to make up for the massive advantages that have been so generously afforded to the other professions.

Make whatever excuses you want, Arenanet, but this is not my fault as a player. This is your fault, for not taking seriously the difficulties we face in a pvp environment.

just figured this out, huh?

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

cheshirefox.7026:

just figured this out, huh?

Honestly, I see a lot of crying on this forum, and find most of it irritating. This is not me venting my emotional dissatisfaction. This is me giving an honest appraisal of the ele after playing the class almost exclusively for 6 months, the majority of which has been in pvp.

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

Couldn’t agree more, sadly.

The ele is high risk, (usually) no reward.

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

Is this really a bad thing for the Ele? I mean, only today someone showed me not to underestimate Scepter/Focus. Even if I wasn’t playing a class I was familiar with, he still showed me how a skilled player could turn a loathed weapon combo into a major asset.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

I have pisted a thread on the PvP forums, “now is the time to strike, we shall be heard”, please go check itv out

Sorry for the lack of link, I’m on my new tablet and getting used to it, hehe.

Dirame.8521:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

Yes. All the “damaging” skills such as Churning Earth can EASILY be avoided. If you want REAL damage you have to go full zerker and even then its still not going to be the same as other classes plus with the fact we have like 10.5k health without any vit buffs you dont kill them and unless they are full zerker then you wont you are pretty much dead.

Dirame.8521:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

Is this really a bad thing for the Ele? I mean, only today someone showed me not to underestimate Scepter/Focus. Even if I wasn’t playing a class I was familiar with, he still showed me how a skilled player could turn a loathed weapon combo into a major asset.

Yes, this is a bad thing. When you face someone of equal skill or even slightly less: you lose. You have to play better than your opponent to just make it an even fight.

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

Eles have one of the strongest instant bursts by literally throwing everything at their opponents at once. If they use an evade/block/etc. they are left exposed with nothing. Even that power build, however, has almost nothing else. The sustained damage is garbage, and doesn’t even out-do a warrior’s healing signet. D/D has sub-par sustained damage, but the survivability is garbage and thus isn’t viable. Our “strongest” build (the S/D burst) is a poor-man’s thief, but without the survivability through stealthed or sustained damage from hard-hitting backstabs/heartseekers.

BlackBeard.2873:

Dirame.8521:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

Is this really a bad thing for the Ele? I mean, only today someone showed me not to underestimate Scepter/Focus. Even if I wasn’t playing a class I was familiar with, he still showed me how a skilled player could turn a loathed weapon combo into a major asset.

Yes, this is a bad thing. When you face someone of equal skill or even slightly less: you lose. You have to play better than your opponent to just make it an even fight.

How is it a bad thing for class to require skill? The complaint should be that other classes require no skill rather than your class requires more. If someone told me my class required a lot of skill I would be proud because I play that class.

Like I said, the other day, someone whooped my kitten with Scepter/Focus. You guys who consider yourselves “pro” at eles don’t even use that weapon combo and this guy made Scepter/focus look like the best thing since sliced bread. Just by great positioning and an amazing use of skills.

Also on the same day, someone else was using the 0/10/0/30/30 build which everyone considers to be dead (and really it isn’t) and this guy was surviving against 3 people. Even after we stunned him and tried to burst him.

So no, be proud that your class takes skill.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Dirame.8521:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

Yes. All the “damaging” skills such as Churning Earth can EASILY be avoided. If you want REAL damage you have to go full zerker and even then its still not going to be the same as other classes plus with the fact we have like 10.5k health without any vit buffs you dont kill them and unless they are full zerker then you wont you are pretty much dead.

So the fact that you guys can stack and insane amount of might in just a matter of seconds does not factor into your builds?

Just think about it, the fact that your class can stack might pretty well means that, you can go for less power and more survivability.

Dirame.8521:

So the fact that you guys can stack and insane amount of might in just a matter of seconds does not factor into your builds?

this is a rotation for 12 stacks
Dragon’s tooth—>ring of fire—>phoenix (in field)—>dodge roll (swap earth mid-roll)—>earthquake

this skill gives 12 stacks and heals
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empower

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dirame.8521:

So the fact that you guys can stack and insane amount of might in just a matter of seconds does not factor into your builds?

this is a rotation for 12 stacks
Dragon’s tooth—>ring of fire—>phoenix (in field)—>dodge roll (swap earth mid-roll)—>earthquake

this skill gives 12 stacks and heals
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empower

Empower may be easier but it lasts for 10 seconds whilst Ele rotation lasts for 20s and I believe that is increased by boon duration.

And that doesn’t even answer my question.

Dirame.8521:

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dirame.8521:

So the fact that you guys can stack and insane amount of might in just a matter of seconds does not factor into your builds?

this is a rotation for 12 stacks
Dragon’s tooth—>ring of fire—>phoenix (in field)—>dodge roll (swap earth mid-roll)—>earthquake

this skill gives 12 stacks and heals
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empower

Empower may be easier but it lasts for 10 seconds whilst Ele rotation lasts for 20s and I believe that is increased by boon duration.

And that doesn’t even answer my question.

the ele-rotation has a higher cooldown (standard attunenment CD is 15s) and also requires good timing, a specific build, a target for dragon’s tooth and energy + infight-state for dodge-roll … Guards stand there chanelling and also get an additional heal. It’s just ridiculous in comparison.
This pretty much sums up Anets idea of “balancing”

Dirame.8521:

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

The damage might not be poor but very hard to land and has high CDs. Like the op I consider myself as a quite experienced player. I almost only play ele since release and also hit lvl42 yesterday (98% of games with ele). But still about 70% of my Fire Grabs tend to miss – is it my fault, or not? You can laugh at any ele that starts chanelling churning earth in tPvP. You will be dead or CCed into oblivion before the chanel is half over – and using CDs to grant stability or Lightning flash just to try to land a spell that is easy to read and therefore easily dodged, blinded, blocked, etc. is just not worth it. Leaving these 3-4 burst-spells aside you don’t have anything you can do until their CDs are ready. Our sustained dmg is poor. You are busy to survive anyway once your spells are on CD. While other classes continue to spam their spells with CDs ranging from 6-12s (or no CD at all like thieves) which perfectly harmonizes with weapon-switch-CDs you have to struggle to survive.

Yesterday I played warrior PvP for the first time. I didn’t even really know the exact mechanics or CDs of the spells (only from duelling warriors) but I literally steamrolled over every elementalist and most other players I encountered. I just smashed my buttons perma-CCing them while eles were struggling with their (considered the best ele-burst-build) fresh-air-s/d build. I laughed at the dmg and never had to use any defensive CD – not even a dodge roll and the eles just dropped continuosly to zero health. (I mean … 7s CD on a 3s stun that crits for 4-5k wtf). I could even easily tank 2 people with berserker-amulett …

Until yesterday I had the exact same thoughts like the OP. I thought that maybe I am just a mediocre player, but suddenly totally owning with a class i never played before raised some doubts…

Dirame.8521:

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dirame.8521:

So the fact that you guys can stack and insane amount of might in just a matter of seconds does not factor into your builds?

this is a rotation for 12 stacks
Dragon’s tooth—>ring of fire—>phoenix (in field)—>dodge roll (swap earth mid-roll)—>earthquake

this skill gives 12 stacks and heals
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empower

Empower may be easier but it lasts for 10 seconds whilst Ele rotation lasts for 20s and I believe that is increased by boon duration.

And that doesn’t even answer my question.

ok then,

yes, might stacking is considered into a build, just like any other build on any other profession. but bear in mind that you’re running an obvious rotation that can easily be cancelled at any point, using your attack skills more for stacking might than attacking your enemy (because nobody is stupid enough to stand under dragon’s tooth AND wait for you to hit them with EA AND earthquake).

a single interrupt will stop you from might stacking, your main source of damage since you’re almost always built for survival and almost guaranteed to have a minimum of 30 points between water and arcane. even if you specced more for glass cannon, your attacks are so obvious that even if you didn’t die in a few seconds your target can waltz out of range before it hits them

on the other hand, a skill like empower can be thrown before you make contact or can be used without interruption with only 2 seconds of stability required. remember this is 12 stacks of might in 2 seconds and healing your party on a 20 second CD, with a shout on 30 seconds that stun breaks and gives stability if required. an ele has to go through a rotation in order to gain the same thing, putting skills on 6/15/20/10/45 seconds CD for the respective skills. your ele needs stability? 90 second CD. want to spec for the stability trait? do even lower damage.

the aggressive play style of the ele would be justified if it was high risk high reward, and it sort of is when you run glass cannon. but the reward is the same as other classes and you die a lot faster than anyone else.

you can feel proud of yourself knowing that you need to have so much more skill to do the same as others, but that’s like cutting your own legs off and trying to live a regular life, while shouting at others “get on my level”

Gorni.1764:

the ele-rotation has a higher cooldown (standard attunenment CD is 15s) and also requires good timing, a specific build, a target for dragon’s tooth and energy + infight-state for dodge-roll … Guards stand there chanelling and also get an additional heal. It’s just ridiculous in comparison.
This pretty much sums up Anets idea of “balancing”

I personally feel that Attunement recharge shouldn’t be affected by traits and should have a lower standard cooldown (8 seconds) as this will take a lot off pressure people to put at least 20 points into Arcane.

With regards to long CDs for stacking might, I’ve got to ask, is Dragon’s tooth longer than 6 s recharge? Is Phoenix not 20 seconds? is Ring of Fire not 15s? And is Evasive Arcana not on a 10second CD? Yes, Earthquake is on a 45 second recharge but in less than the amount of time it takes for your initial 12 stacks of might to fade away, you can stack 6-9 more.

Dirame.8521:

Dirame.8521:

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

The damage might not be poor but very hard to land and has high CDs. Like the op I consider myself as a quite experienced player. I almost only play ele since release and also hit lvl42 yesterday (98% of games with ele). But still about 70% of my Fire Grabs tend to miss – is it my fault, or not? You can laugh at any ele that starts chanelling churning earth in tPvP. You will be dead or CCed into oblivion before the chanel is half over – and using CDs to grant stability or Lightning flash just to try to land a spell that is easy to read and therefore easily dodged, blinded, blocked, etc. is just not worth it. Leaving these 3-4 burst-spells aside you don’t have anything you can do until their CDs are ready. Our sustained dmg is poor. You are busy to survive anyway once your spells are on CD. While other classes continue to spam their spells with CDs ranging from 6-12s (or no CD at all like thieves) which perfectly harmonizes with weapon-switch-CDs you have to struggle to survive.

Yesterday I played warrior PvP for the first time. I didn’t even really know the exact mechanics or CDs of the spells (only from duelling warriors) but I literally steamrolled over every elementalist and most other players I encountered. I just smashed my buttons perma-CCing them while eles were struggling with their (considered the best ele-burst-build) fresh-air-s/d build. I laughed at the dmg and never had to use any defensive CD – not even a dodge roll and the eles just dropped continuosly to zero health. (I mean … 7s CD on a 3s stun that crits for 4-5k wtf). I could even easily tank 2 people with berserker-amulett …

Until yesterday I had the exact same thoughts like the OP. I thought that maybe I am just a mediocre player, but suddenly totally owning with a class i never played before raised some doubts…

When you set up a burst on your own, sure it’s hard to land (that’s the same thing for every class) but have you ever tried teaming up with your teammates to land combos? Timing a Stun at the right time for Churning Earth to land is just glorious when doing it with your teammates. You guys believe that all skills should be made and built to be used in solo play but some skills are just amazing for group play and Churning Earth is one of them.

Warrior is now a bruiser class. They endure pressure and push forward. They will go down but it will take time. Ele is more of a CC oriented class with a minor in evasion and a major in active sustained healing. In order for an Ele to take down a Warrior, they will have to survive through their stability which can be from 10 – 20sec depend on how the Warrior is specced. If they can survive that, the Warrior becomes a lot easier to take down.

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dirame.8521:

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dirame.8521:

So the fact that you guys can stack and insane amount of might in just a matter of seconds does not factor into your builds?

this is a rotation for 12 stacks
Dragon’s tooth—>ring of fire—>phoenix (in field)—>dodge roll (swap earth mid-roll)—>earthquake

this skill gives 12 stacks and heals
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empower

Empower may be easier but it lasts for 10 seconds whilst Ele rotation lasts for 20s and I believe that is increased by boon duration.

And that doesn’t even answer my question.

ok then,

yes, might stacking is considered into a build, just like any other build on any other profession. but bear in mind that you’re running an obvious rotation that can easily be cancelled at any point, using your attack skills more for stacking might than attacking your enemy (because nobody is stupid enough to stand under dragon’s tooth AND wait for you to hit them with EA AND earthquake).

a single interrupt will stop you from might stacking, your main source of damage since you’re almost always built for survival and almost guaranteed to have a minimum of 30 points between water and arcane. even if you specced more for glass cannon, your attacks are so obvious that even if you didn’t die in a few seconds your target can waltz out of range before it hits them

on the other hand, a skill like empower can be thrown before you make contact or can be used without interruption with only 2 seconds of stability required. remember this is 12 stacks of might in 2 seconds and healing your party on a 20 second CD, with a shout on 30 seconds that stun breaks and gives stability if required. an ele has to go through a rotation in order to gain the same thing, putting skills on 6/15/20/10/45 seconds CD for the respective skills. your ele needs stability? 90 second CD. want to spec for the stability trait? do even lower damage.

the aggressive play style of the ele would be justified if it was high risk high reward, and it sort of is when you run glass cannon. but the reward is the same as other classes and you die a lot faster than anyone else.

you can feel proud of yourself knowing that you need to have so much more skill to do the same as others, but that’s like cutting your own legs off and trying to live a regular life, while shouting at others “get on my level”

I have a might stacking build for my Engie, it uses Flamethrower and Elixir Gun. I get about 18 to 20 stacks of might on the build and how I manage to complete my might stacking combo is by intermingling CC chains with blast finishers, allowing me to stack might without getting interrupted.

Updraft, Dragon’s tooth, Ring of Fire, Phoenix, Earthquake. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that Eles have easier access to stability than Engineers.

Sadly yes the ele is a dead class in WvW and PvP.

ARM.3912:

Sadly yes the ele is a dead class in WvW and PvP.

WvW? Ele’s not a dead class here.

Dirame.8521:

With regards to long CDs for stacking might, I’ve got to ask, is Dragon’s tooth longer than 6 s recharge? Is Phoenix not 20 seconds? is Ring of Fire not 15s? And is Evasive Arcana not on a 10second CD? Yes, Earthquake is on a 45 second recharge but in less than the amount of time it takes for your initial 12 stacks of might to fade away, you can stack 6-9 more.

do you even play ele?
let’s assume you have 30P in arcana and hence 9s recharge rate on attunements. You do your rotation once then everything is on CD. You switch from earth to air and water then back to fire – dang! phoenix isn’t ready yet … well 3 stacks through dragons tooth at least – switch to eart – oh noes i got no energy for dodge left – no might for me – maybe next time – i will have all my CDs ready – switch to fire, lay ring of fire, get feared … no might for me again

Dirame.8521:

When you set up a burst on your own, sure it’s hard to land (that’s the same thing for every class) but have you ever tried teaming up with your teammates to land combos? Timing a Stun at the right time for Churning Earth to land is just glorious when doing it with your teammates. You guys believe that all skills should be made and built to be used in solo play but some skills are just amazing for group play and Churning Earth is one of them.

So in your opinion the ele should suck when played solo? Cause if I have to rely on others to make damage and kills it’s rather sad when I look at other classes. Thieves spamming one button to win or run around with perma-stealth, warriors rotating through CCs, Nekros spamming conditions, Rangers doing autoattack and summoning their zoos, Mesmers spawning clones like mad and doing kittenloads of damage, guardians and engis holding points against 3 people – every class can shine on its own and defeat enemys effectively – what can the ele do alone? I get laughed at when I play bunker, I get laughed at when I play bersererk D/D – only thing left is S/D-Burst and this is still laughable due to the insane lack of defense. Where are the elementalists in tPvP – what do you think is the reason that there are none?

Dirame.8521:

Ele is more of a CC oriented class

that made me giggle … especially because you compared it with warrior.

Gorni.1764:

Dirame.8521:

With regards to long CDs for stacking might, I’ve got to ask, is Dragon’s tooth longer than 6 s recharge? Is Phoenix not 20 seconds? is Ring of Fire not 15s? And is Evasive Arcana not on a 10second CD? Yes, Earthquake is on a 45 second recharge but in less than the amount of time it takes for your initial 12 stacks of might to fade away, you can stack 6-9 more.

do you even play ele?
let’s assume you have 30P in arcana and hence 9s recharge rate on attunements. You do your rotation once then everything is on CD. You switch from earth to air and water then back to fire – dang! phoenix isn’t ready yet … well 3 stacks through dragons tooth at least – switch to eart – oh noes i got no energy for dodge left – no might for me – maybe next time – i will have all my CDs ready – switch to fire, lay ring of fire, get feared … no might for me again

I don’t play Ele but I’m taking the stance of devil’s advocate here. The reason I speak so confidently is because I’ve seen people do well with some the speccs that many of you consider bad and I also speak like this because at beginning of the game, this was the same talk that came from the community before someone figured out how to play Eles properly.

Gorni.1764:

Dirame.8521:

When you set up a burst on your own, sure it’s hard to land (that’s the same thing for every class) but have you ever tried teaming up with your teammates to land combos? Timing a Stun at the right time for Churning Earth to land is just glorious when doing it with your teammates. You guys believe that all skills should be made and built to be used in solo play but some skills are just amazing for group play and Churning Earth is one of them.

So in your opinion the ele should suck when played solo?

What? How does what I said equate to Ele should suck in solo play? The guy mentioned landing Churning Earth and I said setting up Churning Earth solo is quite difficult on your own so outside help is nice. If there’s anything to take away from what I said it would be; “We need more skills that focus on team coordination and it’s good that Churning Earth can’t easily be used solo in PvP”.

Gorni.1764:

Where are the elementalists in tPvP – what do you think is the reason that there are none?

The reason there are no Eles in PvP is because a group of top level teams decided because bunker Eles got nerfed they are not worth playing anymore and everyone else followed them. When in actual fact, that Ele build is still quite potent.

Example, there was a time when I was running two Necros in PvP with a group of friends and the other team were running two Eles. One burst and one bunker. They sent the bunker to our point to hold it uncapped. It took a while for us to kill this guy. In a team fight, Necros couldn’t even corrupt his stability because he had so many boons. They won that match.

But nope bunker Eles suck, let’s all play burst Eles because we can one-shot things YAY!

Gorni.1764:

Dirame.8521:

Ele is more of a CC oriented class

that made me giggle … especially because you compared it with warrior.

I never said Eles had more CC than Warriors. I just said they were quite CC oriented because frankly you need all sorts of CC to land your burst as an Ele.

Jarek.2430:

ARM.3912:

Sadly yes the ele is a dead class in WvW and PvP.

WvW? Ele’s not a dead class here.

if you consider to be a mediocre buffbot for the blob than of course ele has a place in wvw, reroll ele for static field!
i’d rather buffbot/play support on my warrior or guard, or play a necro rather than a staff ele which just feels weak and kitten compared to other classes

d/d ele is dead and was never as op as some made it out to be
besides d/d ele is now freeloot for my s/d thief

at least s/d fresh air ele is fun… till they give in to whines about lighning strike
as if it would be relevant, since for roaming there are much better alternatives

so yes i consider ele dead for wvw
i rerolled and gave up on hoping anet could balance their game and now play ez mode, achieving more with less effort

@Dirame: Try to play the ele in pvp and read ur posts again – u’ll laugh about it.

I started in february to play gw2 – the first months i’ve played everyday pvp and made my dailys. I won 95% of all 1on1’s in pvp and wvw.
1 month ago i gave up and stopped playing ele in pvp and wvw, cause it was just too frustrating. Ele is just a bad joke at the moment.
Last week i had a 30 min’s 1on1 against a warrior. It was a 1vs1 tournament on our server. My life was jumping between 10 and 100% hitpoints. One time the warrior had nearly 60% hp but most time he had between 90-100%. After 30 mins i made a mistake and died. I had no chance to win.

1 Month ago i started to play a warrior too, bashing player in 1vs1 and running through zergs in wvw, while doing 4k crits with 26k hp and 3,3k armor. So much fun and u can easily watch tv at the same time. You dont have to pay 100% attention and u wont die cause of 1 mistake.

But i still hope they’ll buff the ele a bit, so that ele is playable again. Staff in wvw is still a good option, but its not my style.

Dirame.8521:

I don’t play Ele

what am i supposed to say about this? no. seriously.

and btw, there are people who still use the 0/10/0/30/30. it’s not a ‘dead’ build, people are just exploring other builds and how viable they are. i have my own version for my staff ele for group support.

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dirame.8521:

I don’t play Ele

what am i supposed to say about this? no. seriously.

and btw, there are people who still use the 0/10/0/30/30. it’s not a ‘dead’ build, people are just exploring other builds and how viable they are. i have my own version for my staff ele for group support.

Excuse me for being a skeptic but I’ve seen the perception of Eles go from Eles are weak to Eles are Op tanks to Eles have OP burst to Eles are weak again. And one of those shifts was not caused by any dev interference.

Jarek.2430:

ARM.3912:

Sadly yes the ele is a dead class in WvW and PvP.

WvW? Ele’s not a dead class here.

They might as well be, nothing more then a buff bot. AoE damage and thats about it, forced into using Staff. Solo is pointless you either go berserker and die or go bunker and…die

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Dirame.8521:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

Yes. All the “damaging” skills such as Churning Earth can EASILY be avoided. If you want REAL damage you have to go full zerker and even then its still not going to be the same as other classes plus with the fact we have like 10.5k health without any vit buffs you dont kill them and unless they are full zerker then you wont you are pretty much dead.

Funny thing about Churning Earth, as a none Ele player, I figured out how to land it without using Lightning Flash.

I have to thank the Ele that used Scepter/Focus on me. He enlightened my gameplay quite a bit.

Magnetic Grasp, Churning Earth, Arcane skills (blast and Wave) + Elemental Surge = 5 second immob enough to land CE on a single player.

Dirame.8521:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Dirame.8521:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

Yes. All the “damaging” skills such as Churning Earth can EASILY be avoided. If you want REAL damage you have to go full zerker and even then its still not going to be the same as other classes plus with the fact we have like 10.5k health without any vit buffs you dont kill them and unless they are full zerker then you wont you are pretty much dead.

Funny thing about Churning Earth, as a none Ele player, I figured out how to land it without using Lightning Flash.

I have to thank the Ele that used Scepter/Focus on me. He enlightened my gameplay quite a bit.

Magnetic Grasp, Churning Earth, Arcane skills (blast and Wave) + Elemental Surge = 5 second immob enough to land CE on a single player.

So you need 4 skills and 30 points into Arcane and take Elemental Surge to land ONE skill – you think that is okay? What about the classes with plenty of ways to avoid damage – Aegis, Invul and such?

Dirame.8521:

Funny thing about Churning Earth, as a none Ele player, I figured out how to land it without using Lightning Flash.

I have to thank the Ele that used Scepter/Focus on me. He enlightened my gameplay quite a bit.

Magnetic Grasp, Churning Earth, Arcane skills (blast and Wave) + Elemental Surge = 5 second immob enough to land CE on a single player.

That seems rather inefficient to land one skill. The fact that Elemental Surge is good only for its Earth effect that is tied to skills with a relatively long CD means that as soon as a person figures out what you are doing, you are not going to land CE anymore. If many other skills required this type of coordination to land, I could see your example as being viable, but that’s simply not the case. I also see a problem with you prefacing your example with “I figured out how to land it without using Lightning Flash”, and then proceeding to state that you burn a Grandmaster trait, a weapon skill that has a potential leap finisher and two utilities.

Griswold.2054:

Jarek.2430:

ARM.3912:

Sadly yes the ele is a dead class in WvW and PvP.

WvW? Ele’s not a dead class here.

if you consider to be a mediocre buffbot for the blob than of course ele has a place in wvw, reroll ele for static field!
i’d rather buffbot/play support on my warrior or guard, or play a necro rather than a staff ele which just feels weak and kitten compared to other classes

d/d ele is dead and was never as op as some made it out to be
besides d/d ele is now freeloot for my s/d thief

at least s/d fresh air ele is fun… till they give in to whines about lighning strike
as if it would be relevant, since for roaming there are much better alternatives

so yes i consider ele dead for wvw
i rerolled and gave up on hoping anet could balance their game and now play ez mode, achieving more with less effort

0/30/0/10/30 I switch between staff and s/d depending on situation and numbers. I dont feel weak nor unwanted. I see you mentioned Static field. Why? Its not even our strongest CC.

I cant speak for pvp or pve but for WvW you are off the mark.

Jarek.2430:

Griswold.2054:

Jarek.2430:

ARM.3912:

Sadly yes the ele is a dead class in WvW and PvP.

WvW? Ele’s not a dead class here.

if you consider to be a mediocre buffbot for the blob than of course ele has a place in wvw, reroll ele for static field!
i’d rather buffbot/play support on my warrior or guard, or play a necro rather than a staff ele which just feels weak and kitten compared to other classes

d/d ele is dead and was never as op as some made it out to be
besides d/d ele is now freeloot for my s/d thief

at least s/d fresh air ele is fun… till they give in to whines about lighning strike
as if it would be relevant, since for roaming there are much better alternatives

so yes i consider ele dead for wvw
i rerolled and gave up on hoping anet could balance their game and now play ez mode, achieving more with less effort

0/30/0/10/30 I switch between staff and s/d depending on situation and numbers. I dont feel weak nor unwanted. I see you mentioned Static field. Why? Its not even our strongest CC.
I cant speak for pvp or pve but for WvW you are off the mark.

of course you can hold your own with 0/30/0/10/30 and as i said its fun but i do find it in comparisson weak compared to other classes, and again of course you can roam with a s/d ele and if your burst hits its quite nice, but the risk/reward ratio is just off
compare it to for example to some burst or s/d thieves and you wonder why you ever bothered trying to play the ele in rvr
of course i speak solely about wvw
i do enjoy my s/d ele in spvp still much more than any other class but just because i like the playstyle but i would be more competitive -especially right now- on another class

static field was just an example, of course you do buffbot waterfields and such, but thats it, staff is an option for zerg nothing more, you’re deminished to support, for some its what they want ands thats fine but its the same reason why i won’t pick up a staff (/edit i grant you a full zerker meteor shower is somewhat nice from time to time, but staff is for a reason considered more support than damage)
you can play any class if you just run with the zerg and feel you contributed
but outsife of a zerg i consider a staffele freeloot (even inside of a zerg sometimes if he is not directly inside the blob), d/d ele is that too depending on class but even so d/d ele is no real thread unless outnumbered, s/f eles like in spvp do lack mobility for rvr i believe but I have not yet played one but from what i gather from a guildmate its similar to s/d, burst dependend and hope you won the fight with that burst, seems to be more fragile though

Dirame.8521:

The reason there are no Eles in PvP is because a group of top level teams decided because bunker Eles got nerfed they are not worth playing anymore and everyone else followed them. When in actual fact, that Ele build is still quite potent.

I tried much solo-Q last week (even made it to rank 600 or something). Depending on what you said only premades give up on eles due to them beeing unviable. So in solo-Q you should find the classes which are the most popular amongst players (and players tend to play classes that are competitive and not subpar). So guess how many eles i saw there .. I had to play about 10 games before I saw the first ele except me. The games where more than 2 eles were present (including me) can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And 4 eles never happened (while I had games where were 3-4 warriors/mesmers/thieves in only one team).
There is also a thread about it (unfortunately I can’t find the link) … I think it speaks for itself. Something has to be wrong about the class (or let’s say the balance – because I think ele itself might be ok if there weren’t some broken mechanics on other classes)
You can also take a look at the forums … most QQ and suggestions for class-fixes or balancing-changes are found in the ele-forums and I doubt that all players that like to QQ choose to play elementalist – so there has to be a reason behind that. When I look in other forums there are mainly threads about builds and playstyle, sometimes even demands for nerfs … when was the last time someone has described eles as “op” and demanded ele-nerfs? Eles are considered free-kills, that’s why nobody is complaining.

also, this:

i do enjoy my s/d ele in spvp still much more than any other class but just because i like the playstyle but i would be more competitive -especiall right now- on another class

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Dirame.8521:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Dirame.8521:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

Yes. All the “damaging” skills such as Churning Earth can EASILY be avoided. If you want REAL damage you have to go full zerker and even then its still not going to be the same as other classes plus with the fact we have like 10.5k health without any vit buffs you dont kill them and unless they are full zerker then you wont you are pretty much dead.

Funny thing about Churning Earth, as a none Ele player, I figured out how to land it without using Lightning Flash.

I have to thank the Ele that used Scepter/Focus on me. He enlightened my gameplay quite a bit.

Magnetic Grasp, Churning Earth, Arcane skills (blast and Wave) + Elemental Surge = 5 second immob enough to land CE on a single player.

So you need 4 skills and 30 points into Arcane and take Elemental Surge to land ONE skill – you think that is okay? What about the classes with plenty of ways to avoid damage – Aegis, Invul and such?

First off, the skills used do a lot of damage on their own. The combination of all those 4 things makes the combo a very potent one. If people got used to seeing it, yes they will instantly know how to counter it but if you make them waste all that stuff before you try to land such a combo, it’s just glorious.

Sure you need 4 skills but it was a fun combo for me to land.

Why bother with elementalist when there are other classes which give more solid results for way less work.

high risk / high reward? Oh yes, because Spirit Ranger is high risk. Because one-shotting other players in WvW as a thief is high risk. Because superbuffed necros are high risk (compared to ele).

And in PvE it’s the same garbage. Highest damage output? The most easiest thing to play: warrior or guardian.

high risk / high reward? No, not in GW2.

Dirame.8521:

First off, the skills used do a lot of damage on their own. The combination of all those 4 things makes the combo a very potent one. If people got used to seeing it, yes they will instantly know how to counter it but if you make them waste all that stuff before you try to land such a combo, it’s just glorious.

Sure you need 4 skills but it was a fun combo for me to land.

They don’t individually do a lot of damage sans CE, meaning if they “waste” stuff to avoid CE and succesfully do so, you didn’t really gain anything because unless you went from Fire into Earth, you’ve wasted 3 finishers, two of which actually contribute better to fast spikes than the slow one you’re trying to pull off. Again, burning your Grandmaster trait slot for nothing but some extra immobilize is not even close to being optimal.

CE’s cast time will forever make it somewhat useless unless they make the damage OP or turn it into a channeled effect skill.

Leuca.5732:

Dirame.8521:

First off, the skills used do a lot of damage on their own. The combination of all those 4 things makes the combo a very potent one. If people got used to seeing it, yes they will instantly know how to counter it but if you make them waste all that stuff before you try to land such a combo, it’s just glorious.

Sure you need 4 skills but it was a fun combo for me to land.

They don’t individually do a lot of damage sans CE, meaning if they “waste” stuff to avoid CE and succesfully do so, you didn’t really gain anything because unless you went from Fire into Earth, you’ve wasted 3 finishers, two of which actually contribute better to fast spikes than the slow one you’re trying to pull off. Again, burning your Grandmaster trait slot for nothing but some extra immobilize is not even close to being optimal.

CE’s cast time will forever make it somewhat useless unless they make the damage OP or turn it into a channeled effect skill.

If you don’t feel it’s ‘optimal’ that’s up to you. The other two skills are on a short cooldown so I can easily use them again after a few seconds so for me it’s just an additional way to burst not “the only way” as you guys seem to be alluding to.

Also the Arcanes definitely do a lot of damage, else they wouldn’t be used in several burst builds.

Dirame.8521:

If you don’t feel it’s ‘optimal’ that’s up to you. The other two skills are on a short cooldown so I can easily use them again after a few seconds so for me it’s just an additional way to burst not “the only way” as you guys seem to be alluding to.

Also the Arcanes definitely do a lot of damage, else they wouldn’t be used in several burst builds.

It’s not numerically efficient and certainly not even close to being universally practical. That kind of use is too niche to justify the state of the skill.

The Arcanes do modest damage; the reason they are part of spikes is because they are instant. If they all had a separate cast time you would quickly see burst eles fall out of the small favor they have right now.

Dirame.8521:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

Is this really a bad thing for the Ele? I mean, only today someone showed me not to underestimate Scepter/Focus. Even if I wasn’t playing a class I was familiar with, he still showed me how a skilled player could turn a loathed weapon combo into a major asset.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.

THIS.

Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.

They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…

Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.

Poor damage? No. Poor easy damage? Yes. A scepter/focus ele’s damage comes from a very obvious combo that requires a VERY high cooldown skill to hit (phoenix), then they swap to air for bolt to the heart, have to teleport onto your head, then mash 2,3 in Air. When you see an ele swap to fire attunement, you know its time to dodge. BAM! You’ve just negated the majority of their damage and now they have to wait an eon for that cooldown to come back. This combo does mad damage, but it is unreliable to pull off against anyone decent, and the cooldown is prohibitively long. Since they also have 30 into air, they most likely have low toughness, low condi removal or no evasive arcana.

Alright guys, look, I am an ele loyalist. I played the ele in GW1 from 1-20, he was my first and last character. I’ve been playing the GW2 ele since the betas, i was there for every step of the ele’s development, been through the good, the bad, the ugly, and back again. I’ve played just about every profession at least once and still love the ele. Now, agree and disagree with everyone equally. You all have pieces but you won’t put them together. I believe that yes, to one degree or another Anet screwed us over, i also believe that there is nothing we can say that is going to make them change their minds. My belief is that both eles and Anet are at fault. So we can’t keep up with the other professions, are we not trying hard enough? or is this Anet’s fault? the answer is both. The solution to this problem is to stop whining and boo-hooing about it and start finding a way to make do with what you got. If you don’t think your ele is powerful enough, then start playing with builds, their is a huge number of stat combos out there, play with them! If you don’t like that solution then quit playing the ele, it’s very simple.

Forgive my horrible grammar.

I agree with the OG OP on this topic and came to the same conclusions regarding skill level playing an ele and simply being “out classed” due to the state of the current game.

Hopefully we will get some love in the near future. In the meantime, I have had some success in TPvP with a couple of builds that I will share so hopefully some others can have some too.

The firs build is a staff bunker point defense build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmkbwx5gjDAkHmcCLjCdUeMzO2A-TkAgzCmIuRdj7GzNybs3M+A

Its all about healing and cond removal. You can last for a very, very long time.

The second is a d/d all around build. The inspiration for this one is the play style of the old cookie cutter 0/10/0/30/30. That was my favorite build of all time and I had a great time with it. I still use it in WvW and PVE. This build uses that play style but you need to focus more on the burns and other conditions hitting than direct dmg: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmYbux5gjDAkCmMe0xIkUeMTO2A-ToAAyCsIATBmDMDYSwsgNWYKC

As mentioned, this build plays a lot like the D/D of old but with a huge focus on protection up time and landing your conditions.

If anyone has any other builds they are having success with and are willing to share, please do.

Jarek.2430:

ARM.3912:

Sadly yes the ele is a dead class in WvW and PvP.

WvW? Ele’s not a dead class here.

I beg to differ, was in a 40-man EB zerg last night and there was not a single Ele.

The whole concept of a versatile-but-mediocre class has never worked in any other MMO and it doesn’t work here either.

Leuca.5732:

Dirame.8521:

First off, the skills used do a lot of damage on their own. The combination of all those 4 things makes the combo a very potent one. If people got used to seeing it, yes they will instantly know how to counter it but if you make them waste all that stuff before you try to land such a combo, it’s just glorious.

Sure you need 4 skills but it was a fun combo for me to land.

They don’t individually do a lot of damage sans CE, meaning if they “waste” stuff to avoid CE and succesfully do so, you didn’t really gain anything because unless you went from Fire into Earth, you’ve wasted 3 finishers, two of which actually contribute better to fast spikes than the slow one you’re trying to pull off. Again, burning your Grandmaster trait slot for nothing but some extra immobilize is not even close to being optimal.

CE’s cast time will forever make it somewhat useless unless they make the damage OP or turn it into a channeled effect skill.

Yeah Churning Earth would make a lot more sense if the bleed application was channelled along with the cripple, with the spike damage portion applied at the end.

Ian Kennedy.4563:

Forgive my horrible grammar.

Your grammar is not what I’m worried about. A large number of people experiment with myriad stat combinations, but our traitlines don’t come close to offering us enough numerically unless we run certain numbers in certain traits, with only a little room for variation. It’s got to do with the requirement of Water/Arcana for mere survival combined with inefficient damage traitlines and badly placed traits. The fact that our core function requires a traitline to even be competitive says a lot about the design of he class.

Mirsa.1628:

The ele is high risk, (usually) no reward.

^This!

Sad how useless the class has become in all forms of the game. At least i am still a buff bot for wvw. My role of providing group swiftness is very treasured and dear to me.

Uhg. Ok I am sorry but this needs to be said.

Firstly, elementalist is not your typical MMO style mage. I honestly consider it a battle mage of sorts. You will never get away playing a single element as an elementalist. Its just not how the class works. In order to successfully play ele you need to learn to swap and use your combo barriers. If yo want a single element mage; go play rift or wow.

Second, if you are specing into full assault. Yes, you will be squishy beyond reason in pvp. Its the sacrifice for maxing out burst to be so high. Cantrip builds are absolutley superior survivability in this game as an ele. The healing power we are cabable of is nuts. Which really goes back into my first point of attun swapping. Simply swapping to water is a 2.5k heal+another 2k regen. Not counting all the defensive 33% shields we get. You can even spec into an additional arcane shield that auto procs at25%…

Third, do research before making false claims. If I had come to the forums first to check the state on elementalist. I would have never rolled one with the amount of crying on how bad they are. Luckily, I youtubed videos and came upon a player named “excala” who is absolutley amazing. Even gives guides along with high quality WvW and Spvp (non zerg)

Finally, learn your class. Stop being scrubby and constantly crying. Ele does fine when played properly. Its about managing all the stuff you get as an ele and using it at the right times. High skill ceiling is fun, ele is where its at.

welcome… this has only been said since beta but sure nice going to figure it out now and ty for kittening it up for every one else by defending this rediculess design untill now. which have resulted in nothing but nerfs to the ele and near to no fixing of the major issues of the design….

the whole attunement swapping is a pure handicap compared to the abilities other classes gets, give of something awesome instead of attunement swapping and allow our skills to have double effects like every weapon skill (instead of splitting the effects to fill out 2 skills instead of one.) -.-

Laken.4056:

Uhg. Ok I am sorry but this needs to be said.

Firstly, elementalist is not your typical MMO style mage. I honestly consider it a battle mage of sorts. You will never get away playing a single element as an elementalist. Its just not how the class works. In order to successfully play ele you need to learn to swap and use your combo barriers. If yo want a single element mage; go play rift or wow.

Second, if you are specing into full assault. Yes, you will be squishy beyond reason in pvp. Its the sacrifice for maxing out burst to be so high. Cantrip builds are absolutley superior survivability in this game as an ele. The healing power we are cabable of is nuts. Which really goes back into my first point of attun swapping. Simply swapping to water is a 2.5k heal+another 2k regen. Not counting all the defensive 33% shields we get. You can even spec into an additional arcane shield that auto procs at25%…

Third, do research before making false claims. If I had come to the forums first to check the state on elementalist. I would have never rolled one with the amount of crying on how bad they are. Luckily, I youtubed videos and came upon a player named “excala” who is absolutley amazing. Even gives guides along with high quality WvW and Spvp (non zerg)

Finally, learn your class. Stop being scrubby and constantly crying. Ele does fine when played properly. Its about managing all the stuff you get as an ele and using it at the right times. High skill ceiling is fun, ele is where its at.

You must be new here; here’s a guide by your hero Excala. Class subforums are all about talking about how underpowered the respective class is (except maybe the Guardian subforum).

Your claims would be valid a few months ago. They’re not so much anymore. The cantrip build you mention. That’s ONE build that might have been able to hold out in the current condi meta pre-nerf.

Swapping attunements does indeed bring your survivability up on par with the other classes… if you spec for it. Most people including eles seem to forget they don’t get any healing if they don’t spec for it. The devs agree with you about attunements. That’s 45 points (15 water, 30 arcane) required to survive aside from bursting down your opponent before they can kill you. You also need 1k healing power if you want to heal 2.5k, but unfortunately, you won’t be doing any damage.

The requirement of arcane and/or water outside of full burst builds is a design flaw that hurts the ele’s build diversity and has been brought up constantly since the game was released. You can pretend these problems don’t exist or outright ignore them, but they won’t just go away. I currently just ignore them as my elementalist continues to be my main character since early access, but most people have already rerolled another character.

You should do your research on the state of the elementalist before making outdated claims. While it’s not as bad as a few people make it out to be, we’re not exactly in a great spot either having dropped from taking a top place in a tpvp team composition to having no place.