Guild Wars 2

I bought this game to relax and have fun, I don’t have a very high Ele but it seems no matter where I turn to in game or the forums one of three things is said;

1. In order to DPS with ele you must play ADD style, constantly clicking until your arm ends up in a cast.

2. Ele sucks at everything.

3. Your job is to be a buff bot for Warriors and the Thief professions.

So right now I’m a bit discouraged with this game, the promises of playing how you want and having fun seem to not apply once you actually start to play the game. Is it terrible for elemental players late game? Do I have to be a buff slave to these two professions? (I swear every fantasy MMO revolves around warriors and rogue classes.)

I pretty much like playing with my lightning spec, zapping stuff is fun. So any help or verification to this will help me if I’ll play this game or just play something else. My days of buff botting for warriors/rogues were done once I quit raiding on WoW.

Your points are hereby Verified.

Personally, I’ve played both Thief and Ele, and I love both for different reasons.

Thief is easy to kite and solo with. It has a lot of tricks and can be a generally wicked class. It’s sly. I enjoy it the way I enjoy crime dramas and detective stories.

Ele is more like an explosive action movie. I thought I would dislike the class because it’s less forgiving of mistakes, and it uses a (long) rotation. It’s harder to solo with. But I’ve found that I enjoy Ele every bit as much as Thief. The combat is chock-full of combos. It’s dynamic and exciting.

1. Not anymore. Nowadays it’s either sitting in Staff Fire auto attacking and casting Lava Font every ~5 seconds or using Scepter/Dagger, doing a quick Might rotation and getting your hammer out to auto attack.
I’m using the Lava Font build for a while now and even in open PvE I rarely swap out of fire.

2. There are 8 professions but only 5 party slots. A Guardian and/or Mesmer is often required so in the best case scenario 7 professions compete for 4 party slots, and thus at least 3 professions are left out. If someone says “<Profession’s name> sucks in PvE” they mean “a few other professions are doing it ~5% better”.

3. Eles have access to fire fields and blast finisher, so yeah, you’re expected to use them.

If you are playing casually, you can play your ele in a variety of ways and be very effective in all PvE encounters. I find D/D to be the most fun for open world pve, but staff, scepter, and focus are all just fine for this as well.

If you want to pvp, your options become more limited to say the least.

I would quit if they took away elementalist’s ability to be more effective by playing “ADD style”. They have done very well with making some classes playable in relaxed mode and some require effort.

The loot (and WXP etc) grind is too long now to max out multiple characters without ridiculous time expenditures, so people trying to max a character are locked in. Since you are a very short distance down that farming path, you can easily switch. Choose a class that fits your style, and do it now, because you can’t really change later. Then once you are locked in, you can legitimately complain about all the balance changes that you can’t do anything about.

I don’t mind if people enjoy ADD style play but it should not be the only option to play successfully.

Sunshine.4680:

I don’t mind if people enjoy ADD style play but it should not be the only option to play successfully.

I think the frenetic play is more a factor with burst builds, like D/D and S/D.

When I use staff, my rotation is nonexistent. I essentially use each element in a set role and switch between them as needed. My other weaponset is D/F, and the only time I rotate quickly is when I’m trying to maximize burst—which isn’t always necessary in PvE. The focus typically necessitates a slower rotation, since the cooldowns are exceptionally long.

To be fair, we used to be the overpower class back in December. The thief is actually in a somewhat average place within the meta. The appear to be better than the elementalist because of the low risk high reward while elementalist is high risk average reward. Once warrior is toned down and the evade spam from thieves are handled with you will see more people willing to go into a power spec. If you like the feel of this class you should stick to this class because once we get buffed a bit and the meta shifts we will be very well off. In pve it is hard to survive close range unless you are bunker. Personally going staff with zerker stats is what I prefer for dungeon runs. Different weapon sets have different strengths and weaknesses learn what needs to be used in each situation and you will do fine.

WARNING: If you want to relax and have fun do NOT play an Ele !
Play a Warrior or Guardian for that. The mechanics of an ele are very fast paced compared to other classes, you will need to time everything just right and be spec’ed and geared perfectly to stand a chance, even then you are at a disadvantage.
You will have the worst HP pool and lowest armor, many game mechanics straight counter an Ele, while none really benefit you. Classes with similar traits, skills are optimized while an ele gets the half kitten of everything. … Edit: except water fields, you can drop water fields if you use a staff.

What are we talking about?

PvE, WvW, sPvP? Alot of the things people are bringing up against the elementalist in here has to do with WvW or sPvP and it looks like much of those points revolve around 1v1 fights.

You don’t have to play ADD style that really isn’t the case with ele it most applies to dagger/dagger, scepter/dagger, staff is hardly a extremely fast swapping setup.

It depends really what we are talking about though. As far as PvE goes unless something changed then a Lightning Hammer ele can put out more dps. Lightning Hammer builds are wanted for hardcore PvE groups. Most people in PvE don’t care to much what you play in PvE alot of times people prefer to not have a thief in party cause it is assumed the thief will die alot and slow everything down.

Ele was my first class when the game launched I got it to 43 and stopped playing it and leveled a mesmer to 80 first. I then leveled a Thief, then a warrior, got my Ele to 80 finally then leveled a necro to 80.

Elementalist ended up becoming my favorite class and mesmer is actually the class I have I play the least but use him for PvE alot because I have map completion on him etc.

You have to buff thief? They are only good when running dungeon in stealth to avoid adds. It’s hardly any point in buffing them if they go down as fast as you. Well, at least that’s what I have seen so far for most of the thief that I play with a few exception.

Anyway I used to be that kind of kitten that tell people what to run and so on. But eventually I kind of give up. So just play the style you want to play but it’s just not gonna be as effective. If it’s not working out for your current teammate, you can just QQ and re-run with better teammate. My suggestion is to join a GOOD guild and run dungeon with them occasionally. It will make you less frustrated when you become good to the game.

It depends mostly on the player. Ele is not easy at all to play well in a pvp setting. Pve is a lot easier but also requires some thinking and skills. If you haven’t play a mage type of class on previous mmo games, I wouldn’t recommend you to start playing the elementalist as a main in gw2. It will fill you up with frustration and stress until you becomes better with the profession and that may take a long time. Try Thief and warrior or if you definitely want a caster type, go with mesmer.

I’ll just preface this with: I’m a casual player. I rarely enter pvp; sometimes play WvW, and sometimes do a few dungeons/fractals. Mostly I just roam around, chatting with friends in guild :P

I’ve got a l80 ele, l53 mesmer and l47 ranger; and from versatility of things you can do, ele beats everyone hands down.

mesmer is so boring, everyone only ever plays with the greatsword, and for good reason. Sure, the mesmers don’t die as often but neither are they any fun to play. same 5 skills over and over again. I created it because everyone kept saying how much fun it is and… nope.

The ranger is more fun, as it has more viable weapons you can use, plus the pet. You get a more dynamic way of playing, there’s a good mix of ranged and melee attacks etc. All in all, it’s a lot more fun to play than the mesmer.

but the ele – sure, it’s vulnerable, but it’s SO much fun. Once you’ve played ele, other classes feel sluggish and slow, and limited. Sure, the critics will say that ele only needs to be hit once, so it NEEDS to be fast. Which is true to an extent, but in terms of immersion… let’s face it, I’m squishy, and in times of confrontation much more likely to run away and try to attack from afar than take a massive beating in the face (=warrior). Also, the ele has conjure weapons, summoned elementals, elemental storms and excellent condition removal.

so, yeah, unless you want to make GW2 your 2nd career and are only interested in having fun with some challenge, ele is a good choice.

If you want diverse play, casting, and a class that will sit good in any meta, then go Gaurdian. I know, it probably sounds like a boring choice, but it is what you make it. Scepter and staff are both very useful in Pvx. Hammer has great gank potential in PvP or against stragglers in WvW. Mace and shield/torch with Gs are terrific for a frontline cleric. The drawback is health. If you are worried about health more, then necromancer or warrior are both the most versatile classes. Last thought, if warrior can’t do it better, then it soon will.

Sunshine.4680:

I bought this game to relax and have fun, I don’t have a very high Ele but it seems no matter where I turn to in game or the forums one of three things is said;

1. In order to DPS with ele you must play ADD style, constantly clicking until your arm ends up in a cast.

2. Ele sucks at everything.

3. Your job is to be a buff bot for Warriors and the Thief professions.

So right now I’m a bit discouraged with this game, the promises of playing how you want and having fun seem to not apply once you actually start to play the game. Is it terrible for elemental players late game? Do I have to be a buff slave to these two professions? (I swear every fantasy MMO revolves around warriors and rogue classes.)

I pretty much like playing with my lightning spec, zapping stuff is fun. So any help or verification to this will help me if I’ll play this game or just play something else. My days of buff botting for warriors/rogues were done once I quit raiding on WoW.

It depends on who you talk to. There’s the people who are stuck on their beloved d/d 0/10/0/30/30 original build and think its d/d and nothing else can compete. But in reality we have more options, even staff now.

Yes, we have gotten hit with some absurd nerfs to our cantrips and mobility to name a couple. But we’re still a viable class to play and rewarding when done right. We DO have to do a lot more than any other class just to achieve “x”. But it’s something you learn and will help you become a better player.

S/d, d/d, s/f, d/f, staff… All viable play styles. It just depends on the build you want to use and what your play style is. I personally use a s/d fresh air build I made and absolutely love it.

Using the staff during a Zerg is the single best way to keep siege alive on door and your teams. It’s also a great way to get a tag on the massive blobs of people and get them bags. If youre more into solo and or small group roaming then I would say go with scepter or dagger in your main hand and then play with both focus and dagger offhand. Find out what you like best.
- Dagger is melee in your main hand and offers good sustained dmg and healing.
- Dagger offhand is your best tool to get off some insane dmg combos and bombs and offers mobility in rtl.
- Scepter main hand is our strongest burst dmg weapon. But depending on your build, offers good sustained dmg as well. It is entirely ranged but offers an ok heal/toughness and some nice blinds.
- Focus off hand, needs some work. But is still an extremely useful tool for ranged fights. It offers our strongest dmg mitigation that also let’s is keep attacking.

Like I said, try them all out and see what you like the most and what fits you best.