Guild Wars 2

Been watching the videos that have recently taken down the vale guardian (mind you, theres only a couple out there so this is a small sample size)

But I’m having trouble envisioning a role for ele that is superior to other specs…

None of these raid comps had Ele….

Their DPS is shot with ice bow nerf…

Staff ele AOE isn’t useful in this particular raid boss fight because it was always moving and staff ele is only awesome when mobs stand in the AOE circles, so constant, moving damage is optimal, not AOE…

Support/utility role? uhh no need for ele healer – druid and scrapper has plenty of healing/water fields….might/fury stacking is already taken care of without ele…

Condi spec ele? nope – terrible condi specs….

I’m having a tough time seeing where an ele in raids would be more useful than other specs right now (except maybe a thief…). Anyone else?

All rolls. That what an ele is the all type class.

You don’t need to only do one role. I have felt pretty good about a berserker/cleric mix and throwing out heals while also doing boons and damage. Plus the control with most of our weapon sets.

kReign.3518:

You don’t need to only do one role. I have felt pretty good about a berserker/cleric mix and throwing out heals while also doing boons and damage. Plus the control with most of our weapon sets.

Shh… don’t tell people you can mix ‘n match stats, they’re grab their torches and pitchforks! :0

That is concerning, 10 ppl and not single elementalist in any raid group?? Yup, Anet, your idea of balance has to be tweaked it seems. I also don’t see a reason to take thief in raids, so get on that, the fact that 2 classes completely fall out is pretty bad.
Edit: Also I just saw a reddit thread of the people that first beat the Vale Guardian. 4 of them were in condi build, others full zerker and still managed to do it in 3 tries !!! (they are very good players tho) The fact that ele, necro, thief, ranger and guardian weren’t used tells a lot. Tho, I don’t see a reason not to pick guardians, but even their most hyped specs (reaper and druid) didn’t see play. In fact, druid wasn’t even needed, even tho they said that the raid would need soft trinity like this.

Its quite simple really-the ele has 12k base hp and lowest armor in the game,
to survive the massive dmg the bosses put out they need to invest HEAVILY into defense at which point they are doing pretty much nothing at all and you are better of taking some other class.
Its a core design flaw with the base hp that will never be fixed-you cant have double health on certain classes and call it ‘balanced’

Tomiyou.3790:

That is concerning, 10 ppl and not single elementalist in any raid group?? Yup, Anet, your idea of balance has to be tweaked it seems. I also don’t see a reason to take thief in raids, so get on that, the fact that 2 classes completely fall out is pretty bad.
Edit: Also I just saw a reddit thread of the people that first beat the Vale Guardian. 4 of them were in condi build, others full zerker and still managed to do it in 3 tries !!! (they are very good players tho) The fact that ele, necro, thief, ranger and guardian weren’t used tells a lot. Tho, I don’t see a reason not to pick guardians, but even their most hyped specs (reaper and druid) didn’t see play. In fact, druid wasn’t even needed, even tho they said that the raid would need soft trinity like this.

This is just the first boss….

and druid was in the first documented kill….

The comp could easily be interchangable as well… i’ve seen other videos using reaper and guard…plenty of them ran druid too (in fact, i think they all did lol, so idk what you are talking about…. druid is extremely good in raids)…

The one I am concerned most for is thief…. they don’t seem to have ANY usefulness in the raid….stealth is not needed (so far, and engi can do it now…)… boonstrip/breakbar is not needed as other classes can do it as well now…. blinds are not needed as other classes can do it and bring more to the table….

Remember, this is just first boss thou, who knows what anet has up their sleeves..

Tomiyou.3790:

That is concerning, 10 ppl and not single elementalist in any raid group?? Yup, Anet, your idea of balance has to be tweaked it seems. I also don’t see a reason to take thief in raids, so get on that, the fact that 2 classes completely fall out is pretty bad.
Edit: Also I just saw a reddit thread of the people that first beat the Vale Guardian. 4 of them were in condi build, others full zerker and still managed to do it in 3 tries !!! (they are very good players tho) The fact that ele, necro, thief, ranger and guardian weren’t used tells a lot. Tho, I don’t see a reason not to pick guardians, but even their most hyped specs (reaper and druid) didn’t see play. In fact, druid wasn’t even needed, even tho they said that the raid would need soft trinity like this.

I’d like to see that because every post I saw had at least one Druid.

On topic: I had the exact same discussion with my guild today, we can’t find how Elementalists could fit into raids and even Guardians….

arkealia.2713:

I’d like to see that because every post I saw had at least one Druid.

On topic: I had the exact same discussion with my guild today, we can’t find how Elementalists could fit into raids and even Guardians….

From my previous raid experience in other games things usually come down to roles. For example Scrapper Engie filling a “Bruiser Utility” style role where he’s blasting Water Fields and the like. Is that something Elementalist can do? Is that something Tempest can do? That’s generally how it works. You need X roles filled and it’s up to players to fill those slots with various classes.

Kodiak.3281:

From my previous raid experience in other games things usually come down to roles. For example Scrapper Engie filling a “Bruiser Utility” style role where he’s blasting Water Fields and the like. Is that something Elementalist can do? Is that something Tempest can do? That’s generally how it works. You need X roles filled and it’s up to players to fill those slots with various classes.

Sadly, ANet overlooked many things about the classes in designing the raid mechanics thus far. Elementalist damage is relatively weak in PvE against moving targets, and the class has no real means of compensating with alternative builds to deal with mobile bosses.

I’m wondering how much thought Crystal put into the consequences of the fight designs.

Celestial elementalist is a jack of all trades. But it’s important to realise that you need to play to all your strengths in order for it to work.

With two castings of cleansing wave through Water dagger 5 and evasive arcana, they contribute somewhat to group healing and condition management.

It’s not difficult to maintain 10-20 stacks of might and permanent fury using your fire fields, 3 blast finisher weapon skills, and the blast finisher on earth attunement evasive arcana.

Dagger elementalists have high mobility, allowing them to disengage fights, as well as quickly reach objectives if things like having to reach distant switches mid fight are ever incorporated as mechanics.

Due to the design of their kit and stat selection, elementalists deal significant amounts of both direct and condition damage when stacked with might.

Eponet.4829:

Celestial elementalist is a jack of all trades. But it’s important to realise that you need to play to all your strengths in order for it to work.

With two castings of cleansing wave through Water dagger 5 and evasive arcana, they contribute somewhat to group healing and condition management.

It’s not difficult to maintain 10-20 stacks of might and permanent fury using your fire fields, 3 blast finisher weapon skills, and the blast finisher on earth attunement evasive arcana.

Dagger elementalists have high mobility, allowing them to disengage fights, as well as quickly reach objectives if things like having to reach distant switches mid fight are ever incorporated as mechanics.

Due to the design of their kit and stat selection, elementalists deal significant amounts of both direct and condition damage when stacked with might.

Celestial D/D in PvE does really, really poor damage.

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

Eponet.4829:

Celestial elementalist is a jack of all trades. But it’s important to realise that you need to play to all your strengths in order for it to work.

With two castings of cleansing wave through Water dagger 5 and evasive arcana, they contribute somewhat to group healing and condition management.

It’s not difficult to maintain 10-20 stacks of might and permanent fury using your fire fields, 3 blast finisher weapon skills, and the blast finisher on earth attunement evasive arcana.

Dagger elementalists have high mobility, allowing them to disengage fights, as well as quickly reach objectives if things like having to reach distant switches mid fight are ever incorporated as mechanics.

Due to the design of their kit and stat selection, elementalists deal significant amounts of both direct and condition damage when stacked with might.

Celestial D/D in PvE does really, really poor damage.

Weird, when I played it, it did noticably more than my berserker mesmer.

Eponet.4829:

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

Eponet.4829:

Celestial elementalist is a jack of all trades. But it’s important to realise that you need to play to all your strengths in order for it to work.

With two castings of cleansing wave through Water dagger 5 and evasive arcana, they contribute somewhat to group healing and condition management.

It’s not difficult to maintain 10-20 stacks of might and permanent fury using your fire fields, 3 blast finisher weapon skills, and the blast finisher on earth attunement evasive arcana.

Dagger elementalists have high mobility, allowing them to disengage fights, as well as quickly reach objectives if things like having to reach distant switches mid fight are ever incorporated as mechanics.

Due to the design of their kit and stat selection, elementalists deal significant amounts of both direct and condition damage when stacked with might.

Celestial D/D in PvE does really, really poor damage.

Weird, when I played it, it did noticably more than my berserker mesmer.

If you’re running full celestial, there is no way you’re doing a decent damage since your power is just insanely low. Sure, you got some condi damage, but that really doesn’t make up for almost 1K loss in power.

Why would you run celestial to begin with?

Eponet.4829:

Weird, when I played it, it did noticably more than my berserker mesmer.

That’s because mesmer deals atrocious damage in general unless you can somehow manage to maintain 3 phantasms at all times, and considering the unlikelihood of that ever being the case along with the fact that getting 3 up requires ramp-up time, this makes mesmer damage in general very bad unless reflects are involved.

Comparing elementalist to mesmer DPS is pointless since mesmer DPS relies entirely on phantasms.

Pikachu.1829:

Why would you run celestial to begin with?

Pretty much the same question that I want to ask, because the gearset provides a low amount of every kind of attribute and doesn’t excel in anything. What this results in is having average-at-best performance in all circumstances when the reality is that the vast majority of all PvE encounters do not require additional defensive attributes to excel in.

This makes celestial totally pointless.

If the raid boss aggro’s on you 100% of the time and will not reset, zerker ele won’t cut it. Either not enough breathing room or you become too focus on sustain to actually contribute anything.

If the ele has to go d/d cele for sustaining, he may as well assume the anchor/kiter/healer role and at the very least, focus on the Red Boss during the split. That said, I had somewhat more success with Rabid/Condi Tempest:
+ Decent damage uptime: Burn Burn Burn Bleed Burn (Our group had 60 stacks of burn spread accross one tempest, one zerk and one condi engi)
+ Good damage soaking: Protection, Frost Aura, Toughness from Rabid
+ Good healing: A lot of Water field blasting, Signet Heal, etc.
+ Mobility: Swiftness, Burning Speed
+ Possible group AED: Rebound used on top of low health teammates during the Blue orb stacking
+ Fill a niche role: Condi, Boon stack/spread
+ Fair amount of Crowd control

The build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdyxAUhJ2fJY2AwhJWEAM3Wbst2GEAKAHghgwOoIA-ThhHAB7q8j2TAAhq/AwDA4M9AQpEkUALqsC-e

Valento.9852:

kReign.3518:

You don’t need to only do one role. I have felt pretty good about a berserker/cleric mix and throwing out heals while also doing boons and damage. Plus the control with most of our weapon sets.

Shh… don’t tell people you can mix ‘n match stats, they’re grab their torches and pitchforks! :0

The issue is that mixing and matching stats is pointless and inefficient. People have the mistaken belief that if you play anything except for full damage, you should run a different stat type. They are wrong.

I think that d/f ele would do just fine: good damage, good might stacking/boons support, the only true hard mitigation skills ele has. Perhaps tempest fresh air could become a spec if they fix the problem of needing to take earth, water, air, and tempest to get a build that has enough support (prot, auras, fury, swiftness) to justify the loss in damage. I also don’t think staff is necessarily bad, but it does suffer greatly when enemies aren’t dumb enough to just stand in a pulsing damage field.

Staff ele used primarily for damage will fall out of raids, that’s definite. The first raid boss is much more mobile than, let’s say, Brie and you cannot snare it.

Larynx.2453:

Valento.9852:

kReign.3518:

You don’t need to only do one role. I have felt pretty good about a berserker/cleric mix and throwing out heals while also doing boons and damage. Plus the control with most of our weapon sets.

Shh… don’t tell people you can mix ‘n match stats, they’re grab their torches and pitchforks! :0

The issue is that mixing and matching stats is pointless and inefficient. People have the mistaken belief that if you play anything except for full damage, you should run a different stat type. They are wrong.

Could you please elaborate why they’re wrong?

I am also intrested in the explanation. Pointless and inefficient is no explanation.
I have a good experience in mixing in the following order: Condition damage (maxed)/Precision/Toughness/Vitality/Power. Yes its a condi build..
I also feel comftable (as ELE) when puting a splash of Toughness/Vit in a power build instead of a bit ferocity going about 180 critical damage . So i am down about 30 critical damage to full zerker but have about 3k more HP and about 20% more absorb which sounds efficient.
Of course if you are never hit full zerker is best …. Arguable in PvE as staff ele but …
This might work for a professional player with over 2 years daily Gw2 that does speedrun the same dungeon 1001 times a month XD.

It all depends on the person who’s kiting the boss, but for Vale Guardian encounter we needed classes that can do dps while able to keep up with AOE lightning and lava font and meteor shower just didn’t cut it. In our attempts we tried at least 1 Berserker/Cleric Staff ele, but the amount of heals and DPS it putout were completely out-shined by Sinister Engi/Revenant and Druid.

Keep in mind that Vale Guardian had some mechanics removed for beta testing and I don’t think each boss will have the same mechanic, so that players might switch their party comp around.

Out of curiosity, do you have any experience in controlling the aggro of the Vale Guardian without the actual need to change classes/ comp? Anything that could trigger the aggro? From my own experience, the first group I was with had a cleric Guard and a cele Revenant, the boss decided to pick me, a zerker staff ele. So I had to swap to Rabid Tempest in order to kite him and do DPS. In the second group, I played a heavily mix of Cavalier/Zerker Reaper and the boss decided to ignore me and stick on our zerker Revenant all the time and only abandoned her when we had a Rabid Engi join us briefly.

Elementalists are getting deleted by the developers, no longer useful for anything in pve

It should be noted that since someone has to run a tank build in order to kite the boss around with highest armor, a Cele Ele would not actually be a bad choice at all. One group did it with a Cele Guardian. I’m sure Cele Ele would be OK.

Neko.9021:

It should be noted that since someone has to run a tank build in order to kite the boss around with highest armor, a Cele Ele would not actually be a bad choice at all. One group did it with a Cele Guardian. I’m sure Cele Ele would be OK.

Don’t think Cele ele has access to the blocks/reflects and utilties that guardian has…not to mention the naturally higher armor total….

Don’t see a logical reason a light armor/lowest HP should be tanking over other heavies in your squad lol….

What do you need Reflect for? And no, Block will be periodically destroyed by the boss’ auto Magic Aura. Higher armor doesn’t really matter if you intend to soak up the Seeker’s damage: You’ll die! You still need to avoid colliding against the Seeker to the minimum: like, strafe left-right, pull them together then dodge over. On the other hand, you can dodge over the blue teleport aoe at the last minute to avoid the boss moving too much. So perma Vigor is much more preferred than high armor.

Have you seen the sustain that a cele ele can pump out compared to a cleric guard in a PvP match? Ele can get a high up time of Protection and Regen. With Tempest, you are looking at 40% damage reduction with aura/protection. You have yourself Might and Fury. You have your own Rebound, which you can share with your DPS allies during Bullet Storm, too. You also have plenty of blast finisher to coordinate a water blast with your engi.

Since you don’t need any of the Reflect/Block/Stability (yet), it’s pretty much a fair game to have a cele ele tank/kite the boss.

Iris Ng.9845:

What do you need Reflect for? And no, Block will be periodically destroyed by the boss’ auto Magic Aura. Higher armor doesn’t really matter if you intend to soak up the Seeker’s damage: You’ll die! You still need to avoid colliding against the Seeker to the minimum: like, strafe left-right, pull them together then dodge over. On the other hand, you can dodge over the blue teleport aoe at the last minute to avoid the boss moving too much. So perma Vigor is much more preferred than high armor.

Have you seen the sustain that a cele ele can pump out compared to a cleric guard in a PvP match? Ele can get a high up time of Protection and Regen. With Tempest, you are looking at 40% damage reduction with aura/protection. You have yourself Might and Fury. You have your own Rebound, which you can share with your DPS allies during Bullet Storm, too. You also have plenty of blast finisher to coordinate a water blast with your engi.

Since you don’t need any of the Reflect/Block/Stability (yet), it’s pretty much a fair game to have a cele ele tank/kite the boss.

This^

How often does the boss land his auto-attack? I know how well eles can heal, but can tempests outheal frequent auto-attack hits?

Valento.9852:

How often does the boss land his auto-attack? I know how well eles can heal, but can tempests outheal frequent auto-attack hits?

It’s like every second, no target limit, 360 degree, 1500 range. It ticks between 1.5k to 3.5k depending on your toughness, armor, damage reduction. In order to outheal, you need a lot of passive Regen, passive heal through Signet of Restoration, Vampiric Aura- if any, blasting water field and healing/regen from allies.

The main problem is the spike from a bunch of Seekers gathering at you and you mess up your positioning. If you strafe around constantly and have the boss follow you, none of the other attacks (if any) will hit you, since AI cannot move and attack at the same time.

Iris Ng.9845:

What do you need Reflect for? And no, Block will be periodically destroyed by the boss’ auto Magic Aura. Higher armor doesn’t really matter if you intend to soak up the Seeker’s damage: You’ll die! You still need to avoid colliding against the Seeker to the minimum: like, strafe left-right, pull them together then dodge over. On the other hand, you can dodge over the blue teleport aoe at the last minute to avoid the boss moving too much. So perma Vigor is much more preferred than high armor.

Have you seen the sustain that a cele ele can pump out compared to a cleric guard in a PvP match? Ele can get a high up time of Protection and Regen. With Tempest, you are looking at 40% damage reduction with aura/protection. You have yourself Might and Fury. You have your own Rebound, which you can share with your DPS allies during Bullet Storm, too. You also have plenty of blast finisher to coordinate a water blast with your engi.

Since you don’t need any of the Reflect/Block/Stability (yet), it’s pretty much a fair game to have a cele ele tank/kite the boss.

I think you might have missed the last patch notes or you plan on using cantrips as well.

Either way, earthen proxy isn’t something I would have brought into a discussion.

Jski.6180:

All rolls. That what an ele is the all type class.

Where are you from?

Axialbloom.8109:

Jski.6180:

All rolls. That what an ele is the all type class.

Where are you from?

Where is that question from?

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Axialbloom.8109:

Jski.6180:

All rolls. That what an ele is the all type class.

Where are you from?

Where is that question from?

I see him post a lot, and it seems he is on the US servers. But his posts are always pseudo-gibberish, even though he seems to understand exactly what others are saying.

Anyway, on topic: I did not see a role for eles in that one raid fight. Warhorn and overloads would especially fail, due to the movement.

Iris Ng.9845:

What do you need Reflect for? And no, Block will be periodically destroyed by the boss’ auto Magic Aura. Higher armor doesn’t really matter if you intend to soak up the Seeker’s damage: You’ll die! You still need to avoid colliding against the Seeker to the minimum: like, strafe left-right, pull them together then dodge over. On the other hand, you can dodge over the blue teleport aoe at the last minute to avoid the boss moving too much. So perma Vigor is much more preferred than high armor.

Have you seen the sustain that a cele ele can pump out compared to a cleric guard in a PvP match? Ele can get a high up time of Protection and Regen. With Tempest, you are looking at 40% damage reduction with aura/protection. You have yourself Might and Fury. You have your own Rebound, which you can share with your DPS allies during Bullet Storm, too. You also have plenty of blast finisher to coordinate a water blast with your engi.

Since you don’t need any of the Reflect/Block/Stability (yet), it’s pretty much a fair game to have a cele ele tank/kite the boss.

To add to this, you can also take earth shield for some very nice hard-mitigation. Between earth shield, earth focus, mistform (for resses or saving yourself), and even vamp runes if necessary, you can get a LOT of invulnerability and blocks to add to the healing capabilities and projectile hate.

If they actually adjust overloads so that they are more usable (lessen the 5s precharge, reduce the 20s CD afterwards ontop of the 4s channel time), they could really help fill in with mobile damage (especially air overload with fresh air).

Had talks today with several eles, and they are all saying the same, eles do not have a role in raids. Can they raid? Probably, BUT they have to be carried by the others since they do not provide with anything that other classes can do better. AND on top of that their base hp and armor is insanely low compared to other classes.

The damage coming in to the raid goups on all those videos i seen are ok to deal with for all classes except for the eles. I seen a few videos with a eles and they really have to be carried and get one shotted a lot.

So then people say, yeah but why don’t you take other stats, well that would mean that i will loose a lot of dps, and in the end we might not make the enrage timer because my dps is not enough. The problem at this very point is that eles do not add anything that other classes can do better, hense those will be the classes you have to bring.

This is how raids goes, i don’t complain about that, i have done pve raids in other games for many years and know that you adjust your character to what the raid need, BUT not even in those games they remove full classes from raids. There might not be room for many of them, but never the less, all the classes are mostly needed in some way. Here we remove eles (and imo also thiefs) from the whole raid concept because they don’t have enough base hp nor enough base armor, and without the decent dps, it just will be a class that get a big “no, bring another class please”

How to solve it, not sure, more hp is needed in both pve and wvw imo, in pvp maybe not so much, but it is a bit anoying that our class is based on what is going on with d/d- celestial-ele in pvp. I saw wooden potato try out a aura share build, but he said it was not really what would be most effective and even he said bring another class.

So Dev please make our class viable in raids and pve. I don’t want to switch main after 3 years just to be able to raid in pve frequently.

Though I only attempted the raid twice (and with random groups, no less) I didn’t have any problems sustaining myself while keeping an eye on my teammates. Any time i’d see that i’ve taken agro, I would swap to earth and drop Dust storm-Feel the burn (proc protection on aura) Sand squall (proc again) then swap to water to gauge who needs heals and Toss tidal surge, Water globe and Trident their direction.

My dps was entirely burn-oriented (Toughness/Heal power/Cnd dmg) with Scepter/Warhorn so I could keep a safe distance.

I will add that I wasn’t able to beat the Vale Guardian with either group, but I feel like my role was about right. Burning spikes fast and is a quick rotation through fire atunement to unload and end with Heat sinc to top off anyone who needs a stack of 25 might.

Axialbloom.8109:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Axialbloom.8109:

Jski.6180:

All rolls. That what an ele is the all type class.

Where are you from?

Where is that question from?

I see him post a lot, and it seems he is on the US servers. But his posts are always pseudo-gibberish, even though he seems to understand exactly what others are saying.

Anyway, on topic: I did not see a role for eles in that one raid fight. Warhorn and overloads would especially fail, due to the movement.

I think tempest shines with movement, shouts are on short activation times, warhorn water gives a traveling orb and a traveling wave, so all u have to watch is your direction and your allies, water attunement, u can move in it so that field follows u. Same for all other Overloads. I think a cele/sinister or zerker ele is one of the best things u can have at that fight. Is it for kiting or damage/healing its just an awesome All rounder. But thats just me.

Bogus.1598:

Axialbloom.8109:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Axialbloom.8109:

Jski.6180:

All rolls. That what an ele is the all type class.

Where are you from?

Where is that question from?

I see him post a lot, and it seems he is on the US servers. But his posts are always pseudo-gibberish, even though he seems to understand exactly what others are saying.

Anyway, on topic: I did not see a role for eles in that one raid fight. Warhorn and overloads would especially fail, due to the movement.

I think tempest shines with movement, shouts are on short activation times, warhorn water gives a traveling orb and a traveling wave, so all u have to watch is your direction and your allies, water attunement, u can move in it so that field follows u. Same for all other Overloads. I think a cele/sinister or zerker ele is one of the best things u can have at that fight. Is it for kiting or damage/healing its just an awesome All rounder. But thats just me.

I noticed that the Tempest makes up for the movement problems of traditional PvE ele damage. However I have to ask, is the damage of overloads really any better than what other professions can put out in these fights?

If the damage isn’t better, why take a tempest? The tempest needs to be very squishy to do this kind of damage and needs to be babysat. The tempest also has to sacrifice a lot due to the drawbacks of the overloads. Because of these two factors, you would think that the tempest would be better at damage than most of the competition but is that really the case?

You would say that the tempest also brings support, but the fact of the matter is that other damage specs bring sufficient support as well. I don’t think that the healing would be too useful if you are to bring a druid. If changes to healing power scaling are done across the board and not just for druids, then it may be possible for the tempest to focus on healing. However, there has been no indication so far that healing power is being adjusted for any other profession except druid.

To get some perspective on ele in raids I’ve uploaded a short video of my attempts;

Now I do agree with the general opinion that the elementalist role gets outshined by others.
The two strongest positions I’ve found is either play as the ‘tank’ to keep the vale guardians aggro or as a fresh air tempest for moderate damage on the move.

As things looks now, Eles will be in the same situation as Necro is when dealing with fractals and dungeons. Its not that Necro are bad at DPS, but average is not enough reason to pick it without significant utility or party buffs. But there is also a much worse problem that Necro face.

Experience players that focus on fractal and dungeon tend to have multiple characters, and most people will pick the class that is best for the job rather than a average one. This leave a very low average skill level for the people who do stick with the class, thus create a negative experience for those who players with them and after a while the class falls into dislike by the rest of the community. Not short after you get parties that says “no ranger, no necro”, and parties that will active kick people who enter with such class.

Average is not good enough to be played, and bad enough to be turned away when it really matters.

Belorn.2659:

As things looks to become now, Eles will be in the same situation as Necro is when dealing with fractals and dungeons. Its not that Necro are bad at DPS, but average is not enough reason to pick it without significant utility or party buffs. But there is also a much worse problem that Necro face.

Experience players that focus on fractal and dungeon tend to have multiple characters, and most people will pick the class that is best for the job rather than a average one. This leave a very low average skill level for the people who do stick with the class, thus create a negative experience for those who players with them and after a while the class falls into dislike by the rest of the community. Not short after you get parties that says “no ranger, no necro”, and parties that will active kick people who enter with such class.

Average is not good enough to be played, and bad enough to be turned away when it really matters.

Thieves may well end up in the same situation as well. Thief and ele could be the new ranger and necro of raids. The possible exception to this could be the odd fight with a boss that has a big hitbox, since ele staff damage will always be king in those types of situations.

NayNay.7680:

Though I only attempted the raid twice (and with random groups, no less) I didn’t have any problems sustaining myself while keeping an eye on my teammates. Any time i’d see that i’ve taken agro, I would swap to earth and drop Dust storm-Feel the burn (proc protection on aura) Sand squall (proc again) then swap to water to gauge who needs heals and Toss tidal surge, Water globe and Trident their direction.

What was the point of casting Dust Storm?

My dps was entirely burn-oriented (Toughness/Heal power/Cnd dmg) with Scepter/Warhorn so I could keep a safe distance.

I will add that I wasn’t able to beat the Vale Guardian with either group, but I feel like my role was about right. Burning spikes fast and is a quick rotation through fire atunement to unload and end with Heat sinc to top off anyone who needs a stack of 25 might.

If you have a controlled environment like raids (unlike open world triple trouble) and enrage timers, you want to always make sure everyone is playing at the highest level. Condition damage elementalist doesn’t allow it so if your team mates don’t mind it that’s fine but I frankly cannot see it used by any “competitive” guild in the near future..

Ganathar.4956:

Thieves may well end up in the same situation as well. Thief and ele could be the new ranger and necro of raids. The possible exception to this could be the odd fight with a boss that has a big hitbox, since ele staff damage will always be king in those types of situations.

The first boss can be quite mobile. And mobile enemies mean staff damage potential is significantly dropped.

Bogus.1598:

I think a cele/sinister or zerker ele is one of the best things u can have at that fight. Is it for kiting or damage/healing its just an awesome All rounder. But thats just me.

That’s the thing. All-rounders were never a flavour of the month in pve meta. It’s all about being the best in your role.

rotten.9753:

Ganathar.4956:

Thieves may well end up in the same situation as well. Thief and ele could be the new ranger and necro of raids. The possible exception to this could be the odd fight with a boss that has a big hitbox, since ele staff damage will always be king in those types of situations.

The first boss can be quite mobile. And mobile enemies mean staff damage potential is significantly dropped.

I am aware of this, but I’m speculating that there may be some rare boss fights with huge enemies that have large hitboxes. They can’t make all the fights the same… at least I hope that they won’t make them all the same.

NayNay.7680:

Though I only attempted the raid twice (and with random groups, no less) I didn’t have any problems sustaining myself while keeping an eye on my teammates. Any time i’d see that i’ve taken agro, I would swap to earth and drop Dust storm-Feel the burn (proc protection on aura) Sand squall (proc again) then swap to water to gauge who needs heals and Toss tidal surge, Water globe and Trident their direction.

My dps was entirely burn-oriented (Toughness/Heal power/Cnd dmg) with Scepter/Warhorn so I could keep a safe distance.

I will add that I wasn’t able to beat the Vale Guardian with either group, but I feel like my role was about right. Burning spikes fast and is a quick rotation through fire atunement to unload and end with Heat sinc to top off anyone who needs a stack of 25 might.

You and so many others here are missing the whole point. This is not a dungeon were there are no enrage timers and a dungeon can either take 5 min or 2 hours depending on how you mix your group up.
In raids, it is all about having the best group setup to beat the engrage timer on the boss so he goes down. When time runs out the boss will kill you and you will not be able to beat the boss.
This is not elite talk, this is not we must use zerker meta talk, this is just how raid works. You bring the classes, the stats, the traits and the skills that make it possible to beat a boss.
So why should they pick a condi ele with bad condi damage if you compare that to other classes like for example engy who just blow a milion condis out of their nose and drown the target in it. Your few condi stacks can not make up for what they can do, so that means the raid have to carry you and do the damage you lack as well as their own part. This is were the issue is, we simply do not add anything that other classes can do faster, better or more.

Again i am not here to tell A-net to make raids easier so that anyone can join with what ever they feel like and there by remove the whole thing about a hard encounter, but removing classes completely from raids, were a class becomes unuseful because it does not have anything that other classes do 100% more and better, then something went wrong.

I hope there are changes coming for ele in future, because right now we are not in a good spot for raids.

rotten.9753:

NayNay.7680:

Though I only attempted the raid twice (and with random groups, no less) I didn’t have any problems sustaining myself while keeping an eye on my teammates. Any time i’d see that i’ve taken agro, I would swap to earth and drop Dust storm-Feel the burn (proc protection on aura) Sand squall (proc again) then swap to water to gauge who needs heals and Toss tidal surge, Water globe and Trident their direction.

What was the point of casting Dust Storm?

My dps was entirely burn-oriented (Toughness/Heal power/Cnd dmg) with Scepter/Warhorn so I could keep a safe distance.

I will add that I wasn’t able to beat the Vale Guardian with either group, but I feel like my role was about right. Burning spikes fast and is a quick rotation through fire atunement to unload and end with Heat sinc to top off anyone who needs a stack of 25 might.

If you have a controlled environment like raids (unlike open world triple trouble) and enrage timers, you want to always make sure everyone is playing at the highest level. Condition damage elementalist doesn’t allow it so if your team mates don’t mind it that’s fine but I frankly cannot see it used by any “competitive” guild in the near future..

I use dust storm for bleeds/blinds. Is that wrong?

So by your standards I should sacrifice my own survivability and that of my teammates just to burn the bosses HP bar a little bit faster? I’ll take 8-9k burn ticks 2-3k bleeds out of face-punch range any day.

I really don’t think this is a sittuation where anyone who isn’t running the most streamlined specialized Spec should be discluded from Game content (uncompetitive pve content at that) it all comes down to how well you know your routine for the build you play and being properly informed about boss behaviors and the like.

Edit:
This coming from a player who avoids competitive guild politics. I don’t mean for it to come off as an attack on the well-rounded guild groups just trying to be the most efficient, but just saying people shouldn’t be turned away because they’re running a build that is deemed “less efficient”. Let their actions prove their worth, first.

NayNay.7680:

I use dust storm for bleeds/blinds. Is that wrong?

Well, yea. In the segment of the raid that was available you couldn’t blind anyone.

So by your standards I should sacrifice my own survivability and that of my teammates just to burn the bosses HP bar a little bit faster? I’ll take 8-9k burn ticks 2-3k bleeds out of face-punch range any day.

I really don’t think this is a sittuation where anyone who isn’t running the most streamlined specialized Spec should be discluded from Game content (uncompetitive pve content at that) it all comes down to how well you know your routine for the build you play and being properly informed about boss behaviors and the like.

Edit:
This coming from a player who avoids competitive guild politics. I don’t mean for it to come off as an attack on the well-rounded guild groups just trying to be the most efficient, but just saying people shouldn’t be turned away because they’re running a build that is deemed “less efficient”. Let their actions prove their worth, first.

Those damage numbers are probably your peak numbers, the average dps of condition elementalist is quite low compared to other condition damage specs.

Anyway, raids should be hard enough for average players that will force them to run more optimised group compositions, despite Colin’s claims that everyone can fill every role. Moreover, it’s not an open world so people will be able to exclude builds that are not exactly top notch in their roles. Unfortunately for us, the general consensus is that tempest pretty much suck in raids but if you can complete it then I cannot be more happy because it means Karl made this spec at least carry-able.