Guild Wars 2

Hi

For the past few months I’ve been trying all different professions, and so far I got Necro, Thief and Engi to level 80.

Ele always seemed to me the most interesting one, but I always backed away based on players’ feedback on Elementalists, which is mostly bad. And I’m talking from a PvP / WvW roaming point of view.

Apparently, even if you put a lot of effort in your Ele, a player with the same skill playing another class, will still beat you. It’s probably fun to play, but not rewarding.

Then, sometimes I check some roaming videos, and people seem to be doing great with their Ele, but is it just lack of opponents’ skill?

I wanna ask you Elementalist players, what is your experience with this profession?
What can you kill and what can’t you kill in 1vX scenarios, is it worth to play even after the 15th of April patch?

I’m just insisting on this, because everyone seems to have a different opinion.
Are you skilled? Can you beat other skilled players as an Ele?

I hope you can clarify this for me, so I know if I should or not invest in the Elementalist.

Thank you for your time

EDIT: What is the most fun closest class I can pick, that is fun and rewarding at the same time? I’m tempted by Mesmer, and Engi I also enjoyed. How are Mesmers?

The truth is Ele is a wonderful class to play but suffers under the weight of a history of questionable PvP/WvW nerfs and an absurd approach to balancing (eg. once in a blue moon) by ANet.

I love eles and I usually defend this profession against those that say it suck. But i can’t defend it in sPvP or Roaming situation. In WvW you can come into contact against a lot of different people when you roam, with a huge disparity in skills. Anybody can roam for a while and then make a video of all his best fight, where he win.

I didn’t roam for a long time with my eles, but for my Thief point of view, Eles are usually my first target (and easiest to down). I can get killed by any good Eles, don’t get me wrong. I miss a dodge at the wrong moment and i get hit my a fire Grab of 10K dmg, and the combat turn dangerously into the ELe side. But a Fire grab have a 45sec cooldown. You have few big attack to evade, but once its done, the ele can only survive until his cooldown return. The only time i get killed by a Ele is when they burst me down quick. The long cooldown is what killing them in small PvP fight.

But still, its a fun profession to play and you can still kill any profession if you are skilled with it. You just start with a small disadvantage.

Elementalist is extremely fun to play, but is the most skill reliant and unforgiving class in the game.

I do well in WvW and can generally hold my own. The big frustration is generally being insta gibbed by thieves.

You’ll be fighting some other guy and some thief will steal/c+d/mug then backstab you for 100 percent of your health and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I can’t go back to playing anything else now and I played a thief for a year, and had zero issues killing elementalists of all types. Thief is easymode on easymode compared to playing an ele.

lazycalm.5186:

I wanna ask you Elementalist players, what is your experience with this profession?

Its a great experience… as support within a zerg and with staff and with a semi bunker build at least (if you like it ofc), as glass cannon is a horrible experience.

Outside of that in my experience is a broken class.

lazycalm.5186:

What can you kill and what can’t you kill in 1vX scenarios, is it worth to play even after the 15th of April patch?

1vs1? maybe a defensive guardian, or a engineer. or even a ranger if you have the right build (not a staff one), 1vsX nothing.

lazycalm.5186:

Are you skilled?

It’s my main and i known well how to play it, skilled? i only play WvW and play it a lot but im not a lightning fast reflex guy.

lazycalm.5186:

Can you beat other skilled players as an Ele?

Normally i can’t, but maybe is due the support build that i use 99% of the time (staff celestial support ele)

*takes out the Truth Hammer and smacks him * (couldnt resist)

Okay, Ele is a really fun class to play, and with the current meta/balance some players may feel like they’re not being rewarded for the effort they put out to play the class. The class itself is one of the harder classes to pick up, and with the nerfs that eles received combined together makes it feel like that so much more.
I personally play the class because I enjoy it, I enjoy the difficulty and knowing that I can’t just steamroll people while falling asleep at the keyboard. That way when I actually win or beat someone its rewarding. So if you look at it with that kind of mentality it doesn’t seem AS BAD
I don’t consider myself a good player, or a bad one… I would say about average?

There are a couple of classes that I have a hard time going up against. Main one being a Ham/Bow war. I tend to play a burst S/D build most of the time in sPVP and if I see a Ham/Bow war bunkering at their home I tend not to even bother going 1v1 against them( unless I know it’s a bad player). I feel as though that isn’t really an issue with ele but rather any Bursty Build, you just usually don’t have the sustain needed to DPS something like that down by yourself.

I tend to have an easier time going up against squishier classes ( again more of a build thing, squishier classes go down quicker and I can usually down them faster than they can down me).

lazycalm.5186:

Hi

For the past few months I’ve been trying all different professions, and so far I got Necro, Thief and Engi to level 80.

Ele always seemed to me the most interesting one, but I always backed away based on players’ feedback on Elementalists, which is mostly bad. And I’m talking from a PvP / WvW roaming point of view.

Apparently, even if you put a lot of effort in your Ele, a player with the same skill playing another class, will still beat you. It’s probably fun to play, but not rewarding.

Then, sometimes I check some roaming videos, and people seem to be doing great with their Ele, but is it just lack of opponents’ skill?

I wanna ask you Elementalist players, what is your experience with this profession?
What can you kill and what can’t you kill in 1vX scenarios, is it worth to play even after the 15th of April patch?

I’m just insisting on this, because everyone seems to have a different opinion.
Are you skilled? Can you beat other skilled players as an Ele?

I hope you can clarify this for me, so I know if I should or not invest in the Elementalist.

Thank you for your time

EDIT: What is the most fun closest class I can pick, that is fun and rewarding at the same time? I’m tempted by Mesmer, and Engi I also enjoyed. How are Mesmers?

I have mained elementalist for the past year and a half putting in approximately 1500 hours in just my elementalist playing various dungeons, wvw and pvp. Only recently started doing extensive wvw and pvp.

So as to is this class viable and rewarding to play? Yes but;
per gameplay and such if you are caught unawares y’r dead. You don’t have a health pool or heavy armor to save you, 1 burst and y’r down and soon dead.

As for the upcoming patch. Good news the pvp D/D ele with signet of restoration will soon be viable again and possibly on par with other roaming classes.

If you like tanking then you can build for it and be unbeatable in 1v1’s. <- not a joke, your health will swing between the 95% and 100% and snares won’t work on you.

As for 1vX’s, those have long become impossible since they nerfed us to the ground about a year ago. They upped our critical cooldowns, lowered our damage, lowered our healing capacity and the effectiveness of healing power the one thing that we had to stay on par with other classes.

Elementalists are very poor with condition.

I’ve got an idea for doing massive damage, not sure how much damage it will be yet since I haven’t put it into practice yet but if it works out then it’ll be even more usefull from the 15th April patch onward.

As with all classes its l2p but seeing as you have experience with thief, engi and necro I believe elementalist will be doable for you 4 sure. Just give it a try and let us know.

Its an uphill battle but the reward for success is 10X sweeter.

the build in my signature and showcase proves that ELE is OP and is warranted a couple of nerfs.

No class is so bad that a good player can’t trounce a bad player on relatively even ground, and bad players are very plentiful.

That said…

Its an uphill battle but the reward for success is 10X sweeter.

This man speaks the truth.

Ele in WWW roaming:
Has decent 1VS1 capabilities, hindered by the lack of reliable gap closer to prevent mobile professions to flee.

That pushes your build into burst because once your opponent realize he can t win, you have few seconds to finish him off and if he manage to get some distance you can t do nothing.
(casting GS to follow is a suicide and won t work anyway).

The other weak point of ele is XvsX you can t really do nothing if your opponents are smart and focus you first.
Skill doesn t apply you will just die….

TL/DR: DD ele is nice as long as you duel, and your opponent won t run away.

The patch on the 15th seems to be reversing a lot of nerfs that they originally gave us (Evasive Arcana’s Cleansing Wave no internal cool down, Signet of resto being back to its full power in pvp) Along with the #3 dagger in ice and fire buffs, I cant wait for some D/D

CountzuCrytus.7256:

\(Evasive Arcana’s Cleansing Wave no internal cool down)

WAT.
No, trait in water with similar name won’t have cooldown annymore, not EA’s cleansing wave. And no one is going to reverse it’s effectiveness nerf too. D/d will be the same “mediocre at everything” with a little more surviability and power.

Arcturus.8109:

CountzuCrytus.7256:

\(Evasive Arcana’s Cleansing Wave no internal cool down)

WAT.
No, trait in water with similar name won’t have cooldown annymore, not EA’s cleansing wave. And no one is going to reverse it’s effectiveness nerf too. D/d will be the same “mediocre at everything” with a little more surviability and power.

Ah you’re right, i guess i got a little excited when i read the notes and thought it was Cleansing Wave and not Cleansing Water

Oh well, i dont really go 30 into arcana anyways… so no harm done to me. But i do see this being a big boost for the Staff eles

CountzuCrytus.7256:

The patch on the 15th seems to be reversing a lot of nerfs that they originally gave us (Evasive Arcana’s Cleansing Wave no internal cool down, Signet of resto being back to its full power in pvp) Along with the #3 dagger in ice and fire buffs, I cant wait for some D/D

I felt this way initially too, but it’s also introducing some new indirect nerfs to D/D, namely: (1) boon duration rune nerfs; (2) stacking sigil nerf; and (3) Celestial/ferocity rework.

To the OP: Elementalists are great in PvE at the moment, but pretty poor in WvW – especially roaming – and PvP.

The problem with WvW roaming is, as others have stated, that while we might be good in duels we lack the tools to chase an escaping opponent without overextending and making ourselves vulnerable to a double-back stomping. Further, most of the other common WvW roaming profession/builds “counter” Ele roaming setups pretty hard – Thieves, PU Mesmers and the like.

The problem with PvP is that Eles cannot perform any desired role as well as another class. We can’t bunker/decap as well as a Guardian/Engineer, we can’t run objectives as well as a Warrior (except maybe in limited circumstances with FGS cheese), and we can’t harrass a point as well as a Necromancer. We can gear to be glass cannons that burst people down very fast with perfectly executed Fresh Air combos, but when the cooldowns aren’t available such builds are extremely squishy, and good players will know how to avoid the burst.

I have a lot of fun with my Elementalist and will probably never stop playing it, especially for PvE farming, but I’ve been playing my other characters much more lately and will probably continue the trend post-April 15th.

lazycalm.5186:

Then, sometimes I check some roaming videos, and people seem to be doing great with their Ele, but is it just lack of opponents’ skill?

to be honest, the players that make videos don’t include lost fights

lazycalm.5186:

I wanna ask you Elementalist players, what is your experience with this profession?
What can you kill and what can’t you kill in 1vX scenarios, is it worth to play even after the 15th of April patch?

i like eles they have a very high direct damage and same in aoe direct damage,

i can kill most of the other professions (1vsX) as long they remain in my rain of destruction

1vs1 depends a lot in enemy skills, i can kill in d/d or staff condi necros, eles, rangers

after patch is going to be the same thing for me, im going to try some new builds and see what happens … but will be most the same

lazycalm.5186:

Are you skilled? Can you beat other skilled players as an Ele?
EDIT: What is the most fun closest class I can pick, that is fun and rewarding at the same time? I’m tempted by Mesmer, and Engi I also enjoyed. How are Mesmers?

im not skilled, but not a noob, my biggest problem is my computer lagg; nope

besides my ele i like… necro and engi; the last character i made was a mesmer i havent played much with it but i feel like a very slow movement class; they have a good direct dmage and condi damage but not better than ele or necro; they have also some good support skills like tw, portals, stealth, buffs and dispells; illusions are not that good like minions(necro), summons(ele/guardian), pets (rangers) or turrets (engi) because they disappear when the enemy is dead but they have less cd to compensate and some can deal good damage; idk if mesmer can have a good tank or bunker build; is not easy for me deal with mesmers while using my ele so if you have to choose between ele or mes try mesmer

WvW you can manage since you can get crazy crits in Spvp just stay on your necro and engi