Guild Wars 2

First problem.
We’re way too squishy for how immobile we are.
At max level, every class has the same amont of base vitality, toughness, precision and power.
But they don’t all have the same amount of base health for some reason.
There are three amounts of base health: 10k, 15k, and 18k.
Guardians, Thieves and Elementalists have 10k. Rangers, Mesmers and Engineers have 15k. And Necros and Warriors have 18k.

Which class has the worst situations? If you say anything but Ele, you are delusional.
Eles have the weakest armor. And unlike Guardians, who have heavy armor and a ton of defensive options, and unlike Thieves, who have medium armor, stealth, traps, and other evasive abilities, Eles have pretty much no defensive capabilities in comparison.

But they have their range, right? Yeah, and so do Mesmers, Engineers, Ranger sand Necros. Even the other three classes have some sort of ranged weapons.
On top of that, Mesmers have clones and blinks, Engineers have turrets, Rangers are mobile as hell and have permanent pets, and Necros have tons of summons, a life shield and lifesteal.

Pretty unjustified.

Second problem.
Attunements take too long to cool down after swapping out of it.
I think ANets mindset was that since we have so many Attunements instead of just two weapon sets to swap between, a higher cool down to swap is justified. But it doesn’t work that way in practice.

Let’s face it. Fire does the most damage of any attunement on any weapon combination.
It’s not a case of build or anything either. Fire will ALWAYS do the most damage.
The other ones are essentially used for utility. Of course, they have one or two token damage abilities (like Staff Earth, Water and Air 2), but they will never even come close to the damage capabilities of fire.
In most cases, you want to be in fire attunement at least 70% of the time.

Here is the problem. Elementalists are hesitant to switch out of fire becasuse it takes so long to switch back. And it’s for good reason.
If we switch to another element for utility, we can’t seriously punch back for 15 seconds.
What is the point of holding a guy still if we can’t follow up with anything anytime soon?

And yes, I know that I have Arcana. But in order to lower the cool down by 5 seconds tops, I have to sacrifice a lot of damage and tankiness.

Solutions to these problems.
First, do away with the tiered HP thing. Why the hell do we have eight classes but three HP tiers?
Second of all, if we keep the tiered system, either bump Eles up a tier or let us wear medium armor.
Eles have the lowest defense capabilities and the least evasive manuvers, yet we have the lowest tier armor and health.

Third, lower the attunement swap cool down to at least 12 seconds, if not 10.
If not that, buff the damage capabilities of the other three Attunements. Because currently, they are capable of barely even half the damage fire is.

Not that I disagree completely, but elementalists actually do have a lot of escape abilities-provided that you are using D/D, or at least a dagger offhand, or cantrip utilities. (or any combination of those 3) When built right, we can easily be tougher than mesmers or thieves, and I’m not talking spec all traits into earth and water, i mean use our active defense.

Attunement swap is fine really. There are A LOT of things you can be doing with other attunements. Considering that we basically got 20 slightly less powerful spells instead of 10 individually unique and competent skills like other professions, we often have to chain different spells from different attunements together. That is another issue of its own, but we don’t really need a lower cd.

Elementalists have problems, but it stems from the fact that some of our skills don’t work correctly or are straight up lackluster, plus aside from our arcane line, our traits have a lack of synergy when out of a specific element. The builds that perform the best right now are ones which rely less on specific elements but are instead useful at most times. The Auramancer is one of these.

What people need to realize is that the lower the elementalists cooldown on attunements the higher the skill cap of the class is and people that are new to the class will have to work harder. Everyone will have to work way harder to get damage equal to other professions.

Our defense is arguably some of the strongest in the game. We have 2 heals in water, our main heal, permenant regen, a teleport, 3 second invuln, 10s protection (Armor of Earth), and some of the best condition removal in the game. -_-’’

I agree with selix. So far, we are able to spec for various situations. I play support/ ‘tank’ & heal, usually in a dungeon. I’m happy with my versatality. Oh, and I usually run with s/d.

Stay in fire 70% of the time? Here is your problem. To make it simple you are a damage kitten. PvP is not about getting the most dmg out via messuring fire vs lightning etc. its not a simple PvE equation.

You can get plenty of dmg out by swapping between all attunments.

To put it short, your mentality is that of a glasscannon, how ever the damage isnt good enough in fire to actually specialize in glasscannon and in general glasscannon mentality might be fun and get you kills, but when you fight a skilled player you will lose.

Make use of all your utilities in each of your attunment. I suggest you use a lot of traits in Water as well, as this will greatly improve your survivability given that you manage attunment swapping correctly.

Dynamite.6584:

We’re way too squishy for how immobile we are.

Eles have pretty much no defensive capabilities in comparison.

I’m sorry, but what class have you been playing? Ele’s are the most mobile of any class, minus maybe Mesmer, and have defensive abilities up the wazoo. I can last for ages in a battle taking reduced/no damage. This is one of their strongest points. Set up a ton of AoE control and damage, watch an entire team suffer, if they focus you, escape and do it again 10 seconds later. If they don’t focus you, do it again instantly.

Too many people playing glass cannon, getting 2 shot and complaining about it. Play the class properly, then judge.