Since the original topic was deleted for mentioning a dev and having ArenaNet in the title, I want to repost it.
I kept names out of it, though I didn’t find any disrespectful sentences regarding any person in the earlier post.
Lately I keep remembering this sentence “Hey, I swung a sword again. We don’t want that.”
Playing the elementalist is no different than that.
But instead of swinging a sword, I’m forced to press the same buttons in exactly the same order again and again.
I’m doing the monotonic, boring stuff again and again.
Sure, you need to press buttons to tell the game what actions you want to perform, but repeating the same combos again and again is not really that different to pressing one button.
Other classes have chains, so the software keeps changing the skills for them.
And: If I get interrupted, I can do the same stuff again, just to keep up my stacks of might, the protection or the swiftness I need to be effective.
Yes, I said effective.
The elementalist can be effective, given the right gear, but in that it’s massively restrictive.
You can do lot’s of damage, you can be pretty resilent, but to be honest: The way it is it simply sucks. Yeah, I said it. It simply sucks. Putting all factors together, that’s the most simple conclusion for me.
The elementalist is the most unflexible profession I experienced in the whole game.
While other professions change their roles by changing their weapon-set, the Elementalists mainhand-weapons merely define the range of your attacks. The two off-hand weapons define wether you are more mobile or defensive.
The attunements mostly change your role and you got four of them. Isn’t that great?
No. It isn’t.
Because the Elementalist is meant to switch attunements in order to be most effective.
Can the elementalist be versatile? No. Each weapon defines the combos you have to use in order to be effective.
You can’t stay inside an attunement for long, otherwise you lose your combos, pretty much the only thing you can make damage with…or generate might and other buffs.
And why should I buff might with fields and blasts, when healing is needed instead?
You can’t switch your weapons in a fight, so you have to keep the intended range of your weapon…and since every class got nice debuffs, everyone who is even half of a decent player can keep you in his range or himself out of your’s.
As it is now, the elementalist is like a cheap “swiss army knife”-knockoff. With a dull knife, a weak pincer and a saw that needs an our for a twig.
And if you didn’t put a lot of trait-points into arcane, you’re pretty much screwed. Because you need 15 seconds to get back into the first attunement if you didn’t invest into arcane, to start one of this combos.
There are viable builds out there, I know. But more than any other profession the elementalist forces you into a certain build.
And don’t forget: You probably need to put trait-points into all five trait-lines, so your combos will be effective enough.
I leveled a guardian up to 80. I pull an engineer up.
Both professions can shine in their roles and I have a lot of freedom in the way I play them, without losing effectivity.
I can transform the role of my engineer faster with kits, than the elementalist ever could. The difference is: The engineer seems to lose less effectivity if it stays in its kit.
I’m certain that people will pop up here and will write things like “If you can’t manage your skills fast enough…!” or “This combo of seven buttons finishes each enemy in two seconds!”
Yes yes…rest assured, I’ve considered that.
If I would put all your fancy skill-combos in a macro on my mouse, it would still be just one button. If you do the same thing for the same effect over and over again, it doesn’t matter if it is placed on one button or if it is a combination of multiple buttons.
Combos are nice and all, but if you use them repeatedly to be effective, it’s not more interesting than pushing the same button again and again.
Combos should be a great way of interacting with other players, not something you need to do while sacrificing versability.
Should a dev/moderator read this:
I think GuildWars 2 is a wonderful masterpieve of art and game.
However, even in respect of all the great work done: Your politics on the elementalist is the opposite.
It’s an example of what can go wrong when trying to remove the trinity and keeping balance with four attunements on the same trait-based specialization as other professions.
You keep nerfing the elementalist, instead of looking on the heavy-armor-professions which are so easy, they are just dull to play.
I don’t want you to turn the elementalist into an allmighty master of all elements, I just want it to be a fun class.
A class that can befit any role, just like the others.