Guild Wars 2

Ok i made a topic about this a while ago but have been on hiatus for a bit, now back in full force playing.

It is mainly in dungeons im talking about.

My ele is 80, in all exotics weilding a D/D build. I know how to play it very well, allways attunment hoping . I specced her into the aura build.

My warrior is a shout warrior, he hasnt got full exotics on yet and a green 2 hander and atm he has more survivability, WAY more damage ( and although this part doesnt worry me much) he is 5X easier to play.

Things in the world my ele couldnt solo i destroy with my warrior without even breaking a sweat.

Now, IMHO, i think the ele is totally underpowered compared the a warrior in PVE.
Not only is she harder to play, but she dies as soon as someone looks at her wrong.

I really love playing my ele , but after doing some runs on my warrior in dungeons, im really at a loss and more inclined just to take my warrior along as he can pretty much do anything better then my ele and lives longer to tell the story about it….

Am i tripping balls here, or is what im saying actual fact and is happening?

I tend to agree, but if the elementalist gets damage buffs, they should only apply to PvE (WvW uses the PvE balance, so there might be a problem). Eles have more than enough surivalbility in PvP and a damage buff would make them definitely OP.

The funny thing is that the survivability comes from lots of small heals, which are nearly worthless in dungeons – like the damage of 100b is nearly worthless in sPvP.

I’d say ele is fine as is (I have no problem with supporting in PvE) and if there are bigger balance changes, skills should be split for PvP/PvE.

I 1000% disagree completely. My Ele is so much better than my warrior it is astonishing. The warrior is much simpler but it is also less versatile. Neither class is weak, but my ele can do so much more.

Straight damage buff to the skills would be OP. Working on the talent trees so theres more than 1 or 2 viable builds would be ideal. So far this game is very similar to asian MMOs, only 1 or 2 viable rolls per class. If you have an elementalist and want to do good damage, you don’t swap builds, you swap to an alt.

Agreed, the ele has only 1 or 2 viable builds for PvE becuase the class is terribly underpowered. Anet seriously needs to take a look at increasing the survivability and damage ( on certain weapons) of elementalists as compared to most other classes. Right now I consider the ele unplayable.

I honestly feel like I may be playing a different game than the rest of you. The Ele has several viable builds. Between weapons (Staff, D/D, Scepter/Dagger) and then utilities (Cantrip heavy build, Aura sharing build, Glyph build, or even Signet Aura builds) you can get a ton of unique viable combinations.

The Elementalist can also provide practically everything to a group. Need good support, Ele provides decent group healing. Need good damage, Ele can provide a consistent flow of damage. Need good boons, Ele can provide consistent boons.

What more do you people want?

Serp.3264:

I honestly feel like I may be playing a different game than the rest of you. The Ele has several viable builds. Between weapons (Staff, D/D, Scepter/Dagger) and then utilities (Cantrip heavy build, Aura sharing build, Glyph build, or even Signet Aura builds) you can get a ton of unique viable combinations.

The Elementalist can also provide practically everything to a group. Need good support, Ele provides decent group healing. Need good damage, Ele can provide a consistent flow of damage. Need good boons, Ele can provide consistent boons.

What more do you people want?

I completely agree with you my friend, my ele can do anything, I can build myself an unkillable PvE S/D build, I can create a great Staff support build while doing loads of aoe damage at the same time (in dungeons it is not just about support you have to combine support with aoe damage) . I can build something in between damage and lots of survivability with a D/D set up and I love all my options. I started playing alts when I got my ele to 80, but I can’t play them for longer than an hour as I get bored.

Eles are so versatile and that’s what makes them awesome!

Read a lot on forums, learn a lot while playing, watch some videos and you’ll find your way to play the Ele.

I would take a good Ele over a good Warrior any day. Although, a bad Warrior will generally do better than a bad Ele. Personally, I feel like I bring a lot more to a group when I go on my Ele than my Warrior (and it’s a lot more fun!).

If your Wa (without full exotics) has more survivability than your D/D Ele, then you’re doing painfully something wrong.

Serp.3264:

I honestly feel like I may be playing a different game than the rest of you. The Ele has several viable builds. Between weapons (Staff, D/D, Scepter/Dagger) and then utilities (Cantrip heavy build, Aura sharing build, Glyph build, or even Signet Aura builds) you can get a ton of unique viable combinations.

The Elementalist can also provide practically everything to a group. Need good support, Ele provides decent group healing. Need good damage, Ele can provide a consistent flow of damage. Need good boons, Ele can provide consistent boons.

What more do you people want?

When it comes to support no build brings more to the group than d/d aurashare.

When it comes to damage no build comes close to a warrior, thief or mesmer.

People that talk about elementalist doing good damage have never played warriors, thiefs or mesmers. Specialy when playing d/d 0/10/0/30/30. Elementalist (and other classes too) lacks real builds, if you play elementalist you’re always playing a support build, when you attempt to build for another roll you end up sucking at both.

We make amazing supports, but thats it, all builds in this game are one dimensional and simplistic, so instead of having 2 builds that do 2 different things in different ways and stay competitive, we have 2 builds that do the same thing in the same way and 1 will always do it better than the other one.

Maybe this game was never intended to have amazing build variaty, but coming from gw1… that sounds like a real shame. Like i said feels like one of the many asian mmos I’ve played.

D/D eles solo champs by sitting there and making sure every single weapon skill and attunement is on cooldown. Not that hard.

Turbo Whale.1738:

D/D eles solo champs by sitting there and making sure every single weapon skill and attunement is on cooldown. Not that hard.

Who cares if you can solo champs — my mesmer can solo champs, as can my ranger and any decent warrior with a rifle and greatsword.

I bet you I can solo that champion on my mesmer or warrior FASTER, because the simple truth is I got kittenloads more sustained damage.

I just like the fact that you can run around with auras, cantrips 5 boons, 10+ might while keeping your health above 90% while beating a champ. Playing the elementalist is just fun and I play the game for fun, I’ve tried all the other classes but they feel so static compared to the elementalist. You can do sooo many things at the same time as an elementalist. for the first 4-5 seconds of my burst I don’t really receive any damage and I stack 10 bleeding and several k damage while giving myself 7 boons and in the process of doing so you can teleport, gain stability, remove conditions and all the knockdowns and attacks are aoe…
The thing that makes elementalists strong is the huge amount of aoe skills. Does a mesmer or a ranger have as many aoe skills as an elementalist? I don’t think so.

Zenith.7301:

Turbo Whale.1738:

D/D eles solo champs by sitting there and making sure every single weapon skill and attunement is on cooldown. Not that hard.

Who cares if you can solo champs — my mesmer can solo champs, as can my ranger and any decent warrior with a rifle and greatsword.

I bet you I can solo that champion on my mesmer or warrior FASTER, because the simple truth is I got kittenloads more sustained damage.

You can solo legendary mobs as a war and as an ele.

Morthur.3894:

I’ve got a level 80 warrior and have recently rolled an Ele. I find the Ele a great class and am having so much fun with him.

However: purely from a risk/reward or effort/reward point of view the warrior is way to easy/risk-free compared to the ele. I’m perfectly capable of doing everything I want with either profession, it’s just that it’s way easier as a warrior and requires virtually no skill by comparison.

What I’d really like is if Anet would slightly buff the performance of the Ele so a well played DPS-ele is maybe 5% better then a well played DPS-warrior. It doesn’t have to be much of an advantage the Ele gets – but there should be a “reward” for the huge amount of effort, skill and higher risk that is required to be on-par with other professions.

Example:

So let’s say a well played warrior deals 100% damage. A badly played warrior should deal 70% damage and a perfectly played warrior should deal 110% damage.
Now, using the well played warrior as a point of comparison I think that a well played Ele should deal 95% damage, a badly played Ele should do 30% damage but a perfectly played Ele should be doing 120% damage.

Currently, to be 100% as effective as a well played warrior requires the ele to be a much better player. And that’s slightly unfair.

Sure, in PVP the versatility of the ele may make up for this problem but in a pure comparison of Ele DPS output VS Warrior DPS output the difference is too small to justify the way larger effort and the unforgiving nature of the Ele game play. *

So you want the Ele to be more versatile and have better damage? What role does a warrior fill then exactly? Also, the whole concept of a perfectly played Ele should do more damage than a thief or warrior simply because the class has more abilities is insane. The Ele has a ton of different things it can do, be it CC, auras, boons, damage, heals (and that is all just with D/D build – not even counting utilities), why would that class have more damage then a warrior as well?

Also, there already is a “reward” for playing an Ele. You get more abilities can do more. That is more than enough benefit.

NdranC.5107:

Serp.3264:

I honestly feel like I may be playing a different game than the rest of you. The Ele has several viable builds. Between weapons (Staff, D/D, Scepter/Dagger) and then utilities (Cantrip heavy build, Aura sharing build, Glyph build, or even Signet Aura builds) you can get a ton of unique viable combinations.

The Elementalist can also provide practically everything to a group. Need good support, Ele provides decent group healing. Need good damage, Ele can provide a consistent flow of damage. Need good boons, Ele can provide consistent boons.

What more do you people want?

When it comes to support no build brings more to the group than d/d aurashare.

When it comes to damage no build comes close to a warrior, thief or mesmer.

People that talk about elementalist doing good damage have never played warriors, thiefs or mesmers. Specialy when playing d/d 0/10/0/30/30. Elementalist (and other classes too) lacks real builds, if you play elementalist you’re always playing a support build, when you attempt to build for another roll you end up sucking at both.

We make amazing supports, but thats it, all builds in this game are one dimensional and simplistic, so instead of having 2 builds that do 2 different things in different ways and stay competitive, we have 2 builds that do the same thing in the same way and 1 will always do it better than the other one.

Maybe this game was never intended to have amazing build variaty, but coming from gw1… that sounds like a real shame. Like i said feels like one of the many asian mmos I’ve played.

I disagree. 0/10/0/30/30 is not always needed and can be overkill at times. Also, while we may fall very slightly behind a warrior in pure straight up damage, we also keep bleeds and burning up on most targets providing a significant damage increase that most people don’t account for because it isn’t big flashy 100b damage. In a straight damage v damage comparison, we do most likely lose out to a warrior for only ourselves, but our combo fields we lay down for others to apply additional conditions will completely dominate the amount of damage a warrior can bring. Ele brings a ton to the table.

This type of argument basically says:

My warrior does 10 damage
My ele does 8 damage

10 > 8 therefore warrior > ele

That isn’t the whole picture and we need to be cognisant of that.

Conditions from fields are negligible, specially because burning only stacks in duration and we already can keep permanent burning by ourselves. Bleeds from Churning Earth are nothing, if i crit with 25 stacks of might and churning earth for 4-5k direct damage I’m really lucky most of the time is a non-crit for 2k, plus my bleeds do around 4k thats around 6k-8k damage (over time) with our biggest hitting skill. My mesmer can do the same damage instantly and also in aoe while being invulnerable and on a 6 sec cd without any might stacks.

Granted, we’re comparing a support/bunker build to a damage build, but what we do as support is not good damage, despite what some people would make you think. If you try to build and gear an elementalist for damage, you lose all the benefits from support and barely get anything in exchange, you do more damage but still less than any decent war/mes/thief, and you lose a gigantic amount of defense and utility.

At any rate, the biggest issue i have with all of this is not just about elementalists, but with all clases. Traits, utilities and Weapon skills are not different or interesting enough to create “builds” they are all shades of the same roll, which makes it easy to identify what is the “better” build.

NdranC.5107:

Conditions from fields are negligible, specially because burning only stacks in duration and we already can keep permanent burning by ourselves. Bleeds from Churning Earth are nothing, if i crit with 25 stacks of might and churning earth for 4-5k direct damage I’m really lucky most of the time is a non-crit for 2k, plus my bleeds do around 4k thats around 6k-8k damage (over time) with our biggest hitting skill. My mesmer can do the same damage instantly and also in aoe while being invulnerable and on a 6 sec cd without any might stacks.

Granted, we’re comparing a support/bunker build to a damage build, but what we do as support is not good damage, despite what some people would make you think. If you try to build and gear an elementalist for damage, you lose all the benefits from support and barely get anything in exchange, you do more damage but still less than any decent war/mes/thief, and you lose a gigantic amount of defense and utility.

At any rate, the biggest issue i have with all of this is not just about elementalists, but with all clases. Traits, utilities and Weapon skills are not different or interesting enough to create “builds” they are all shades of the same roll, which makes it easy to identify what is the “better” build.

Where do you get those numbers from? AC, CM? At lvl 80 my churning earth does about 10-12k direct damage when critted (chance at ~65%) with some might stacks (10-15) without proccing bolt to the heart and vital striking (which would increase that by 30%). Air autoattacks in d/d deals 2.5-3k and they strike twice.

If you try to build ele for damage you lose healing power which is bad anyway and defense. What utility do you lose exactly?

100b can easily hit 16-18k; your 10k chrning earth is nothing — 100b can be reduced to a fraction of the cd fire grab and churning earth have so it’s far more spammable massive damage.

Zenith.7301:

100b can easily hit 16-18k; your 10k chrning earth is nothing — 100b can be reduced to a fraction of the cd fire grab and churning earth have so it’s far more spammable massive damage.

100b can hit for 30k with similiar gear but it is the only skill on warrior bar that does so much damage. Churning earth deals some damage through bleeds as well.

I have a balanced build with my ele and she doesn’t die, in fact she is even tankier than my warrior as she has a WAY better kit for surviving than my shout warrior.
I can even rezz people when kitten hit the fan with my mistform without taking any damage. So what if 100b does ridiculous damage? In order to do that you have to get close which is not the best idea in some encounters, this game is not all about damage but surviving to do so.
I can not count how many times my ele saved the day because she could take some hits.

haviz.1340:

If you try to build ele for damage you lose healing power which is bad anyway

Why does everyone say that healing power is bad for Elementalist? It scales 100% with your healing slot (which is huge if you count the regeneration when using Glyph of Elemental Harmony in Water Attunement) and with Cleansing Wave (which also means it scales 100% with Evasive Arcana). The only thing it doesn’t scale well with using D/D is Cone of Cold, and that’s still 32% which isn’t awful.

IIRC, Cone of Cold used to scale 100% before it was nerfed, but I don’t think that’s significant enough to justify disregarding Healing Power altogether.

It also scales 100% with Water Trident (Scepter #3). I’m fairly certain that it does scale horribly with Staff weapon skills, however saying that it’s bad for Elementalist as an entire profession seems like too much of a generalization to me.

Of course, I always like learning new things. So if I got anything wrong, or if I missed anything, please let me know. Also, if anyone could shed any light on why everyone has been saying that healing power scales badly with our profession, please do.

P.S. I can certainly see why someone would prefer using Knight’s jewelry (or Berserker jewelry, since jewelry is the best place to get critical damage %) if they rarely find themselves getting downed and want to trade survivability for additional damage. I am simply wondering why the Healing Power stat has come to be considered inferior to other stats.

PvE elementalist is a joke, at least in simple dungeons. For a while I only had ele, and was sick of getting kicked from speedrun groups before they even began, or getting stuck in terrible noob groups. I crafted up a warrior and it is amazing how fast bosses melt, and how much easier it is to get in good groups. Seriously, it is op as hell in PvE that warriors can stack so much crit and power without too many survivability issues while getting a stack or 2 of might PER crit (while mobs don’t dodge ANY of your 100b).

Too bad I’m not a big fan of PvP in this game, because ele is one of the if not the best profession for it. Whenever I go into WvW or sPvP I just demolish, but WvW is boring as hell and pretty much pointless and sPvP is way too segregated to be enjoyable.

Amaethon.8710:

Why does everyone say that healing power is bad for Elementalist?

Geyser – 0.25, Water blast – 0.1, Glyph of Elemental Harmony – 0.75

skullcrusher.7849:

Ok i made a topic about this a while ago but have been on hiatus for a bit, now back in full force playing.

It is mainly in dungeons im talking about.

My ele is 80, in all exotics weilding a D/D build. I know how to play it very well, allways attunment hoping . I specced her into the aura build.

My warrior is a shout warrior, he hasnt got full exotics on yet and a green 2 hander and atm he has more survivability, WAY more damage ( and although this part doesnt worry me much) he is 5X easier to play.

Things in the world my ele couldnt solo i destroy with my warrior without even breaking a sweat.

Now, IMHO, i think the ele is totally underpowered compared the a warrior in PVE.
Not only is she harder to play, but she dies as soon as someone looks at her wrong.

I really love playing my ele , but after doing some runs on my warrior in dungeons, im really at a loss and more inclined just to take my warrior along as he can pretty much do anything better then my ele and lives longer to tell the story about it….

Am i tripping balls here, or is what im saying actual fact and is happening?

agreed.

i see the problem being the dps output of the ele compared to its basic survivability(h buffer, regeneration etc.) is WAY out of order compared to the warrior.
i love glass cannon builds but the dmg is really laugheble compared to how fast you die, we are not talking double dmg for 50% survive (equel trading) nope its closer to a double dmg for 15-25% of the initiate survivability.
the synergy of the traits of the ele is awefull in comparison to warriors, each trait in the ele trees offers little to no synergy with the other traits in the other tree’s, and there is too many that seems to be "must have " from the arcane tree, most of what seems to be something which adds little/no synergy to the other traits but which is just “must have” for the ele to be of any real effect.

the ATTUNEMENT. is a complete handicap.
while other classes gets two weapon = different functions, different ranges, lots of viability, we get 4 attunements which is predetermined and around all same range.
now this isnt really the issue the trade for not having the ability to choose these range etc, for 4 attunements seems fair, now the problem is that our “special” ability is NONE existing, while very other class seem to have a special ability where they can actually do something “warrior got power stuff with adrenalin, mesmas 4diff explosion effects for illusions/phontoms, necro shroud, etc etc.” .
the ele seriously need this as well as a freebie, for the ele to get ANY bonus for its switching it needs to offer a minimum of 10 trait points and for actually reasonable effect which can be in line with the others it needs to offer a full 30 points just to get what every other class get for free. it basicly gets 30 less trait points of the bat, which i think is the main reason it is majorly handicapped and feel, not so good compared to other….

so if they fixed that, give us a real special, or give us the special for free not wasting 30 points on it.
and give us actual synergy in our traits and bonus effects for our specials (like every other class can get.) i think the ele would be quite fine.
the dmg vs tank builds seems in general to be a bit weak since its a pure stats increase and not % increase so it doesnt take into account that the base stats are VERY different from class to class and thereby enhancing the strenght of some classes is MUCH less effective then doing it on others.

these is at least my thoughts on the matter.

EDIT:
i dont think the warrior is op!, i think the ele needs revisiting and fixing as described. the warrior feels like a warrior should!, and its nice.

Amaethon.8710:

Why does everyone say that healing power is bad for Elementalist?

Here is the difference between 0 healing power and 486 healing power.

Healing with +486 healing power

Healing Skills
Ether Renewal – 5824
Glyph of Elemental Harmony – 5409+2805(regen)
Signet 3618 – 271(Every Attack)

Trait Healing

Water Attunment Heal- 2107
Evasive Arcana heal- 2107
Soothing Mist Tick- 121
Water Attmenment Regen – 227

Scepter
Water Trident – 2134

Dagger
Cleansing Wave – 1988
Cone of cold – 904

Staff

Geyser – 980
Healing Rain – 4315
Water Blast – 439

Healing without healing power

Healing Skills
Ether Renewal – 5240
Glyph of Elemental Harmony – 5044+2015(Regen)
Signet 3375 – 222(Every Attack)

Traits Healing
Water Attunment Heal – 1592
Evasive Arcana – 1595
Soothing Mist Tick – 95
Water Attunment Regen – 191

Weapons

Staff
Geyser – 858
Healing Rain – 3100
Water Blast- 390

Scepter
Water Trident 1648

Dagger
Cone of Cold 804
Cleansing Wave – 1502

Healing power is not as bad as people make it out to be.

I think healing power better than stacking vitality if you’re not in danger of getting one shot.

I also think its better than vitality because you do extra healing to other players.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Amaethon.8710:

Why does everyone say that healing power is bad for Elementalist?

Here is the difference between 0 healing power and 486 healing power.

Healing power is not as bad as people make it out to be.

I think healing power better than stacking vitality if you’re not in danger of getting one shot.

I also think its better than vitality because you do extra healing to other players.

first of thanks for these numbers nicely done

when that is said:
christ its bad o.O meaning 100% healing power build will give you around 20% extra healing done.. while 100% dps or tank builds increase your dps by 100% and survive by 200%…
that is just directly sad.. especially considering how little timelimit there is and that there is NO sustainable healing(on top of that how crazily hard it is to hit people with the heal in the heat of battle and them dodging like crazy becouse htey are dying) that can be done over medium/long periods…
makes me sad

I agree 100% healing power gear is inferior to 100% dps,100% tank or 50/50 dps/tank gear.

haviz.1340:

NdranC.5107:

Conditions from fields are negligible, specially because burning only stacks in duration and we already can keep permanent burning by ourselves. Bleeds from Churning Earth are nothing, if i crit with 25 stacks of might and churning earth for 4-5k direct damage I’m really lucky most of the time is a non-crit for 2k, plus my bleeds do around 4k thats around 6k-8k damage (over time) with our biggest hitting skill. My mesmer can do the same damage instantly and also in aoe while being invulnerable and on a 6 sec cd without any might stacks.

Granted, we’re comparing a support/bunker build to a damage build, but what we do as support is not good damage, despite what some people would make you think. If you try to build and gear an elementalist for damage, you lose all the benefits from support and barely get anything in exchange, you do more damage but still less than any decent war/mes/thief, and you lose a gigantic amount of defense and utility.

At any rate, the biggest issue i have with all of this is not just about elementalists, but with all clases. Traits, utilities and Weapon skills are not different or interesting enough to create “builds” they are all shades of the same roll, which makes it easy to identify what is the “better” build.

Where do you get those numbers from? AC, CM? At lvl 80 my churning earth does about 10-12k direct damage when critted (chance at ~65%) with some might stacks (10-15) without proccing bolt to the heart and vital striking (which would increase that by 30%). Air autoattacks in d/d deals 2.5-3k and they strike twice.

If you try to build ele for damage you lose healing power which is bad anyway and defense. What utility do you lose exactly?

I was comparing a bunker build ele with shatter berserker mesmer, I said so on my post. The whole point is that I am tired of the 0/10/0/30/30 ele coming to the forums and saying they can do it all PLUS good or amazing damage. No… your damage is not amazing. Btw those numbers come from fractals. My mesmer can shatter every 9s for more damage your churning earth can do every 30 secs.

NdranC.5107:

I was comparing a bunker build ele with shatter berserker mesmer, I said so on my post. The whole point is that I am tired of the 0/10/0/30/30 ele coming to the forums and saying they can do it all PLUS good or amazing damage. No… your damage is not amazing. Btw those numbers come from fractals. My mesmer can shatter every 9s for more damage your churning earth can do every 30 secs.

But, but… I can heal! And I got mesmer as well so I’m not stucked with this healing proffesion

I just feel that mixing Vitality and Healing gear (both have Power and Toughness on them) increases my survivability more than going for all Vitality (PTV) gear. Not that it’s not also a good idea to have a set of Knight’s/Berserker jewelry to use when you feel your survivability is more than enough.

In my experience, after a point, having a higher maximum health doesn’t really increase your survivability that much — however, having additional Healing Power will help you regain your health more effectively after you lose it, allowing you to take more damage over a period of time.

Also, I feel that a lot of the reason people say Healing Power is bad is because of how it scales with Staff weapon skills. As someone who uses D/D (and occasionally S/D), however, I think it’s not nearly as bad as people seem to think.

Turbo Whale.1738:

D/D eles solo champs by sitting there and making sure every single weapon skill and attunement is on cooldown. Not that hard.

Well, yea, i know.
My warrior now has full exotics, same as my ele.
The outcome…..
Warrior has 7k more health
Warrior has ALOT more toughness
Warrior can do 12k burst damage in 3 seconds, ele cannot even come close een after attunement hoping and most skills on CD.
Warrior has better healing ( sonic boom warrior ).
Id even argue warrior gives better buffs ( might and vunerability ) to a ele ( heals? )

The ONLY real difference i actually still love my ele is for the sole fact that the playstyle when duel weilding daggers is unreal. Old school wow warriors with stance dancing:)

IMHO…….Apart from the playstyle, the warrior is just the better class to play…

NdranC.5107:

haviz.1340:

NdranC.5107:

Conditions from fields are negligible, specially because burning only stacks in duration and we already can keep permanent burning by ourselves. Bleeds from Churning Earth are nothing, if i crit with 25 stacks of might and churning earth for 4-5k direct damage I’m really lucky most of the time is a non-crit for 2k, plus my bleeds do around 4k thats around 6k-8k damage (over time) with our biggest hitting skill. My mesmer can do the same damage instantly and also in aoe while being invulnerable and on a 6 sec cd without any might stacks.

Granted, we’re comparing a support/bunker build to a damage build, but what we do as support is not good damage, despite what some people would make you think. If you try to build and gear an elementalist for damage, you lose all the benefits from support and barely get anything in exchange, you do more damage but still less than any decent war/mes/thief, and you lose a gigantic amount of defense and utility.

At any rate, the biggest issue i have with all of this is not just about elementalists, but with all clases. Traits, utilities and Weapon skills are not different or interesting enough to create “builds” they are all shades of the same roll, which makes it easy to identify what is the “better” build.

Where do you get those numbers from? AC, CM? At lvl 80 my churning earth does about 10-12k direct damage when critted (chance at ~65%) with some might stacks (10-15) without proccing bolt to the heart and vital striking (which would increase that by 30%). Air autoattacks in d/d deals 2.5-3k and they strike twice.

If you try to build ele for damage you lose healing power which is bad anyway and defense. What utility do you lose exactly?

I was comparing a bunker build ele with shatter berserker mesmer, I said so on my post. The whole point is that I am tired of the 0/10/0/30/30 ele coming to the forums and saying they can do it all PLUS good or amazing damage. No… your damage is not amazing. Btw those numbers come from fractals. My mesmer can shatter every 9s for more damage your churning earth can do every 30 secs.

completely agree

I happen to have a BALANCED ele D/D (ele since release not fotm) with power/PRECISION/toughness set

I do half damage of my power/precision/crit mesmer….

And mesmer does significantly less of warriors too…..so figure.

D/D ele unless glass cannon, is low damage even compared to other tank or balanced classes.

All you have are lot of long combos that requires opponent to be nearly AFK to give us a little burst getting to average non melee damage despite we should have a boost being melee (and another being light forced in melee)

Regards healing….
Its ele survival mechanic…..be stealth, or heavy armor+high HP (banners etc) or clones etc etc every class has one.

D/D has already problems because often being light cannot afford to go melee and is forced to use staff -.- with risible damage (se the more you advance in fotm, the more you will be using staff……).

P.S: churning earth does 6000 direct damage with knight set that is not TANK….
Also it requires to stand still for many seconds…..with a LIGHT class.
I really don t think you’ll do 10.000 + direct without fire grab that is a short range long CD and completely horrible skill except for damage.

Eh? Warrior has better heals? You’re joking, right? Better buffs/conditions? Eles can stack might, area heals, area regen, frost armor, speed, area vulnerability, area bleeds, burns, chills, cripple… when I unload my rotation on a mob it is lucky if it can move at all, plus I just healed the tanks and stacked some might on them, all in a few seconds.

Plus, eles are a great force multiplier class. There are so many group combos you can throw down, it buffs the party damage/conditions output a lot.

If you want survivability/damage, use scepter/FOCUS. Not scepter/dagger or dagger/dagger. For PvE survivability, nothing beats S/F for defense AND single target damage if you know how to use your skills. Plus, might stacking is insane with that combo. When I use S/F in dungeons, I am usually the last to go down, simply because I can just negate/reflect so much damage when it counts. You can only soak up so much, total immunity beats HP buffering any day.

I think people’s problem with PvE elementalist is they want to stick with dagger/dagger.

Currently, Staff can do nearly as much AoE and be a lot more survivable. That leads to either having more utility skills dedicated to actual support or more offensive abilities like the arcane skills and if you’re set up to use namely arcane, you don’t bother with skills that grant things for cantrips but arcane. That’s faster cooldowns, crit damage and/or vulnerability with arcane skills or attunement affects on arcane.

Then there’s the scepter. It probably won’t do as much damage as dagger mainhand, but it has utility namely in blast finishers. Whereas I can stack 10-12 stacks of might on melees with dagger, I can easily keep 25 stacks on them with scepter. Yes, those warriors think they’re so awesome because they’re doing good damage with their 10 stacks of might but when they’re teamed with me, they’ll do more damage…But that’s MY damage, not theirs. So that’s added to MY contribution of the overall DPS.

Then there’s good old focus. You don’t need cantrips with this weapon and it’s easily the weapon of choice in fights where you can’t or don’t want to be in melee range of the boss. Using a dagger in such instances is illogical when you can do better at range with a staff or keep yourself safer with a focus.

As for mesmers, I have one of those. It’s got some burst in PvE but not even close to the amount of support as Guardian or Elementalist…especially if you’re aimed for doing high damage, your best contribution is range denial, blind/confuse with glamors and perhaps sharing your boons with the team…but you don’t have all that many boons yourself (that last any reasonable amount of time) so you need a Guardian or Ele to get things rolling. There’s also condition removal but IMO, a Warrior probably has better boons and can remove more team conditions than a mesmer and he’s not even that amazing at that.

In short, stop going Dagger/dagger. Stop only using cantrips. Learn to dodge. Maybe then you won’t be so outclassed at everything.

Leo G.4501:

In short, stop going Dagger/dagger. Stop only using cantrips. Learn to dodge. Maybe then you won’t be so outclassed at everything.

1st learn to respect posters….You never saw me playing……and if i was bad at dodging i couldn t play fotm 26-30 with D/D.

2nd if scepter ele is so good why on earth is not popular at all?
I know your answer, people are bad, you are the only good.

I won t comment cantrips part because its in the same post writing L2P and i find quite a bad mistake.

I do respect posters, but get some perspective if you’re going to be comparing.

You say more and more elementalists are forced to use staff in high-end fractals? Same goes for warrior with rifle. Don’t pretend that, just because Warriors can be built to withstand more damage, that they can also pull off huge crit 100blades too or that Warriors don’t feel pigeonholed into using GS because most of their other weapons (hammer, mace main, sword off, axe off, etc) are lackluster to pointless in more situations than not.

There is a lot you’re overlooking with regards to warrior and mesmer when comparing to elementalist.

Leo G.4501:

I think people’s problem with PvE elementalist is they want to stick with dagger/dagger.

Currently, Staff can do nearly as much AoE and be a lot more survivable. That leads to either having more utility skills dedicated to actual support or more offensive abilities like the arcane skills and if you’re set up to use namely arcane, you don’t bother with skills that grant things for cantrips but arcane. That’s faster cooldowns, crit damage and/or vulnerability with arcane skills or attunement affects on arcane.

Then there’s the scepter. It probably won’t do as much damage as dagger mainhand, but it has utility namely in blast finishers. Whereas I can stack 10-12 stacks of might on melees with dagger, I can easily keep 25 stacks on them with scepter. Yes, those warriors think they’re so awesome because they’re doing good damage with their 10 stacks of might but when they’re teamed with me, they’ll do more damage…But that’s MY damage, not theirs. So that’s added to MY contribution of the overall DPS.

Then there’s good old focus. You don’t need cantrips with this weapon and it’s easily the weapon of choice in fights where you can’t or don’t want to be in melee range of the boss. Using a dagger in such instances is illogical when you can do better at range with a staff or keep yourself safer with a focus.

As for mesmers, I have one of those. It’s got some burst in PvE but not even close to the amount of support as Guardian or Elementalist…especially if you’re aimed for doing high damage, your best contribution is range denial, blind/confuse with glamors and perhaps sharing your boons with the team…but you don’t have all that many boons yourself (that last any reasonable amount of time) so you need a Guardian or Ele to get things rolling. There’s also condition removal but IMO, a Warrior probably has better boons and can remove more team conditions than a mesmer and he’s not even that amazing at that.

In short, stop going Dagger/dagger. Stop only using cantrips. Learn to dodge. Maybe then you won’t be so outclassed at everything.

People’s problem with elementalist is the class is over penalized in pve.

Look at health and armor for example warriors get 8k more health and 300 more armor than an elementalist.If a player needs16k health and 2100 armor to survive a one shot then an elementalist has to use toughness/vitality gear and spec into earth/water to survive.Both of these things are a huge dps loss.

Warriors on the other hand get 19k health and 2150ish armor passively.So the warrior can use full berserker gear and still have more effective health than elementalist.

That would be fine if eles brought more to the table than warriors but we currently do not.

Right now warriors smash us(and every other class) in damage while providing dps buffs or shout healing/condition removal.

Leo G.4501:

I do respect posters, but get some perspective if you’re going to be comparing.

You say more and more elementalists are forced to use staff in high-end fractals? Same goes for warrior with rifle.

read careful this sentence…..

Its the key on why you are wrong…….

Don’t pretend that, just because Warriors can be built to withstand more damage, that they can also pull off huge crit 100blades too or that Warriors don’t feel pigeonholed into using GS because most of their other weapons (hammer, mace main, sword off, axe off, etc) are lackluster to pointless in more situations than not.

There is a lot you’re overlooking with regards to warrior and mesmer when comparing to elementalist.

reading what you have written and having a mesmer tells me that you should careful think to elementalist base mechanics…

You cannot SWITCH weapon…

It happens that i have a mesmer and in ANY situation i can switch from GS, to SW/P.
As a war you can switch from rifle to GS at will (given 8 seconds CD).

We have attunements that doesn t cover range…
Range is an issue for ANY ele weapon……because if its true we have attunements, range remains weapon based having the worst drawback of any other class in RANGE limitations (staff long range, daggers short range).

For that for example you cannot switch from staff ro D/D (or S/D or whatever) when legendary shaman spawns his shield/elementals.

On the contrary you can put away your rifle, getting near the guardian with GS (skill that pulls mobs) and just get rid of some elementals with your GS 100B.

P.S. and scepter and focus instead have damage/mobility issues…..whatever you choose you are stuck with a huge drawback.

What is bad is despite that you cannot compare to any warrior nor tank nor glasscannon, nor balanced.

P.P.S. and no nobody wants an ele in high lvl fractals unless their party has already 3 heavy.
High fractals are all about glasscannon with survivability and burst.

Ele lacks defense for the party comparable to guardian virtues and shields
Lacks comparable healing power
Even for crowd control they are far worse…..(1 second stun and things like that…..).
damage is subpar and the single range drawback is too much of a burden.

combo fields are not enough when you can just have another damage dealer or be almost immortal with 2 guardians in your party…..(i often stay far from them because the game becomes boring :| no need to evade no need to do anything but autoattack).

I have many, many 80s (all but Thief and Ranger).

The biggest two things that hold an Elementalist back when compared to other classes are:

1. They have 4 attunements to swap from. All other classes only have 2 weapon sets so they are easier to balance as a result (lets ignore Engineer for now). You can balance a Warrior cause you know he’s only ever going to have 2 sets at one time so those skills are stronger as a result. This is where the Elementalist ultimately suffers, because it can pull on 4 different attunements it’s pretty much forced to use all 4 to get the full use out of the character even if it’s use one ability, swap attunement, use 2 abilities, swap attunement. That ability to do that comes at the cost of having to do that because the game is balanced around the ability to do it. It’s a self feeding cycle that will hold the Elementalist back in terms of balance because we will always have to “work harder” for the same as every other class to do the same (or similar).

2. Our deep Traits suck in most cases. There’s nothing game changing about the end traits of Fire or Air. This leaves a lot of the builds focused around Water and Arcane. Occasionally you will hear about or read about a “Etched in Stone” build in Earth but it’s pretty rare. Earth needs a slight overhaul to make it so it’s more viable by bringing the Earth CD reduction down to Tier 1 to make that more viable however. Even glass Cannon 30/30/0/10/0 style builds are mostly going for stats at that point as the Traits are side additions and not game play style changers.

Until those two get resolved, in most cases you will simply have to work harder for usually mediocre or at best equal results to other classes but especially thieves and warriors.

Smooth Marc.8743:

People’s problem with elementalist is the class is over penalized in pve.

Look at health and armor for example warriors get 8k more health and 300 more armor than an elementalist.If a player needs16k health and 2100 armor to survive a one shot then an elementalist has to use toughness/vitality gear and spec into earth/water to survive.Both of these things are a huge dps loss.

Warriors on the other hand get 19k health and 2150ish armor passively.So the warrior can use full berserker gear and still have more effective health than elementalist.

That would be fine if eles brought more to the table than warriors but we currently do not.

Right now warriors smash us(and every other class) in damage while providing dps buffs or shout healing/condition removal.

Protection.

You have it. Warriors don’t.

LordByron.8369:

reading what you have written and having a mesmer tells me that you should careful think to elementalist base mechanics…

You cannot SWITCH weapon…

It happens that i have a mesmer and in ANY situation i can switch from GS, to SW/P.
As a war you can switch from rifle to GS at will (given 8 seconds CD).

We have attunements that doesn t cover range…
Range is an issue for ANY ele weapon……because if its true we have attunements, range remains weapon based having the worst drawback of any other class in RANGE limitations (staff long range, daggers short range).

For that for example you cannot switch from staff ro D/D (or S/D or whatever) when legendary shaman spawns his shield/elementals.

On the contrary you can put away your rifle, getting near the guardian with GS (skill that pulls mobs) and just get rid of some elementals with your GS 100B.

P.S. and scepter and focus instead have damage/mobility issues…..whatever you choose you are stuck with a huge drawback.

What is bad is despite that you cannot compare to any warrior nor tank nor glasscannon, nor balanced.

P.P.S. and no nobody wants an ele in high lvl fractals unless their party has already 3 heavy.
High fractals are all about glasscannon with survivability and burst.

Ele lacks defense for the party comparable to guardian virtues and shields
Lacks comparable healing power
Even for crowd control they are far worse…..(1 second stun and things like that…..).
damage is subpar and the single range drawback is too much of a burden.

combo fields are not enough when you can just have another damage dealer or be almost immortal with 2 guardians in your party…..(i often stay far from them because the game becomes boring :| no need to evade no need to do anything but autoattack).

You do realize the whole weapon swap situation in your post is a completely other issue than what is being discussed up until that quote, yes? What was being discussed was survivability/support/utility/damage and how they compare. No real point discussing range flexibility but at least you still have a 600 range skill to fall back on in the cases you didn’t have forethought to equip something for longer range (the same rings true for other professions who equipped 2 melee weapons…it happens).

But if your issue truly lies with viability in high level fractals, perhaps high level fractals are the problem. The devs are looking at dungeons and difficulty as well as adding more fractals, so maybe you should take it out on that issue…or are you seriously going to say Elementalists aren’t flexible enough to adapt to PvE situations but a Warrior can?

For people complaining about being oneshotted.

Obsidian Flesh → oneshot survived. Mist Form → oneshot survived. It doesn’t matter if Primordus himself sneezes on you, you survive.

Top that with a fat HP buffer and tons of armor. Warriors have it because they’re meant to take the hits. Elementalists are meant to evade and negate damage. Complaining that we have less HP than warrior simply doesn’t make sense. It would be like warriors complaining they don’t have invulnerability skills.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Stance
They have…

I agree, but I think the problem is that Warriors are OP. GS + Axe/any Warrior deals more AoE then a Thief can deal on one target. With 18k+ HP. Something is wrong…

Leo G.4501:

Whereas I can stack 10-12 stacks of might on melees with dagger, I can easily keep 25 stacks on them with scepter.

2 Blastfinisher from Fire, one from Earth and one Arcane Utility. And one Combofield Fire. Please, how do you stack 25 times Might?

Wow a thread discussing exactly what I have on my mind right now.

I realize what elementalists can do in PVP, that’s great. Just great.

Don’t care though. I am playing this game for PVE and light PVP. I feel like I’m playing a RDM from FF11.

I don’t feel powerful. Ever. My warrior is ~32 and my ele is 28. I routinely die. I’ve followed builds, have very quick twitch reactions due to playing games that require it, and it’s just so mediocre it’s painful.

I sign onto my warrior and stomp anything thats around without worrying about dying.

Playing my ele is so painful but I keep doing it because I keep hearing BOY THE CLASS SURE GETS BETTER LATER ON.

I have no idea what to do other than maybe play a necro. I want to be a caster that isn’t a mesmer and do well in PVE and PVP. Has anyone seen the ele youtube vids out there of grinding?

They seriously are like “OK SO HERES WHAT YOU DO” and then rotate between ~3 “stances” and put a massive amount of effort into killing a trash garbage PVE mob. A warrior or any other class with respectable damage has nowhere near the twitch requirements or squishiness of the ele.

Please do not lecture me about survivability with the CDs you blow in PVP videos you make. I do not care.

This class needs a freaking overhaul bigtime.

StevesDad.8213:

Wow a thread discussing exactly what I have on my mind right now.

I realize what elementalists can do in PVP, that’s great. Just great.

Don’t care though. I am playing this game for PVE and light PVP. I feel like I’m playing a RDM from FF11.

I don’t feel powerful. Ever. My warrior is ~32 and my ele is 28. I routinely die. I’ve followed builds, have very quick twitch reactions due to playing games that require it, and it’s just so mediocre it’s painful.

I sign onto my warrior and stomp anything thats around without worrying about dying.

Playing my ele is so painful but I keep doing it because I keep hearing BOY THE CLASS SURE GETS BETTER LATER ON.

I have no idea what to do other than maybe play a necro. I want to be a caster that isn’t a mesmer and do well in PVE and PVP. Has anyone seen the ele youtube vids out there of grinding?

They seriously are like “OK SO HERES WHAT YOU DO” and then rotate between ~3 “stances” and put a massive amount of effort into killing a trash garbage PVE mob. A warrior or any other class with respectable damage has nowhere near the twitch requirements or squishiness of the ele.

Please do not lecture me about survivability with the CDs you blow in PVP videos you make. I do not care.

This class needs a freaking overhaul bigtime.

This is exactly what I was talking about above with the 4 auras being a liability. In order to perform well in PvE at all you have to swap stances using a variety of skills because that’s how the character is balanced around being able to do. Sure, we have 20 abilities to call upon compared to 10. What people don’t ever mention is only around 10 are worth using at any one time and we’re forced to swap between 4 auras to get to those 10 instead of just back and forth like most classes.

I can tell you now Necro is a 1 note wonder with S/D conditionmancer build but it’s note is amazing. Easiest character I ever leveled. It’s basically just stack massive amounts of bleeds (10-20) while running around in circles. Lots of mobs? Epidemic and now they all suffer same DOTs. Blood is Power dot → send over conditions then Epidemic and now they bleed harder cause you have 10 stacks of might. It’s so disgustingly OP and simple that there’s really no other viable necro builds as a result. Pets are worthless cause everything targets them and they have huge cool downs. Wells and the like are similar scenarios having short 5 durations and huge cool downs. Unfortunately in groups the Conditionmancer build falls short cause if you have other classes stacking bleeds you run up against them cause only 25 can be on a target at once and chances are someone in the group is doing some form of bleed (Staff Mesmer, Thief, P/P Engineer, etc).

Molch.2078:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Stance
They have…

The difference between Endure Pain and Mist Form/Obsidian Flesh is, Endure pain isn’t an invulnerability. It’s simply “Take 0 damage”. If a condition is attached to an attack (like bleed and poison) you will take damage. If an attack hits you in Mist Form, nothing happens.

Shield Stance is a good Invulnerability skill but come on, it’s a Shield. If it didn’t do something like that, I doubt it’d be worth taking at all. That’s why Warriors use shields, because they can get 3sec of invulnerability out of it and can’t get that anywhere else. PS: also while using it, you can only move around. You can’t dodge roll, you can’t heal, you can’t attack. All you can do is use stances or shouts (instant cast). At least on Mist form, you can rez someone.

We also have protection (decreases damage by 33%) and blocks in our utilities. But I’m just sayin’, Warriors really don’t get stuff like that with theirs.

2 Blastfinisher from Fire, one from Earth and one Arcane Utility. And one Combofield Fire. Please, how do you stack 25 times Might?

Focus has 2 Blast finishers; one in water and one in earth. With scepter, that’s 4 blast finishers. With might on attunement swap to fire + boon duration, you can get 13 stacks per fire wall. 2 Fire walls with Might of 30+ seconds is over 25 stacks. You just have to juggle fire attunement’s fire wall in your rotation to keep it up. You don’t have to constantly be stacking might, just get the initial quick stacks up and it’s easy to maintain.

With dagger off-hand, you just have to try and use ring of fire as often as you can and it works its magic in a similar way.

StevesDad.8213:

Wow a thread discussing exactly what I have on my mind right now.

I realize what elementalists can do in PVP, that’s great. Just great.

Don’t care though. I am playing this game for PVE and light PVP. I feel like I’m playing a RDM from FF11.

Funny you mention that since Rdm (and Nin and Pld) was probably the strongest class in the game due to it’s utility. They couldn’t come near putting out the raw damage of damage dealing classes like Mnk, War or what have you, but who gives a kitten? They could solo crap you couldn’t even begin to with those damage focused classes.

Same deal here, it seems. Elementalist isn’t going to be the go-to class for straight up damage. It’d be broken if they could have balls-to-wall damage on top of all their utility. In contrast, if you want to be a support warrior, you’ll be giving up runes (gotta have soldiers), utilities (need shouts and/or banners), half of your trait points (going right into tactics), and likely stuck with either shield (because you only have shake it off to break stuns/get you out of sticky situations) or warhorn. Such a warrior doesn’t come close to the damage you keep saying they can.

For the ones that can do 20k+ hundred blades, guess what? They either fold like a kitten soaked paper sack when hit or they’re…‘gasp’…skilled! You have to be skilled as a glass cannon to get even survive. For elementalists that go glass, they likely still have utility they can use to get out of bad situations or to support their team.

Basically, a Black Mage Elementalist is not. Don’t expect to melt faces like everyone else because you have support built into your profession. I’d suggest using it or finding another profession.

You love the damage a warrior can do, then go play warrior. See how long you can manage to destroy stuff before the enemy’s HP skyrockets and you’re forced to dodge out of melee range more often (which will lower your damage).

Leo G.4501:

StevesDad.8213:

Wow a thread discussing exactly what I have on my mind right now.

I realize what elementalists can do in PVP, that’s great. Just great.

Don’t care though. I am playing this game for PVE and light PVP. I feel like I’m playing a RDM from FF11.

Funny you mention that since Rdm (and Nin and Pld) was probably the strongest class in the game due to it’s utility. They couldn’t come near putting out the raw damage of damage dealing classes like Mnk, War or what have you, but who gives a kitten? They could solo crap you couldn’t even begin to with those damage focused classes.

Same deal here, it seems. Elementalist isn’t going to be the go-to class for straight up damage. It’d be broken if they could have balls-to-wall damage on top of all their utility. In contrast, if you want to be a support warrior, you’ll be giving up runes (gotta have soldiers), utilities (need shouts and/or banners), half of your trait points (going right into tactics), and likely stuck with either shield (because you only have shake it off to break stuns/get you out of sticky situations) or warhorn. Such a warrior doesn’t come close to the damage you keep saying they can.

For the ones that can do 20k+ hundred blades, guess what? They either fold like a kitten soaked paper sack when hit or they’re…‘gasp’…skilled! You have to be skilled as a glass cannon to get even survive. For elementalists that go glass, they likely still have utility they can use to get out of bad situations or to support their team.

Basically, a Black Mage Elementalist is not. Don’t expect to melt faces like everyone else because you have support built into your profession. I’d suggest using it or finding another profession.

You love the damage a warrior can do, then go play warrior. See how long you can manage to destroy stuff before the enemy’s HP skyrockets and you’re forced to dodge out of melee range more often (which will lower your damage).

Hey there guy, I do play a warrior. I will destroy lots of crap because I play fighting games at the top level and was in a very high level WoW pvp arena guild years ago. I have 0 doubt that I will be stomping most people in GW2 based on the terrible play I’ve seen broadcast on twitch and youtube.

I know full well what RDMs could do, but it wasn’t fun, and they were never “powerful” in the true sense. The game eliminating the healer class was a bold move, really. I applaud them… however, they really didnt forsee the consequences of it.

I really, really like the idea of not relying on a main healer class and a main tank class(which wasnt really eliminated) but as you can see, what you get from that is a watered down POS for the squishies.

Molch.2078:

Leo G.4501:

Whereas I can stack 10-12 stacks of might on melees with dagger, I can easily keep 25 stacks on them with scepter.

2 Blastfinisher from Fire, one from Earth and one Arcane Utility. And one Combofield Fire. Please, how do you stack 25 times Might?

The finishers you mention create 4*3=12 stacks might. With boon duration runes, they can be applied twice (=24). Rune of battle can create another 9. Elemental Attunement adds +3.

Getting 25 stacks is doable. Maybe not practical, but still doable.