Guild Wars 2

I know there are a lot of people out there that think it is unfair that an elementalist must work harder than most other classes to be effective. For example, it is true that you can make a thief in sPvP, use a cookie cutter build, and in a a matter of hours, probably be doing pretty well.

Elementalist on the other hand, takes a lot more time to learn, because of all the skills we have to memorize, cooldown management, etc. And even when you get that down, you need to have fairly fast reflexes and APM to do all the quick and intelligent attunement swapping that higher tier Ele play requires.

So you may look at those statements, and think that’s unfair because the thief can be effective with much less work.

I, on the other hand, think it is more than fair, and here’s why…

Elementalist has one thing in spades that other classes (except maybe Engineer) just can’t live up to: versatility. With my D/D elementalist, I feel like I have a tool for almost any situation. I have multiple gap closers, knockdowns, cripples, chills, auras, AoE DPS, escape skills, (1) immobilize, heals, condition purges, boons, and conditions. And this is ALL on my weapons.

A good thief player may be able to do a crap ton of damage in a short amount of time, but they are essentially limited to that. They do damage, they try to stealth to avoid damage, that’s their job.

A good elementalist on the other hand, may have to work harder, but they have SO MANY different options in a fight. Anything the enemy throws at me, I feel like I have something to counter it. It’s just a matter of my counter being available, and having the presence of mind to use it. And even if I’m trying to escape and the enemy foils one escape skill (RTL), I still have more escape skills ready to save me (auras, chills, burning speed, etc.).

I don’t think there is any class that has the combat versatility of an elementalist…even engineer tends to gravitate towards specializing in one or two kits.

So in conclusion, it may take a long time to learn and play well, but there IS a payoff.

I agree the class has a learning curve that can put people off. I really do enjoy my elementalist. After readying about complaints some of it is a lack of hours played by the class, which shouldn’t make me look like an elitist. There’s alot of skills that take time to feel out—so naturally it’ll take longer to master. So far I agree.

My issue, as many see it, there are only a couple of truly successful builds. The word successful is pretty ambiguous, yes. You’ve stated the main reasons why ele is good and rough sometimes.

Why are there some classes you can literally just drop points in any trait/tree with many different options for gear and be successful, but we ele’s (for the most part) can’t?

I don’t want this to be another gripe. I love my ele and he’s a blast to play—I won’t be quitting him. I’m just curious as to why we can have the flexibility with skills, but not the traits/gear?

The funny thing is that I don’t really know how many builds with Ele are viable. I found a D/D build that works, and I’ve been reticent to try anything else lol.

I know that there ARE some issues though, for example conjures seem to be pretty bad, and RTL bugs out A LOT.

Despite those issues, Ele can still be a great class. But I feel like if the weaker skills get some love, then it may open up a lot more build options for Ele…which would be a great thing. I would love to be able to incorporate some of the conjures into a working build.

I personally think even though elementalist has a lot of versatility in their skills, they lack versatility in their builds. Every single build right now gets pigeon hole’d into water/earth bunker traits. When it comes to damage dealing we are a lot more glass and a lot less cannon compared to many of the other classes. I personally love the elementalist, but the side of me that is used to play cloth characters with big nukes doesn’t find a home with this class.

NdranC.5107:

I personally think even though elementalist has a lot of versatility in their skills, they lack versatility in their builds. Every single build right now gets pigeon hole’d into water/earth bunker traits. When it comes to damage dealing we are a lot more glass and a lot less cannon compared to many of the other classes. I personally love the elementalist, but the side of me that is used to play cloth characters with big nukes doesn’t find a home with this class.

I don’t want to start comparing any class here to a generic term. Anet has worked hard to break the stereotypes. It’s just unfortunate that they are just creating new ones, instead of letting classes be fluid.

Elementalists having bad fire/ air traits and good water/ arcane traits has nothing to do with anet breaking stereotypes. The means to create power elementalists were designed and programmed by anet, but they need another balancing pass to be viable.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Elementalists having bad fire/ air traits and good water/ arcane traits has nothing to do with anet breaking stereotypes. The means to create power elementalists were designed and programmed by anet, but they need another balancing pass to be viable.

I was speaking generically with what ANET has been trying to do with breaking the “trinity”. I’m thinking more on a holistic game design sense.

I find all the trait lines to be pretty good, in general. The trick is finding good synergy between trait choices.

The +Damage While Attuned to XYZ traits are pretty weak, but otherwise all trait lines seem decent to me.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Options aren’t worth anything if all of them suck.

I dunno, if you honestly believe that…then I would play another class. I find that all the attunements in D/D have very good abilities.

If you’re committed to Ele though, then I would recommend trying a good cookie cutter build like DaPhoenix’s build which is in the tanky DPS elementalist thread here, and rolling with that.

Its not that they’re harder to play, but that in a thousand years an elementalist will never get a kill by slamming his head on the keyboard, and a thief will be a Mistwalker.

GankSinatra.2653:

Its not that they’re harder to play, but that in a thousand years an elementalist will never get a kill by slamming his head on the keyboard, and a thief will be a Mistwalker.

But…didn’t you basically just say they are harder to play in that paragraph.

I mean…I enjoy Ele because it is challenging, and fun to play. And like I said in my OP, I think there is an advantage to getting good with Ele, and that is having a versatility that other classes just don’t have.

I think it’s good that different classes have different learning curves…it means that players of different skill levels can all play the game and be effective.

And really in the end, once you get good with Ele, this is a non-issue for you. You are already good, it doesn’t matter anymore. If you find yourself unable to get good with Ele…then by all means try another class. Ele is meant to be tough to play.

The thing that makes me play my Ele is the fact there is more skill/work involved to make it good, I don’t find it fun to have everything handed to me. For me the main element that makes Elementalist fun for me to play is the challenge it provides. (No pun intended) :P

PinCushion.7390:

I find all the trait lines to be pretty good, in general. The trick is finding good synergy between trait choices.

The +Damage While Attuned to XYZ traits are pretty weak, but otherwise all trait lines seem decent to me.

But fire/ air are generally all about “+ damage when x condition is met” traits. What makes them good traitlines exactly?

A power elementalist dies as quick if not quicker than a thief, and takes about twice the time to set up their burst, which also happens to be easier to avoid. A thief can burst in 3-5 seconds, and then retreat to survive. An elementalist will have to interrupt their own burst sequence to survive, and without water/ earth/ arcane defensive support, it’ll still die way too fast nonetheless.

Fire/ air need defensive traits that support/ complement bursts, unlike water which offers defensive traits around passive regeneration or the usage of defensive utility.

Currently, the best way to play an elementalist with fire/ air is to strike foes who are busy fighting your team mates, but we don’t have stealth to give us a good opportunity to choose our targets.

Good thoughts.

We do get some good abilities. But we have a lot of restrictions when it comes to using them as well. Since we have ability cool downs and attunement cool downs. So just because we have them doesn’t mean we have them when we need them. Especially in PvP, simple is simply better.

Bad Builds and Weapon Swapping

Unfortunately for us, it is just far easier to create a bad build than it is for other professions. And the fact that we can’t swap weapons while in combat, can force us to get stuck using abilities, which aren’t what we actually need for the situation. Eg Sometimes a D/D Ele needs to swap to a staff because range is sometimes a majour factor in a fight.

Which means we have to build our builds around our weapon choice. While other classes can build effective builds and swap weapons in or out according to taste. We can’t do that, at least not as easily and not without making some majour sacrifices. Because the traits I go for with D/D are different to the ones that I would play with using Staff.

Who said Ele’s are meant to be hard to play?

I disagree with this idea that elementalists are meant to be hard to play. Where did it ever say that? They aren’t a “hero” class. They aren’t something special to be unlocked by players who have the skill and time to unlock them. They are a standard core class. Any player with any skill level should be able to enjoy them. With the option for more skilled players being able to take the class to another level. This is the goal that Anet set for themselves. Attunement swapping is meant to be a different play style choice. Not a handicap function to make it harder for the elementalist player.

Conclusion

Ultimately I disagree with you. There isn’t a pay off for the all the extra things we manage. A thief can nuke 70%-100% of my life in an opening combo, when done properly. We don’t have the option to return the favour, even if I make a glass-canon style build. At very least we have to go through a lot more button clicks to achieve the same result.

I have Many 80s (Eng/Necro/Mes/Ele/Guard) and I find myself usually going back to the Elementalist these days. I could make a giant list as to why but the fact is I just prefer the class over my others for most things (not all things).

That said you’re kidding yourself if you think options makes up for raw power. I mean there’s no way I could say with a straight face my Elementalist is “better” than my Mesmer. The two are on entirely different levels.

If you take your example of the thief, that thief is going to be able to just brute force their way through many areas that we need to use various tools to overcome. For the rest of the scenarios they have a vastly superior array of escape tools and active defenses to put us to shame. That said there are few classes with the damage output and defenses of a Thief. Using them for a comparison is like taking the extreme example. You really don’t hear of many classes dealing 10k+ hits outside of Warriors.

When you really begin to look at character comparisons (which I am in the position to do with the number of high end, geared characters I have) you can see the biggest gap the Elementalist has is simply massive defensive cool downs on our Utility. As I said in another post look at Armor of Earth vs Stand your Ground or Lightning Flash vs Blink. This is most likely a direct impact of having so many options in our spec trees that we’re instead left with mediocre utility (due to low durations and long cool downs).

With the way the character is designed (four attunements) it ultimately ends up detracting from our character. Instead of having two well crafted options (like most weapon sets are for most classes) with good utility slots we’re instead stuck with four options usually with each set having one good option, a few okay options and a few poor options all with long cool down utility slots. What they should have done is kept in the weapon swapping but limit people to 2 active attunements (swap in combat) and 2 deactivated attunements (swap out of combat) and balanced it from there. It comes back to that “jack of all trades, master of none” thing which rarely does well when stacked up against the “master of one.” In other terms, look how great you are with the Ele…imagine how much better you’d be with a Thief.

Unfortunately we likely won’t see something done about it for a year or two to address the core of the issues of the Ele design if GW1 is any indication. Just one of those things people are going to have to learn to accept and move on about if they want to play the Ele.

Hey guys, I just hit 80 on my elementalist and right now I’m looking for some advice on high-level PVE. Specifically areas like Orr/Fireheart/Frostgorge where mobs are so dense and respawn so frequently that it’s really becoming frustrating.

Now I have seen and tried out several builds here that players have indeed shown to be of great use, but problem is I just can’t find the same success….

D/D attunement swapping/CC – Well you could blind 2 enemies and maybe knockdown a 3rd, but that’s still not enough if you’re getting mobbed by +5 ranged enemies (and IMPS URGHHHH devs need to nerf those SOBs)

Earth/water bunker – Survivability did improve, but now I’m doing way less damage and the mobs just kept respawning.

Burst/crit/power – Yea we all know what happens there.

Conditions – Just a matter of who can wear down who 1st, except that one side has >3.

I’m running a 20/15/0/20/15 S/D build with cleric armor and so far I can survive up to maybe 4/5 enemies before more join in and I eventually get worn down. What do you guys do when all your healing/CC skills are on CD?

TL;DR: I’m just saying that its getting increasingly hard and frustrating to solo PVE (especially events with dense mobs) in 60+ areas, with the main hurdle being the no of enemies that just keep coming at you. Most players I’ve met who enjoyed ele usually PVE in groups, which definitely makes things easier. So I’m really looking forward to some advice from players which a more refined strategy/playstyle.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks =)

Sora.5039:

……..

Hi ._.// casual player here…..

I play PvE DD also, and it happened often to go to Orr where i can farm events almost alone (obviously not champions)….

I wouldn t tell you L2P because i just think you maybe have the wrong equipment….
Being half exotic with some thoughness makes you really hard to kill with DD.

And DD is way easier than staff.
Just remember armor of earth and an aoe stun when you wants to use churning earth…..
Then you have aoe chill, another stun, aoe cripple, lot of aoe damage and lot of skills to evade….

Cone of cold is huge also…..

And if you are losing the battle, just summon an earth or ice elemental and let them tank for you.

really if you have problems its probably due to lack of equip…i know people says its not important but actually a knight set for example, reeally changes the way you play letting you tank 7-8 opponents.

I struggled against 2 opponents with staff being unable to kill them while i finished my control skills, but with DD is all quite easy.

@Kodiak: “In other terms, look how great you are with the Ele…imagine how much better you’d be with a Thief.”

^ That right there is why I don’t play a Thief or any number of other faceroll to win classes. It simply would not be fair to any opponent. 90% of the fights would be me pausing for few seconds to whip out my junk and smash it wildly on the keyboard. Taking the time and playing them with even half the finesse that I play my Elementalist with would result in said opponents probably uninstalling out of frustration because it’d be like a cat playing with a mouse that was cornered, mere toying.

Sora.5039:

Hey guys, I just hit 80 on my elementalist and right now I’m looking for some advice on high-level PVE. Specifically areas like Orr/Fireheart/Frostgorge where mobs are so dense and respawn so frequently that it’s really becoming frustrating.

I actually like the Staff Cantrip build (modified for general PvE without having to respec). I like to swap in Conjure Lightning Hammer and usually the attack speed on the auto attack generally is greater than that of the mobs so I can keep them permanently blinded which keeps me safe. However it does not work at all against the dredge Add in the powerful benefits from the Cantrips (3 stacks of might + vigor + regen per use) and Soothing Mist and it’s pretty darned defensive even in Magic Find gear.

I will say that it gets VERY annoying when someone else comes and picks up your conjured weapons.

Papaj.9035:

@Kodiak: “In other terms, look how great you are with the Ele…imagine how much better you’d be with a Thief.”

^ That right there is why I don’t play a Thief or any number of other faceroll to win classes. It simply would not be fair to any opponent. 90% of the fights would be me pausing for few seconds to whip out my junk and smash it wildly on the keyboard. Taking the time and playing them with even half the finesse that I play my Elementalist with would result in said opponents probably uninstalling out of frustration because it’d be like a cat playing with a mouse that was cornered, mere toying.

You’ll notice Thief and Warrior aren’t in my 80’s line up either

Sora.5039:

…

I’m running D/D build by daphoenix, my gear is close to his current one and I’m doing pretty well. Yes, the gear is defensive, but I’m able to get a lot of punch using combos to get might stacks (incl. evasive arcana), sigils and auras. My survivability is very good.

When running with zerg I’ll switch to my MF gear.

They are more work to play but the payoff is great.

Everything but bunker guardians, mesmers and thieves is lower on the food chain in 1-1 while mesmers I would just consider only slightly better and bunkers are just a stalemate. I usually still lose to thieves 1-1 but I always have fun in the process, and I almost always hurt them bad, someday I’m sure I will be winning those fights regularly.

Like has been said above there is something for every occasion and if I lose its usually because I didnt think of using a particular tactic in the heat of it.

Love my Elementalist. There are problems, the class isn’t “fine” with all the bugs, that’s for sure. But we ARE powerful. It requires pretty high APM, and more specific builds due to broken, and lackluster traits, but the power is there. I get compliments daily on my build. I 1v1 any Thief and come out on top. Mesmers are more iffy, and bunkers are a stalemate. Then there’s the boatload of AoE buffs and condition removal you bring to team fights. Nothing like seeing kill spam from you when you AoE the crowd on a point.

Versatility is indeed a great asset, but it takes creativity to fully make use of it. Meaning you need to make decisions quickly and then be able to carry them out the way you anticipated. Wheter you need snaring, defense or healing, there’s always some utility available to the player who knows which attunement to look at.

That being said, I do agree that mass-attunement swapping has the overhand now. Evasive Arcana seems like the only way to make a viable staff build for example, and that shouldn’t be neccesary.

Elementalists are bad made despite all their abilities! No other class has to change weapons or atunment to achieve results in pve or pvp. They die way to fast no matter if your standing put or running around mobs will get you and kill you real fast.
It makes it even harder in dungeons because usually you don’t get much space to run around in those so kitting is quite useless! In Gw 1 elementalists where much better made
and they should keep them that way!

Kodiak.3281:

I have Many 80s (Eng/Necro/Mes/Ele/Guard) and I find myself usually going back to the Elementalist these days. I could make a giant list as to why but the fact is I just prefer the class over my others for most things (not all things).

That said you’re kidding yourself if you think options makes up for raw power. I mean there’s no way I could say with a straight face my Elementalist is “better” than my Mesmer. The two are on entirely different levels.

If you take your example of the thief, that thief is going to be able to just brute force their way through many areas that we need to use various tools to overcome. For the rest of the scenarios they have a vastly superior array of escape tools and active defenses to put us to shame. That said there are few classes with the damage output and defenses of a Thief. Using them for a comparison is like taking the extreme example. You really don’t hear of many classes dealing 10k+ hits outside of Warriors.

When you really begin to look at character comparisons (which I am in the position to do with the number of high end, geared characters I have) you can see the biggest gap the Elementalist has is simply massive defensive cool downs on our Utility. As I said in another post look at Armor of Earth vs Stand your Ground or Lightning Flash vs Blink. This is most likely a direct impact of having so many options in our spec trees that we’re instead left with mediocre utility (due to low durations and long cool downs).

With the way the character is designed (four attunements) it ultimately ends up detracting from our character. Instead of having two well crafted options (like most weapon sets are for most classes) with good utility slots we’re instead stuck with four options usually with each set having one good option, a few okay options and a few poor options all with long cool down utility slots. What they should have done is kept in the weapon swapping but limit people to 2 active attunements (swap in combat) and 2 deactivated attunements (swap out of combat) and balanced it from there. It comes back to that “jack of all trades, master of none” thing which rarely does well when stacked up against the “master of one.” In other terms, look how great you are with the Ele…imagine how much better you’d be with a Thief.

Unfortunately we likely won’t see something done about it for a year or two to address the core of the issues of the Ele design if GW1 is any indication. Just one of those things people are going to have to learn to accept and move on about if they want to play the Ele.

Agreed 100%. Having lots of options means nothing when the other guy can just hit you in the chin and KO you with one punch.

Honestly elementalist needs a lot of its traits and attacks reworked. Many of the skills are good in theory but in execution are flawed. like the channeled directional abilities and the abilities with super long animations that you can literally dodge without dodging.

I’m tired of reading posts on how elementalist ought to be. It is what it is folks! Learn to deal with it and try to work with the mechanics of the class. I tired of reading a laundry list of what they need to change to fit YOUR play style. Guess what? It’s not going to happen. If thief is so awesome then go play a thief.

I just hate the mindset that if you are not doing well then something is wrong with the system. Perhaps you just can’t hack it with the APM required to play an elementalist effectively. It’s ok, ANET has other classes you can play that are more your speed.

what’s the point of having a good survability if you just can’t kill a kitten thing by yourself ?

Myst.9182:

Good thoughts.

We do get some good abilities. But we have a lot of restrictions when it comes to using them as well. Since we have ability cool downs and attunement cool downs. So just because we have them doesn’t mean we have them when we need them. Especially in PvP, simple is simply better.

Bad Builds and Weapon Swapping

Unfortunately for us, it is just far easier to create a bad build than it is for other professions. And the fact that we can’t swap weapons while in combat, can force us to get stuck using abilities, which aren’t what we actually need for the situation. Eg Sometimes a D/D Ele needs to swap to a staff because range is sometimes a majour factor in a fight.

Which means we have to build our builds around our weapon choice. While other classes can build effective builds and swap weapons in or out according to taste. We can’t do that, at least not as easily and not without making some majour sacrifices. Because the traits I go for with D/D are different to the ones that I would play with using Staff.

Who said Ele’s are meant to be hard to play?

I disagree with this idea that elementalists are meant to be hard to play. Where did it ever say that? They aren’t a “hero” class. They aren’t something special to be unlocked by players who have the skill and time to unlock them. They are a standard core class. Any player with any skill level should be able to enjoy them. With the option for more skilled players being able to take the class to another level. This is the goal that Anet set for themselves. Attunement swapping is meant to be a different play style choice. Not a handicap function to make it harder for the elementalist player.

Conclusion

Ultimately I disagree with you. There isn’t a pay off for the all the extra things we manage. A thief can nuke 70%-100% of my life in an opening combo, when done properly. We don’t have the option to return the favour, even if I make a glass-canon style build. At very least we have to go through a lot more button clicks to achieve the same result.

The fact an Elementalist has loads of Utility and heals makes up for some loss in burst DPS. A Theif might be able to kitten on you, but once he does he wasted everything and 10-1 he’s just another flavor player who runs away after all the C/D are blown.

If you take Cleansing Fire/Mist Form, you really don’t need to worry about Theif’s too much. The thing about flavor classes is, they are predictable. The people playing them are generally bad because they can’t do well on their main class, so they create FoTM toons. 1-trick wonder’s might get some lucky kills, but they are not dominating mini games. Just because those Theives might cherry pick a kill and dying might feel like it’s happening all the time, when you read the scores at the end of the game you see that the Theif you thought was killing everyone scored kitten for points and contibuted nothing to the game other than a few stolen kills.

As an Elementalist, I know my burst DPS is nowhere close to some FoTM classes like Warrior or Theif. On the other hand, I can use dodges and cantrips to outlast the crust attacks and then CC and deliver my own. Elementalist is all about outlasting the kitten attacks, and countering with sustained DPS with a little burst here and there.

Knowing how to counter kitteny FoTM classes and survive new patches and changes to your class is the mark of a good player.

After more then 30 ranks of pvp, many won wvw battles and a number of dungeons i can say this about my elementalist..

Yes i am worthless, i can never deal as much dmg as a thief, i can never tank as well as a guardian and i can never have as much distraction skills as a Mesmer….
But god, if Elementalist is the profession for you, you cant do all those things… While having a ton of fun and enjoying it every second.

I say Amen to the profession which i think needs some revamps, alot of bugfixes and balancing at some areas… But also the profession which if someone gave me the chance to exchange my character for any other profession, i would gladly tell him to get the kitten out of my sight

bodhy.9107:

Elementalists are bad made despite all their abilities! No other class has to change weapons or atunment to achieve results in pve or pvp.

That’s not the reason they’re bad actually. That’s the reason why they’re still playable. If they’d only have, say, the fire skills and nothing else changes…then they’d be bad.