Guild Wars 2

we’ve “heard” many times on the forums that Elementalists are harder to play than other classes. that other classes are easy-mode. that elementalists need a higher degree of skill in order to accomplish the same tasks. i will attempt to explain some of the “why” here, now that i’ve played a few other classes up to cap (or near cap).

edit: and by “higher degree of skill,” we obviously mean: player has to press more buttons in order to accomplish the same tasks as another class.

So we’re on the same page: please read DreamyAbaddon’s excellent guide on combat where he discusses the three combat roles: damage / control / support, found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide/first

i will reference the four classes i’ve played to higher levels (ele:80, ranger:80, necro:80, guardian:70) feel free to add examples from the other 4 classes

A: it’s harder to self-combo (i.e. other classes don’t have to swap weapons / attunement to start and complete a combo)

~1) other classes have combo field utility skills, allowing weapon skills to be the finishers

~~a) ranger traps / heal
~~b) guardian heal / consecrations
~~c) necromancer wells
~~d) elementalist has one blast finisher utility, no fields.

~2) other classes have fields and finishers on the same weapon set (for purposes of this discussion, attunement swap is the same as a weapon set: you have to switch from one to another to access the skills, creating an extra step)

~~a) guardian greatsword has light field, two whirls and a leap
~~b) ranger axe / torch set has fire field and projectile finishers (although this probably rarely used weapon set)
~~c) necro staff, projectile finisher and poison field
~~d) admittedly elementalist has ONE, scepter / focus: create a fire field with flamewall, and finish with the blast of pheonix. however, this is a more difficult combo to time and use effectively, since blast finisher in fire field grants AoE might, it must be timed so that the enemy is in the field at the same location of allies, and must be at the point where the pheonix turns around to go back to the elementalist

~3) most elementalist fields and finishers are ground-targetted, while other classes are simply targetted to the current selected target or targetted to self.

~~a) further, if another class (say necro) traits for fields (say wells) to be ground targeted, there are still finishers available that are not ground targetted (staff 1 skill)
~~b) ranger traps can be traited for ground targetting, but projectile and leap finishers only require a single selected target, and auto-targetting means no extra step to aquire the target.

in summary: elementalist have to push more buttons to make it’s own combos.

B: it’s harder to control

~1) other classes’ control is based on mobility (moving your character to the enemy) while elementalist control is designed around denial (keeping the enemy away from you)

~~a) for example, many classes have leap skills, to leap to the target, or teleport skills, to get to the target.
~~b) elementalist control is based around keeping the target away from you, or getting away from the target, like gust, unsteady ground, static field, applying chill, burning retreat

~2) a lot of elementalist control is ground targeted, while other classes’ control / mobility is targetted to an enemy

~~a) it’s harder to cast ground-targetted skills at range, especially for mouse-clickers (someone who selects skills by clicking on them with the mouse, instead of by pressing the 1-0 keys)

~~b) there is no ranged fast cast option to “cast on current selected target,” only to cast on self, or to cast on the mouse cursor. if the mouse cursor is on pointed on the skill to be cast, there’s no place to cast the skill, and therefore the skill doesn’t cast.

in summary: elementalist have to push more buttons to control the enemy.

C: other classes have group support utilities, enough to fill up all three utility slots

~1) guardians: consecrations, shouts,
~2) necro: wells
~3) ranger: spirits
~4) elementalist has no group support utilities
~~a) someone might say that conjures are support, since they offer teammates buffed stats while wielding the conjured weapons. but seriously, that supports one teammate at a time compared to 5 at a time that other classes offer with their utilities.

in summary, elementalists cannot build their utility skills around supporting the group, meaning all their support skills are buried within the attunements, which require more button presses to find the right attunement for the appropriate support skill.

This basically is for staff?

And it’s pretty apparent why eles can be harder to play. They have the highest action per minute of any class. More actions doesn’t always equate to better, but if you use those actions right, you can surpass other classes with fewer actions per minute.

Generally speaking elementalists have the fastest paced combat in the game (including engis which are equally as hard to play).

To play an ele and be effective you need to know the 25 skills you have in and out. How they can combo, basic rotations, when to play offensively/defensively etc. Apart from having a massive amount of skills to use, we also have the lowest health pool and most of our useful utility skills have long cd’s.

Without a doubt elementalist is harder to play than a standard greatsword warrior or stealth spamming thief and it is a tricky class to master.

Forgotten Legend is correct!

Elementalist is definitely harder to play. I have helped new players learn how to manage their weapon/utilities/Attunment skills in a fight, but it wasn’t easy to teach since it does take lots of buttons to press.

However, I personally enjoy the Elementalist playstyle.
I can use all weapons and utilities and make them work together just fine.
But let me tell you, it takes lots of practice to reach that level of confidence.

Here is a 30 second video of my Elementalist:

(Note that I’m constantly swapping attunments based on what I need!)

Also, here is a link to my Combat 101 (Guide) Reference:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide

My Guide is now a Sticky under (Players-Helping-Players Sub-forum)

thanks Dreamy! both for the links and for the 1-on-1 training. without it i’d still be saying things like: “elementalist is way too weak compared to other classes” or “elementalist just can’t survive” and other erroneous hyperbole.

and i’m also updating original post to include the link!

You have an additional layer of cooldowns to manage, and much of your strength comes from combos.

Add to that the low HP/ Armor, and you have a class with more button pushing, more opportunities for error and less room to recover from mistakes.

You have twice the # of weapon skills with higher cd’s so you’ll have to better judge when they’re off cd when you switch back to the attunement. On top of that you have 4 attunements, or “weapon sets” each with cd’s just like with weapon swapping.

Then you’ll need to chain off different skills in different attunements for max affect, keeping cd’s in mind (you shouldn’t be spamming all 5 skills in each attunement every time). Sure, there are rotations for burst damage and stuff, but what you do inbetween those is what is difficult.

On top of all this, you have one of the lowest hp/armor classes with the only class mechanic that LIMITS you.

Yeah, twice the skills, longer cooldowns, slower attunement swapping cooldown with twice the number to choose from, smallest health pool, lowest armor, slow auto attacks, and yes needing to press more things to achieve the same result as other classes.

That pretty much covers it.

Being an Ele player makes me want to brag and become elitist, to be honest. Eletism at its finest.

The double layer thing is probably the biggest one. You have cooldowns on top of cooldowns in the form of attunement recharges.

Besides that, it’s probably extra hard to play because it is a bit underpowered at the moment. If it had some minor buffs it wouldn’t be that much harder to play than other classes

Almost everything eles do is a skillshot. Also, most of our auto attacks are so kittenty that they aren’t worth using at all. There’s also less room for error since we lack the cheese that some of the other classes enjoy such as healing signet with multiple invulns or chain stealth for mesmer and thief. Then there’s the fact that if you want to do real damage you end up very squishy. Staying alive on a glass d/d remains one of the hardest things I’ve experienced in this game yet the reward, at least the objective reward, is no better than the easy classes and often worse.

You need to have good timing on rotations as well and you will also need to dodge consistently like a rabbit on steroids. All this while playing with combo fields.

You want an easy mode kill everything toon go play an engie or warrior, otherwise skip the DnD ele.