Guild Wars 2

Razarei.2809:

I hear what you’re saying, and I main S/ D / D/D too, and like I said, I hardly die ever too, but as we’re both saying (but what you’ve failed to realise that you admitted) is that this is ONLY possible if you spec defensively. It takes people 3/4 and permalocks to take me down at my current build, because I play it awesome, but that’s all I’m good for, wasting time. I can’t kill anyone unless they’re kittenkitten ;D

If you haven’t died to a thief yet, then you’ve not met an ultra cannon type haste build thief who manages to two shot you in the blink of an eye while running 3300 toughness and a kittenload of healing.

You have to understand, my definition of good, probably to equates to amazing in the average eyes, because I’m a perfectionist and I have really high standard. I get it, ele’s specced defensively are awesome at low level PvP, but when you get to mid to high level where people know what they’re doing, ele’s are ALWAYS the first target, and you’re down in a matter of seconds.

You sound like a guy who knows what he’s talking about, but the one thing you’re doing wrong is assuming everyone is just qqing because they have no idea what they’re doing, but you’re wrong.

Clearly, something is wrong when people are refusing to take elementalists in PvE dungeons or PvP, and when our main damage source are signets. >_>

Again, people are only refusing to take elementalists because everyone says that eles are bad. Just like people put Galileo under house arrest because everyone said that the universe revolved around the earth. It’s popular opinion, not the game’s balancing, that has caused that. If your main damage source is signets, you have serious problems with your build.

Yeah, of course not dying is a lot easier if you spec defensively. That’s true for everyone. A warrior with a glass cannon build dies pretty easily as well. The advantage they have is that they can come back up from downed tokittenyou and rally themselves if you aren’t watching closely.
You can do a glass cannon ele and you will die easily. Just like those cannon haste thieves. Have you ever seen how outrageously fast thieves go down? Easiest class to kill in the game by a long shot. And for good reason. They have the highest burst potential. But if you do glass cannon ele, you will also kill outrageously fast if you’re not being killed. Those thieves do best when they come from behind and stick their knives up your butt while you’re fighting the gaurdian. That’s how they’re supposed to play. 1v1, they can only do well against other glass cannon builds.
I could go glass cannon and I would have the same role as one of those cannon thieves. I don’t, though, because I don’t like playing that role.
But, to be honest, I can kinda play that role in my current spec. You keep talking about not being able to kill people, but I do so much damage it’s ridiculous. I run a condition build with lots of toughness and power. My bleeds do so much damage (especially considering how fast I can pile bleed stacks onto a target) it’s unreal. And if they cleanse the bleeds, I can just ring of earth, maybe another impale for good measure, swap attunements (5 fresh stacks of bleed, altogether), and get to burning them in fire attunement, which ALSO does outrageous amounts of damage…especially when you fire grab. The only signets I use are the healing signet and signet of air for its AoE blind (which barely even does damage).

And yes, I have seen those thieves. They can’t two shot you if you dodge, blind, inflict weakness, and then knockdown if they’re still too much trouble. Avoidance is not THAT hard to get down and it’s necessary for this game.

And if people are always targeting eles first, then isn’t that evidence that they’re a threat? People always target the biggest threat first. Why would they go straight for the Ele if there’s a thief who’s ready to stab them in the back? Why would to they target the ele if they’re just gonna be giving the “totally op” warrior more time to get off his hundred blades? Maybe more than once? If everyone is going for the Ele first and it’s really as underpowered as you say, then everyone sucks at PvP.

If you spec all earth and water, then yeah, you’re not gonna be much good for damage. I spec full earth and 20 fire, with 10 points each in water and air. I have great survivability and do boatloads of damage. I probably am not quite as survivable as I would be with full earth and water, but I do plenty of damage when I focus on conditions and can kill pretty much anything. That’s the kind of tradeoff you have to make when choosing a build. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be a time waster with little damage output. That’s a role that can have great PvP applications in an organized team. It certainly has in other games (tanks had significant PvP roles in trinity MMOs).

PvE

• Gather 5 mobs → Glyph of Storms is Earth → Churning Earth → any Burning skill → /dance → collect loot

WvW

• Equip Staff → Glyph of Storms in Earth → Eruption → Flame Burst → Collect loot

PvP

• Play lots and learn what to dodge, and what to do when → Get a decent build → ??? → Equip awesome looking Scepter/Dagger.

I think we have a little work to be done, but all in all, we’re in a good spot, and i’ve been playing since BWE #1 and watching the ele since 2009.

Anlyon.8375:

PvE

• Gather 5 mobs -> Glyph of Storms is Earth -> Churning Earth -> any Burning skill -> /dance -> collect loot

WvW

• Equip Staff -> Glyph of Storms in Earth -> Eruption -> Flame Burst -> Collect loot

PvP

• Play lots and learn what to dodge, and what to do when -> Get a decent build -> ??? -> Equip awesome looking Scepter/Dagger.

I think we have a little work to be done, but all in all, we’re in a good spot, and i’ve been playing since BWE #1 and watching the ele since 2009.

Swap that scepter/dagger for d/d and I’ll be your friend =)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s figured this out.

Pinkerton.5643:

Anlyon.8375:

PvE

• Gather 5 mobs -> Glyph of Storms is Earth -> Churning Earth -> any Burning skill -> /dance -> collect loot

WvW

• Equip Staff -> Glyph of Storms in Earth -> Eruption -> Flame Burst -> Collect loot

PvP

• Play lots and learn what to dodge, and what to do when -> Get a decent build -> ??? -> Equip awesome looking Scepter/Dagger.

I think we have a little work to be done, but all in all, we’re in a good spot, and i’ve been playing since BWE #1 and watching the ele since 2009.

Swap that scepter/dagger for d/d and I’ll be your friend =)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s figured this out.

You haven’t done dungeon have you…

I love this class but come on we are a little underpowered. With my boon build I can run with 25 might stacked and I still don’t hit as high as a ranger with 2 buttons. I watched a video of a ranger and all they did was run in circles with a rifle on click the first skill button for 600 damage a hit then click another skill which fired multiple shots for almost 3k a piece… and that was on arah explorable. For them to get that kind of damage and have 24k hp and medium armor while I sit there with 15khp and my light armor trying to survive while switching 4 elements and balancing all like 7 of my boons and still hitting less than that just seems a little unbalanced. Luckily I don’t care cause I’m having fun. Only posted on here cause I didn’t like how you both oversimplified a very challenging character. And if your truly only doing that in dungeons too you’re not even close to holding up your portion of the dps.

Some nice advice…

I notice ‘glyph of storms’ keeps being mentioned, and it’s a very good skill! I use it quite often. However I dislike the idea of people of using it as a solution to end all of the world’s problems.

If taking glyph of storms is the only solution to improving the ele, then I think something is a bit bad? I’m not saying that every utility skill should be super incredibly amazing, but noone should be forced to take a single skill just to be effective. However, that seems to be a major suggestion that certain people have. It leads to a very rigid/forced style of gameplay if you know what I mean?

Aiglos.2907:

Some nice advice…

I notice ‘glyph of storms’ keeps being mentioned, and it’s a very good skill! I use it quite often. However I dislike the idea of people of using it as a solution to end all of the world’s problems.

If taking glyph of storms is the only solution to improving the ele, then I think something is a bit bad? I’m not saying that every utility skill should be super incredibly amazing, but noone should be forced to take a single skill just to be effective. However, that seems to be a major suggestion that certain people have. It leads to a very rigid/forced style of gameplay if you know what I mean?

It´s not the only solution, it just happens to be the easiest.

the difficulty of ele actually kind of surprised me (in a good way), I just assumed all these new mmos are easy, when compared to games like daoc and EQ.

Anyway I think ele may need some minor tweaks at most. I’m almost rank 9 in pvp and its starting to get a bit tough but I honestly only have an issue with heartseeker which usually does 7-8k dmg. So my point is maybe they need to change other professions than change ele skills.

Killer.4709:

Pinkerton.5643:

Anlyon.8375:

PvE

• Gather 5 mobs -> Glyph of Storms is Earth -> Churning Earth -> any Burning skill -> /dance -> collect loot

WvW

• Equip Staff -> Glyph of Storms in Earth -> Eruption -> Flame Burst -> Collect loot

PvP

• Play lots and learn what to dodge, and what to do when -> Get a decent build -> ??? -> Equip awesome looking Scepter/Dagger.

I think we have a little work to be done, but all in all, we’re in a good spot, and i’ve been playing since BWE #1 and watching the ele since 2009.

Swap that scepter/dagger for d/d and I’ll be your friend =)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s figured this out.

You haven’t done dungeon have you…

I love this class but come on we are a little underpowered. With my boon build I can run with 25 might stacked and I still don’t hit as high as a ranger with 2 buttons. I watched a video of a ranger and all they did was run in circles with a rifle on click the first skill button for 600 damage a hit then click another skill which fired multiple shots for almost 3k a piece… and that was on arah explorable. For them to get that kind of damage and have 24k hp and medium armor while I sit there with 15khp and my light armor trying to survive while switching 4 elements and balancing all like 7 of my boons and still hitting less than that just seems a little unbalanced. Luckily I don’t care cause I’m having fun. Only posted on here cause I didn’t like how you both oversimplified a very challenging character. And if your truly only doing that in dungeons too you’re not even close to holding up your portion of the dps.

I have done dungeons. They’re not that hard either. If you’re playing the ele right, those things we mentioned that you say are so oversimplified do buttloads of damage. If you have a boon build, then yeah, you’re gonna be expending a lot of energy managing boons. But you don’t have to run a boon build. Also, boon builds are best when you can also apply boons to allies, and that is where your big contribution as a boon build comes in. In high level dungeons, my 1 skills in fire and air do at least 600 per cast (keep in mind, that’s split into three hits for fire and two hits for air, but it’s still one cast same as the ranger’s) My earth 1 skill hits for around 300-350 but crits around 600 AND applies a 10 second bleed. And my burns and bleeds are stupid powerful. For big hits, fire grab and churning earth are huge. I can do as much damage as any other player out there. If you can’t, then that means that your build isn’t made for it. And that’s not even a bad thing, necessarily. It just means that your build is not a damage build.

Ok Pinkerton we get it. You’re super pro player and we, little worms, should crawl at your feet and pray to you, oh mighty ele.
Think about it this way (and please try to understand me). There are casual players and good players. Good player will play the profession he like no matter if it’s op or up. He will research, he will try different solution, he will practice and he will get even better.
Casual players like the profession they play but they don’t do research or the other things. They don’t want to be THE BEST. They just want to have fun playing game with the class they want. So now consider yourself a casual player that wants to play elementalist and struggles to stay alive. Suddenly you discover that your friend that is also casual player and reroll other profession is just spamming whatever key he likes and is doing better than you. Do you see my point now? While playing an elementalist you have to always give 100% of you and be fully aware of your skills. But playing other professions comparing to ele is just facerolling. I have ele and thief and honestly I don’t even know what I am pushing on my thief while fighting with mobs but, hey guess what!, I stay alive and doing pretty well.

i dont think its worth the amount of effort you need on the class, having to switch over 4 attunements landing every dmg skill still does less dmg then another class that presses 2-3 skills.

Killer.4709:

Pinkerton.5643:

Anlyon.8375:

PvE

• Gather 5 mobs -> Glyph of Storms is Earth -> Churning Earth -> any Burning skill -> /dance -> collect loot

WvW

• Equip Staff -> Glyph of Storms in Earth -> Eruption -> Flame Burst -> Collect loot

PvP

• Play lots and learn what to dodge, and what to do when -> Get a decent build -> ??? -> Equip awesome looking Scepter/Dagger.

I think we have a little work to be done, but all in all, we’re in a good spot, and i’ve been playing since BWE #1 and watching the ele since 2009.

Swap that scepter/dagger for d/d and I’ll be your friend =)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s figured this out.

I love this class but come on we are a little underpowered. With my boon build I can run with 25 might stacked and I still don’t hit as high as a ranger with 2 buttons. I watched a video of a ranger and all they did was run in circles with a rifle on click the first skill button for 600 damage a hit then click another skill which fired multiple shots for almost 3k a piece… and that was on arah explorable. For them to get that kind of damage and have 24k hp and medium armor while I sit there with 15khp and my light armor trying to survive while switching 4 elements and balancing all like 7 of my boons and still hitting less than that just seems a little unbalanced. Luckily I don’t care cause I’m having fun. Only posted on here cause I didn’t like how you both oversimplified a very challenging character. And if your truly only doing that in dungeons too you’re not even close to holding up your portion of the dps.

this.

im actually wanting to reroll to archer, but the only thing stopping me is my world completion on my ele, it sucks to go thru all that kitten again, 2 weeks of work out the window. But on the brighter side, ele is fun, its all it is.

#eletroll

Cave trolls smell kind of mildewy… jungle trolls smell a lot like compost and dirt… forum trolls smell like shame and a steaming pile of crap… The OP wreaks of the latter.

Ele right now really have only one good build for harder (i.e., PVP or dungeon) content: staff support/aoe.

That one build is perfectly fine when played right: in dungeons, basically as a combo field creator to set up combos for the rest of your team, and in wvwvw, you just sit back and create lots of AOEs to put pressure on the zerg.

The problem is that none of the other builds work very well. They basically all require more effort for the same result you get on another class from pressing 2 or 3 buttons while running in circles.

In particular the lack of being able to switch ranges like literally every other class can is crippling in harder PVE content and PVP content. It is a large part of what forces people into staff support because when you can’t switch to a longer ranged weapon your only real choice is to pick the longest ranged one.

why is staff ele classed as “Support” in WvW, i’ve seen Ele’s get more kills than Rangers / Thiefs in WvW. Ele’s AoE’s are pretty strong in WvW.

The way i see it, Elementalists are fine in WvWvW, the AoE’s are good, Frozen Ground is probably 1 of the best slow effects in the game?, top it off with Meteor Shower, Gylph of Storms, Eruption, Lava Font, Static Field, Unsteady Ground. They’re pretty solid AoE’s.

- Elementalist’s pretty important class/role when it comes to WvW, and IMHO, they’re mandatory to have.

- Elementalist’s in PvE, are somewhat good (actually they’re pretty easy for me xD) i haven’t tried high end PvE yet so i can’t really comment there.

- Elementalist’s in PvP are just trolls.

^ my opinion on this class. They need faster CD’s on attunement switching thou.

I’m going to propose a question that will end all discussions:

Why take an elementalist when you can have an engineer?

What I don’t like about Elementalist:

- Go superkitten defensive specced or die (literally!)
- Go bleed spec or lol.
- Thou Shall useth D/D for sPvP or go away.

That’s a lot of constraints for a class meant to be “sandbox”.
I am not sure if ANET will want (and much less, do it right) to tweak the class to become really a free form stance switcher.

It’s not the first “hybrid” class I play that fails and just can’t be fixed.
In fact, I actually stopped playing hybrids in MMOs because they always suck so I went for the purest classes. But mage in GW2 is not pure class, so here I am again: another hybrid, another supposed “free form” class that only has ONE dumb way to be specced or played or it woes.

I am not even talking about being underpowered or not. That
can* be fixed. I an talking about the underlying class design, that sadly has born flawed and will stay flawed.

Glad I also have a warrior and necro but for one I don’t like facerolling and I am not a melee type (despite my warrior apparently suggests I am an OP melee player! All the 3 buttons of it!) nor I like “warlock” type classes.

What I don’t like about Elementalist:

- Go superkitten defensive specced or die (literally!)
- Go bleed spec or lol.
- Thou Shall useth D/D for sPvP or go away.

That’s a lot of constraints for a class meant to be “sandbox”.
I am not sure if ANET will want (and much less, do it right) to tweak the class to become really a free form stance switcher.

It’s not the first “hybrid” class I play that fails and just can’t be fixed.
In fact, I actually stopped playing hybrids in MMOs because they always suck so I went for the purest classes. But mage in GW2 is not pure class, so here I am again: another hybrid, another supposed “free form” class that only has ONE dumb way to be specced or played or it woes.

I am not even talking about being underpowered or not. That
can be fixed, straight buffs are just some higher numbers entered in a database. I am talking about the underlying class design, that sadly has born flawed and will stay flawed.

Glad I also have a warrior and necro but for one I don’t like facerolling and I am not a melee type (despite my warrior apparently suggests I am an OP melee player! All the 3 buttons of it!) nor I like “warlock” type classes.

Vaerah.4907:

What I don’t like about Elementalist:

- Go superkitten defensive specced or die (literally!)
- Go bleed spec or lol.
- Thou Shall useth D/D for sPvP or go away.

That’s a lot of constraints for a class meant to be “sandbox”.
I am not sure if ANET will want (and much less, do it right) to tweak the class to become really a free form stance switcher.

It’s not the first “hybrid” class I play that fails and just can’t be fixed.
In fact, I actually stopped playing hybrids in MMOs because they always suck so I went for the purest classes. But mage in GW2 is not pure class, so here I am again: another hybrid, another supposed “free form” class that only has ONE dumb way to be specced or played or it woes.

I am not even talking about being underpowered or not. That
can be fixed, straight buffs are just some higher numbers entered in a database. I am talking about the underlying class design, that sadly has born flawed and will stay flawed.

Glad I also have a warrior and necro but for one I don’t like facerolling and I am not a melee type (despite my warrior apparently suggests I am an OP melee player! All the 3 buttons of it!) nor I like “warlock” type classes.

Would you mind elaborating on the underlying class design part? i´d like to hear what yor opinions concerning that are.

I think the OP must have an agenda? Elemenatlist needs to go balls to the wind to match a thief face rolling. A well played thief…. no chance of an elementalist competing on any level accept possibly ‘support’.

From the dev post in the announcement section they are gathering useful metrics from the game so hopefully it wont be too long before they get another pass.

The bait is too obvious isn’t it?

Kaden.3162:

i dont think its worth the amount of effort you need on the class, having to switch over 4 attunements landing every dmg skill still does less dmg then another class that presses 2-3 skills.

You find having to switch attunements effort. I find it fun. If you don’t find the class fun, why not play something else?

BlowFish.5174:

From the dev post in the announcement section they are gathering useful metrics from the game so hopefully it wont be too long before they get another pass.

So after 30598658 stage of betas, stress test and so on they need a metric to know a class like a thief with a smash one buton design and 7k hit…

Truga.5897:

That wasn’t his/her point (not effort as in hard, but effort as in more to do) – also it was never said it wasn’t fun.

The point was, we have to press more buttons to do our damage and even though we have to do that we still don’t do as much damage as other classes who press less buttons.

Basically we have to do more and get less, while other classes do less and get more.

But if we get anything more out of pushing more buttons we’ll be pretty bloody OP.

Ele is the only class that can do practically everything without even as much as swapping a utility skill. Jack of all trades, master of none and all that.

Use the utility you were given. Stack 12+ stacks of might, and suddenly you have double damage. Stack even more when friendlies with fire fields are about for quad damage. Heal/remove conditions just by switching to water. Obsidian flesh is 3 seconds of complete invulnerability. Staff area chill is sickening when you then swap to earth and just autoattack, comboing your own chill field for several seconds.

If you manage to land churning earth (use a snare cantrip), the skill alone will do close to 8k in bleeding if you stacked might like you’re supposed to. Jump over chasms with your ride the lightning, then turn around and apply bleeds unto things that can’t follow you while laughing at things that fall down.

And so on.

I don’t think any other class can do that. Sure some can do more DPS. Some can even achieve a higher burst (though I’m not so sure about this one), and some (well, most) can take more punches into the face.

If we’re able to do all these kinds of things AND do it as well as everyone else can, I don’t think you’ll ever see anything that isn’t Ele in a competitive match.

Wow doom and gloom.

I a pretty decent PvPer, and i have very little problem vs most classes as D/D

A stealth P/P thief is quite hard unless i pick up a focus, and a guardian takes forever, but is never drops me below 50%.
A good warrior can be tough unless i go Scepter, and rangers are much easier with a focus too.

Other than some very niche builds, the ele can handle them all.

Can i do more dps on a thief? sure. But i cant Knockback, knockdown, bleed, chill, apply weakness, and still burst like a crazy person and survive as well as i can on my ele.

We do have some traits and skills that need a balance pass, but we’ll get it in good time. We arent in a bad spot.

Truga.5897:

But if we get anything more out of pushing more buttons we’ll be pretty bloody OP.

Ele is the only class that can do practically everything without even as much as swapping a utility skill. Jack of all trades, master of none and all that.

Use the utility you were given. Stack 12+ stacks of might, and suddenly you have double damage. Stack even more when friendlies with fire fields are about for quad damage. Heal/remove conditions just by switching to water. Obsidian flesh is 3 seconds of complete invulnerability. Staff area chill is sickening when you then swap to earth and just autoattack, comboing your own chill field for several seconds.

If you manage to land churning earth (use a snare cantrip), the skill alone will do close to 8k in bleeding if you stacked might like you’re supposed to. Jump over chasms with your ride the lightning, then turn around and apply bleeds unto things that can’t follow you while laughing at things that fall down.

And so on.

I don’t think any other class can do that. Sure some can do more DPS. Some can even achieve a higher burst (though I’m not so sure about this one), and some (well, most) can take more punches into the face.

If we’re able to do all these kinds of things AND do it as well as everyone else can, I don’t think you’ll ever see anything that isn’t Ele in a competitive match.

Er no, might does not work that way.

Also, if you’re stacking might on an elementalist, you’re doing it wrong. To compete in higher level PvP, you only have one choice as an elementalist, and that’s to play support.

Lol stacking 12 stacks of might is like a 20% damage bonus, not a 100% damage bonus.

Before I drop my observations in here, a few caveats:

- I haven’t even touched PVP yet, and likely won’t for some time to come.
- I haven’t reached upper levels yet, and I’m in no rush to do so.

So why am I posting at all? Well, my approach to the game may be telling in that I’ve been giving roughly the same amount of attention to 5 classes, including the Elementalist and the Thief.

So, here are my impressions so far:
In contrast to the other four classes I’m playing, the Elementalist:

- Makes noticeable contributions in large-scale group scenarios.
- Is decent in the support department.
- Takes noticeably more effort to play, both actively (combat) and passively (learning/building/equipping the class).
- Cannot push the challenge envelope as far as the other classes can (even if the aforementioned effort is invested).
- Is easily the most fragile out of the five, requiring more mitigation tactics from skills than the other classes have (this has led to the skill bar staying relatively static, which takes some of the fun and variety out of it).

With other classes, I’ve had more room to play around and make mistakes. With my Engineer and Thief in particular, the disparity has been significant. Night and day, really.

So far.

I acknowledge the possibility that the Elementalist might be a “late bloomer”. I also realize I’ve a lot to learn yet about the mechanics of the game.

But, if I stick strictly to the context of accessibility, I think it’s safe to say at this point that the Elementalist is… not very. And it’s significantly less so than at least the Thief, Engineer, Ranger or Mesmer.

‘Course, whether or not this is really an issue depends on the design criteria of the game. But as this is an MMO, I’m assuming it’s an important consideration. Every class should probably be roughly the same in its initial learning curve. As it stands, though, I believe the Elementalist invites much greater potential for frustration for the newcomer. Given that it’s the “mage” class and that a lot of people are attracted to that, the Elementalist should probably get some serious attention and review in the coming weeks and months.

For someone who isn’t new to this kind of game, the Elementalist is certainly viable, but it doesn’t seem to give you much if you meet its demands, especially when contrasted against other classes. For someone who is new, I think the Elementalist could be a big-time bummer.

I’ve switched to a water/+heal spec and gear for my Ele. I was hoping to recreate my air/fire ele from GW1, but solo I’m just too dang squishy. When I buddy up or in most DE’s I swap to fire, but I can’t swap all my gear too.

Definitely not OP. However, we are smokin’ hot.

Pinkerton.5643:

Razarei.2809:

Haha no. Stop saying that that’s the reason everyone is QQing.

EVERY class is saying the ele’s are the weakest, not just elementalists. I consider myself an amazing elementalist, but I get roflstomped by any who even remotely knows how to play their class. I know my profession inside out, there’s nothing more I can learn from my class, yet here I am, posting in this thread that elementalists are indeed, underpowered.

You can say ele’s are fine all you like mate, but 95% of the games population disagree with you.

You know there is a problem when people are advertising “NO ELE” when recruiting for TPvP or Dungeons.

People are advertising like that because they’rekitten who don’t understand how the game works and are just jumping on the bandwagon. You obviously don’t understand the profession as well as you think you do because I play Ele and I roflstomp EVERYBODY. I absolutely destroy in PvP AND PvE. All this says to me is that 95% of the game’s population shouldn’t be playing Ele.

Obvious troll. Post some videos oh great one and show how you dominate. I’m guessing no videos are coming.

Nenthil.4312:

Ok Pinkerton we get it. You’re super pro player and we, little worms, should crawl at your feet and pray to you, oh mighty ele.
Think about it this way (and please try to understand me). There are casual players and good players. Good player will play the profession he like no matter if it’s op or up. He will research, he will try different solution, he will practice and he will get even better.
Casual players like the profession they play but they don’t do research or the other things. They don’t want to be THE BEST. They just want to have fun playing game with the class they want. So now consider yourself a casual player that wants to play elementalist and struggles to stay alive. Suddenly you discover that your friend that is also casual player and reroll other profession is just spamming whatever key he likes and is doing better than you. Do you see my point now? While playing an elementalist you have to always give 100% of you and be fully aware of your skills. But playing other professions comparing to ele is just facerolling. I have ele and thief and honestly I don’t even know what I am pushing on my thief while fighting with mobs but, hey guess what!, I stay alive and doing pretty well.

I’m not saying I’m the best player ever. I don’t do research or anything like that. I think that stuff takes all the fun out of the game. All I did was choose a profession that I liked, spent a while looking at the traits and reviewing my options, made a build or two, picked one I liked, and I made it work. And it’s worked well. That’s all.
And I’m not saying that everyone else is bad. I’m just saying that they might have unrealistic expectations. Like the pretty widespread expectation that every build that someone makes with every weaponset they like should be able to do as much damage and survive as well as the highest damage dealers and the most survivable people. I don’t think they’re bad. I have no basis for that kind of assumption. I just think they’re misunderstanding.
And as far as thief is concerned, my roommate plays thief. He’s a SUPER hardcore gamer. He does all that stuff you mentioned there to the extreme. And what’s more, he can’t figure out how I’m doing so much better than he is on my elementalist. That’s not meant as a boast, but as an example to show that every profession has complexities and is hard to play well. As another example, I felt incredibly underpowered when I played Guardian and Warrior. The thing that I think is going on, as I’ve said before, is that certain people have certain natural playstyles that fit certain professions better and the Elementalist just requires a less common natural playstyle to be instantly good at.
Elementalist came easy to me. The trait lines and making builds seemed really intuitive to me. I haven’t had as much luck with other professions that I’ve tried. I’m definitely not the best player ever and I don’t claim to be.