Guild Wars 2

I do well as elementalist in sPvp , always getting 2nd or first places…

But then I tried a mesmer, been playing for 2 days.

Its twice as better as an elementalist…. wish I rolled mesmer first.

I kill guardians/warriors/engineers/elementalists/rangers/necros with ease , can even take 1v2…

only trouble so far are Thieves…

Mesmer OP. making other classes look like a joke in pvp

Well mesmers are one of the top classes.

But, those who play several classes know the feeling, when they switch from their level 80 exotics filled elementalist to their cruddy, bad geared alts, they almost hear a “BOOOOM! TURRRRRRBO ENGAGED!!” effect and magically become godlike and skilled.

Elementalists arent hard to use just because they have 4 attunements, they are plain underpowered..

Mesmers are “supposed” to be hard-to-play, and look at their popularity. So, yeah, elementalists are on the weaker side of balance.

But they are only good in pvp, they are quiet awful in pve especially DE (cant tag stuff cause they lack aoe)

But they are only good in pvp, they are quiet awful in pve especially DE (cant tag stuff cause they lack aoe)

What? My GS/Staff mesmer has 7/10 skills are AoE, 11/14 if you count shatters. And other than Chaos storm, they are all on about half the cooldown of ele AOE’s

My mesmer can solo a veteran + 2 adds 3 levels above and barely break a sweat.

The problem with mesmers and aoe isn’t lack of AOE, it’s specifically lack of AOE in DE’s – specifically ones where mobs are dead from ground targetable aoes before they even visually appear on a screen. Where you can do a small aoe every 9 seconds (+ travel time for the clone to get to the target, assuming they don’t die to aoe and the target lives long enough) and then every 35 seconds with Chaos storm, other people can rotate between ground targetable aoes and get stuff dead before you can even get a clone out.

Who cares about tagging farmable mobs in PvE, the game centers around PvP, it’s PvP viability that matters. It’s not like you will get killed if you take 10 seconds longer to kill some AI.

Vaerah.4907:

Who cares about tagging farmable mobs in PvE, the game centers around PvP, it’s PvP viability that matters. It’s not like you will get killed if you take 10 seconds longer to kill some AI.

I don’t feel the game centers around pvp. It has a large pvp component that is completely optional for someone who primarily plays pve. And PVE works the same for PVP, you don’t have to step foot outside of PVP to play and enjoy your character. The game is intentionally balanced and designed as such – developer comments and interviews support this fact. Could perhaps your perception be biased towards your experience instead of the actual game? In this aspect, yes, I believe it is.

Regardless, if you ask on the mesmer forums “do mesmers have enough AOE to reliably tag mobs in large-scale DE’s?” The answer will be a resounding no. I will in fact go do just that to prove the point.

All of this however is irrelevant. Mesmer and Elementalist are in my opinion the least viable characters for PVE. For PVP the mesmer excells on 1vs1 – on larger scale, the clones and phantasms do too little and die too easily. All supported by more than my opinion and easily observed by anyone desiring to play a mesmer. Both classes have a substantial number of bugged traits and underperforming mechanics.

It is my hope that ANet will revisit the classes and buff them to where they can perform on equal footing in both environments, instead of “looking at them” and nerfing them according to their performance in just one environment or just one spec or based on one particular person’s skill with the class(Tank D/D elementalist).

But.. I have been playing MMO’s long enough to expect instead for both classes to be nerfed into crippled, feeble shadows of their former selves, and then a year or so later be buffed back up into something completely different, then become FOTM only to be nerfed again 5 months later as a retroactive kneejerk reaction to the perceived over-buff.

Masternewbz.4953:

Elementalists arent hard to use just because they have 4 attunements, they are plain underpowered..

Thats why my elementalist loses only to broken Backstab+Signet Combo and just 30% of the time.
Every other class 1on1 is a freekill for me. And now dont come with “you play only against noobs”.
We scrim against the best guilds Eu ( Team Paradigm, Super Squad, Mace Stun, etc.)
There is currently no player in my guild able to destroy my roamer ele 1on1.

@Evie

Yes and that’s worrysome.
See, the lower skill cap classes have this great thing: since the skill cap is lower, both average and top players hit the glass ceiling. So ANET balances those classes and given the skill cap both average and top players get equally affected. All share an homogeneous experience.

Ele is different. The skill cap is so high that when ANET balances for the top players, it’s like they balanced the tip of the iceberg. All the other average players are still deep in the water, the differential in the effect you see by buffing ele for a pro player is MASSIVE, so ANET in order to not make top players completely godlike have to keep the class completely not competitive for the averages.

You and the other 4-5 gods of GW2 will feel good and competitive, all the other “humans” instead are still deep into the brown. And worst of all, this won’t go away, because the differential in effect of an ele played by you vs the average player is here to stay and to be huge.
A class for the elite, a nightmare for all those who just wanted to have their mediocres fun, like their mediocres warriors etc. guild mates do.

same happened when i tried a guardian. While severly underequipped I could solo stuff that as an elementalist I used to have to wait for a passerby for help.

First, let me preface what I’m about to say:

I’ve been playing PVP online since 95-96 in the early days of Quake 1 (320×240 software rendered on a 14:4 dial up modem). Quake 1,2,3 Unreal Tournament, TF, TF2, WoW, etc. I’ve got 18 or so years of PVP experience to draw on when I’m figuring out how to deal with other players, the classes in use, the map, terrain, etc, etc. I may not have the fastest reflexes anymore (I’m over 40) and a lot of kids (anyone under the age of 25) can out “twitch” me a lot of times…so I use my experience and I WILL eventually outsmart you no matter what class or build I happen to be playing. Sometimes that takes a while

My initial several week dive into sPVP was on Elementalist. It took a while to learn how to play it well and was/is an incredible amount of work to play well on. I enjoy the challenge of it, as it’s leagues more difficult to do well on than any other class I’ve tried. Learning to stay alive on the class was as much of a challenge as how to kill someone with it. It was fun. Other classes where much, much easier to master, but there was one class I hadn’t tried out yet…..the mesmer.

I tried Mesmer for the 1st time last week in sPvP. I used staff and sword/pistol, as I’d read that was a good combination to use. I specifically didn’t read up on any play styles or combos. I went into 10 or so matches and was just laughing at how simple it was to destroy people with it. Yes, it was hotjoin matches and no, I didn’t expect the competition to be great, but that didn’t make it any less hilarious to me at the ease of which I dominated. I was just button mashing what ever was off cool down. After a few games, I’d learned when to use what ability and it became even easier. Then I put MOA on my skill bar and it became even easier. There was a stretch of 4 games where I didn’t die a single time and lead the leader boards. It was silly and fun….but mostly silly ….how easy it was.

I now see no reason to play any other class in sPVP.

I see mesmer, I put a target on mesmer, mesmer dies

or

I see mesmer, I put a target on mesmer, mesmer stealths (removes target icon), I see mesmer unstealth (black smoke is dead giveaway), re-target mesmer, mesmer dies

easy tips vs. mesmers: if it glows its a phantom, it it doesnt have an off hand or has full hp (after your have damaged mesmer) its a clone. if it dodge rolls its the player. not hard to always pick out the real one and then put a hard target over them for everyone.

I play 3 classes at level 80 and as others have mentioned the difference is: obtaining comparable results on my Elementalist requires ten times the effort.

Arena Net should probably make Elementalists easier to play, not more powerfull as power is not the problem, defense is.

Elementalists have the lowest base health and armor rating in the game, while playing this profession, in order to survive, I have to be costantly aware of my surroundings : i have to dodge at the right time; i have to switch to Earth Attunement if I can’t avoid damage to get protection up; use los on ranged mobs/players to buy time; summon the right elemental because if I need to shut down a target quickly Earth’s will be useless; kite a lot; I have to know when i can use Churning Earth because enemies burned their cc and the list goes on…

Long story short, Elementalists are so difficult to play because they can’t just sit there and let their armor mitigate damage and they have to heal/regen damage taken more often because of a smaller health pool.

It’s a proactive profession opposed to other, easier, reactive professions.

Some times i like it, some times i prefer to play my Guardian or my Mesmer and relax, but i rarely feel underpowered on my Elementalist

Also Mesmers realy have no problem tagging mobs during events, the only difference is that a large portion of their aoe damage comes from phantasm, they have to learn when and where it’s the right time and place to summon and shatter illusions.