Guild Wars 2

I play a D/D Elementalist. It was the first character I created and I have tried almost every build imaginable. Right now I have a D/D ele slotted 10/0/20/30/10 and one that is slotted 30/0/30/10/0. I like to be different. lol. (I should also note that I mainly play hot join sPvP—I’m afraid to do tPvP because GW2 players can be very mean if you aren’t playing a build that is already known to be good.)

I hate playing the same thing as everyone else, but lately I’ve been really annoyed with the lack of options for eles. Our weapoons suck. They did everything they could to make it so that we couldn’t possibly have a strong build and it seems like it’s impossible to focus on certain things. We have less weapons than every single class, which gives us fewer possible combos and on top of that, we can’t weapon swap. The sigils are pretty lame and seem mostly focused on getting kills or crits. I don’t want a crit build, and I prefer a build that is good at support, not killing.

Honestly, I would be happy if they gave us more options for amulets in Heart of the Mists. I could work with all the other annoying stuff if I could customize my amulet to focus on the things I want rather than have to take +569 to a useless attribute.

There are some really good eles, but in my opinion, they are good in spite of all this—certainly not because eles are OP. The people calling for an ele nerf should probably look up how to fight an ele. It’s not that hard to avoid our AOEs (which tend to be some of our high-damage moves).

I’m just curious what other elementalists think about all this.

We are in agreements on the lack of variety. I also like to play different builds from the Flavour of The Month builds, even if they are sub-par (which is arguable).

I think one of our biggest problem stems from the inherent imbalance in the class trait lines. Some trait lines are simply more useful than others even in stats provided, and some synergize better with other traitlines. This is added on top of the fact that the devs never actually realized what they wanted elementalists to be. Most people play elementalists as an attunement-dancing class, but there remains many traits which only achieve effectiveness if you stay in one attunement. So it’s really up to the devs to make changes, to either set elementalists to one playstyle or another, or even better, to actually make it viable to play using other (fire/earth) traitlines.

We need variety, and we need to tone down the attunement spam that comes from arcana.

Agreed. I think the trait lines just need to be tweaked a little, though. I mostly like everything, just a few things in Air and Fire that could be better. Especially Fire.

I saw that they are looking into Greatsword for ele. That’s great and all, but totally useless for me. I would like another main- or off-hand weapon, not a two-handed weapon. (Though two new weapons would be best!)

Not being able to weapon-swap takes away a LOT from us, so we should be able to have more options for the perfect weapons. We lose the chance at all of the swap-related sigils, too, so we truly do need to spec into Arcana because of those losses. Otherwise, we are essentially gimping ourselves.

sapphyredragon.6437:

Not being able to weapon-swap takes away a LOT from us, so we should be able to have more options for the perfect weapons. We lose the chance at all of the swap-related sigils, too, so we truly do need to spec into Arcana because of those losses. Otherwise, we are essentially gimping ourselves.

wat?
Attunement Swapping is at 15 seconds goes down to 9 seconds with 30 under Arcana,and we have 4 different elements

these all trigger sigil on-weapon-swaps
at least,some if not most,if not,then it is bugged and will (SHOULD) be worked out eventually

we have the best kind of weapon swapping out of anyone,who only have 2 swaps with 10s cooldown,even the warrior with 5 second cooldown from trait,it’s still only 2 options
as an Elementalist we have 20 weapon skills available to us while other classes have 10

i do agree with more weapon choices,though,but…yes…i don’t know what you’re talking about “taking away a LOT from us”

Yeah swap sigils are so much better on ele and engi :P You are very likely to get the swap on every cooldown.

Have you considered asking any Engs what they think? Eles have it easy compared to Engs.

There, did that make you feel better? :-)

[edit] p.s. Engs have even less weapons that Eles.

Unfortunately to make an effective Elementalist you have to go Arcana for attunement dancing. You have 20 available weapon skills all with separate CD’s, you’re shooting yourself in the foot to not take advantage of that fact. As already stated we get the MOST from on swap sigils so I have no idea what the problem is there.

As far as PvP goes it provides me with the stats I like (cleric’s). In absence of your preferred choice simply play WvW? You can build yourself any which way you like and your build will be put to the test when outnumbered.

However I agree that we need more weapon choices, or perhaps buffs to the less used ones. Cause at the moment it’s D/D for melee and Staff for ranged, and I’ve yet to see an Elementalist without either of these equipped.

>They did everything they could to make it so that we couldn’t
> possibly have a strong build

strong in therms of dealing high dps or dpm damage – true, we can not have that kind of build

>and it seems like it’s impossible to focus on certain things.

it is not possible, but imho this is how ele should be

>We have less weapons than every single class,

still we can use 25 skills on every ele build or even 41 on specialized builds. If you count traited attunement swap as a skill (why not?) there are even more than 41.

>which gives us fewer possible combos

ele gives insane amount of party combos. Ele is definitely not a solo class, ofc all clases are not solo but ele and engi are imho those 2 that benefit the most when plyed in party.

>and on top of that, we can’t weapon swap.

yep, with curent wapons skills it indeed sucks in many situations

>The sigils are pretty lame and seem mostly focused on getting kills or crits.

not so sure…but indeed many sigils are useless

> I don’t want a crit build, and I prefer a build that is good at support, not killing.

then dont play 30/x/x/x/x
right now I play 0/25/0/25/20, on pve ber/ram gear on pvp more balanced but in certain party setups also ber gear

>Honestly, I would be happy if they gave us more options for amulets

indeed, there should be comparable customization as in pve

>There are some really good eles

there are

> they are good in spite of all this—certainly not because eles are OP.

:*

> The people calling for an ele nerf should probably look up how to fight an ele.

:*

>It’s not that hard to avoid our AOEs

some like arcane wave are hard to avoid, but for some other to acutally hit someone you need a help from the party

OHMYGOD. I have been living a lie! Weapon-swap sigils work for eles???? I both hate and love ArenaNet right now. First of all, that is awesome! Second of all, WHY DO ALL OF THE DESCRIPTIONS FOR THINGS HAVE TO BE SO DIFFICULT TO INTERPRET AND INCONSISTENT? I should have known to look it up after all the other issues I’ve had with horribly defined things. Thank you.

However, with that said, I still don’t think we have enough weapon choices.

>>>Have you considered asking any Engs what they think? Eles have it easy compared to Engs.

There, did that make you feel better? :-)<<<

I wish it made me feel better, but I already know that engineer is the weakest class in PvP…. Being better than the weakest isn’t much better. D= lol

>>>you’re shooting yourself in the foot to not take advantage of that fact<<<

Probably very true. However, like I said, I hate doing the same thing as everyone else. It isn’t fun. Isn’t that why so many people left WoW for GW2?? Elementalist is the only class that I truly love (it’s closest to my priest), so I really hope that they don’t leave it in it’s current state. It needs to be expanded in some way.

Like I’ve said in one of my posts before (somewhere…..), I would be happy if they just gave me more amulet options. But new weapons would be great. Or just a revamp of the weapons we have. I like certain aspects of scepter, but there is no advantage I see in actually using it.

((Why is this box so small? I hate having to scroll up and down so much. lol.))

>>>it is not possible, but imho this is how ele should be<<<

I would have to disagree. I should be able to spec into condition damage. I almost can make a good build of it, but not quite. There are a lot of little things that make it difficult and if they just fixed one or two things, I’d be set. Condition damage in general is pretty lame with how it stacks, but I could work around that issue if they gave me another attack that puts more than one stack. Condition removal is a dime a dozen. I have to also focus on power on my condition build, but that sucks for a—sorry, THE ONLY— class that has the lowest base health and toughness.

>>>then dont play 30/x/x/x/x
right now I play 0/25/0/25/20, on pve ber/ram gear on pvp more balanced but in certain party setups also ber gear<<<

Why not? Besides, like I said in my orginal post, I’ve tried almost every build imaginable. I, too, loved speccing into water and using all those lovely cantrips… Until I realized that is exactly what everyone else does. Besides, you do not know the full details of my build: Amulet, Jewel, Sigils, Runes, Slot Skills, etc. =P

I want the signets to be a little better, too, maybe? That would help a condition build. Especially the Signet of Fire. That one is…. lame. It would also be nice if they put some condition removal somewhere other than just water. Most other classes have traits that are, I don’t know, more evenly distributed?

Oh, and the only reason I don’t WvW is because I don’t PvE, so I think that means I’m weaker than everyone else. Unless they changed that.