Guild Wars 2

I’m an altaholic. I have and ele, guardian, mesmer, and ranger as fresh 80s.

1) Ele is a mob (or player) tagging machine. Seriously, if you get someone else taking a hit or two and can just sit back and blast, you’ll spend as much time chasing loot bags as anything else.

2) Ele is really fast. You can run circles around players and mobs all day. Maybe this isn’t as big a deal for PvE but you’re feel really, really slow on most other classes (mesmer being just awful).

Veenix.5248:

Its not about having more skills its about the lack of its ability to adept on the fly to a situation. this isn’t a big deal in spvp/tpvp since everything is a close range battle or easy enough to close gaps.

But can dagger switch to a long range fight? can staff hold its own on a close range fight? etc etc. running away and trying to get out of combat to switch is not my idea of adepting.

Each weapon set has skills in their 4 attunements to deal with such situations. No offence but have you actually looked at the skills?

If you’re using staff and they’re in melee range you can use burning retreat, plus numerous other CC skills to stop them from getting to you. The dagger has 3 gap closers (one being an immobilise) and 2 knockdowns plus chill and stun effects. SO even if you’re DD against range you can still counter and like wise if you’re staff against melee. Elementalists are very versatile.

Curring.9752:

Veenix.5248:

Its not about having more skills its about the lack of its ability to adept on the fly to a situation. this isn’t a big deal in spvp/tpvp since everything is a close range battle or easy enough to close gaps.

But can dagger switch to a long range fight? can staff hold its own on a close range fight? etc etc. running away and trying to get out of combat to switch is not my idea of adepting.

Each weapon set has skills in their 4 attunements to deal with such situations. No offence but have you actually looked at the skills?

If you’re using staff and they’re in melee range you can use burning retreat, plus numerous other CC skills to stop them from getting to you. The dagger has 3 gap closers (one being an immobilise) and 2 knockdowns plus chill and stun effects. SO even if you’re DD against range you can still counter and like wise if you’re staff against melee. Elementalists are very versatile.

have you played the game from anything other then a 1v1 perspective?

Veenix.5248:

have you played the game from anything other then a 1v1 perspective?

Most of the ele’s skills are AoE, what does that have to do with anything? I usually take on 4 mobs at the very least whether D/D or Staff and I can usually kite around 2-3 people. Most of the Ele’s CC is AoE so what is your point?

Curring.9752:

Most of the ele’s skills are AoE, what does that have to do with anything? I usually take on 4 mobs at the very least whether D/D or Staff and I can usually kite around 2-3 people. Most of the Ele’s CC is AoE so what is your point?

Because you keep failing to understand what “versatility” means. You believe gap closers on daggers means it can fight range. You believe staffs ability to CC means its can fight in melee. No having alot of different skills designed for the same end goal (dagger melee/ scepter mid / staff ground target aoe) isn’t being versatile. Daggers are great for closing the gap on range. Thats being good at staying in melee. How does dagger fair in a scenario when melee is no longer an option, that isn’t being versatile.

You have an engineer, let me give you an example.
you run 3 kits and pistol/whatever. the kits are bomb/grenades/flamethrower
pistol weapon set offers 900 range/cc/debuffs/attack skills
bombs offer a wide range of melee range attack/cc/debuffs/attack
grenades offer a wide range of long range attack/cc/debuff that also function well in melee
flamethrower offers a wide range of close combat attack/debuffs

or any other class in the game
Range weapon set 1
Melee weapon set 2

That’s versatility, and that’s the one thing elementalists are lacking. what we have instead is alot of skills to make us good at that given range set by weapon. thus my comments.

Earth/ Water Ele here, I mostly play Dagger/Dagger so I assume most of these complaints are from people sticking to staves and scepter combos.

Granted, My Ele is more of a Battleground PVPer.

The mobility is nice. The damage, bugs, and downed skills are not. A glass cannon ele will hit significantly less and take a far greater amount of skill than a glass cannon thief or HB warrior. At least we can run a moderately acceptable bunker build, if you don’t consider engineers and guardians do it better….

I will say this; elementalists were built for world v world & PvE, just not sPvP. With a staff they have the range and AoE to deal massive damage to NPC monsters & WvW zergs that don’t try to dodge out of effect circles, whether that be attacking a keep or defending it. Furthermore, with d/d you get enough mobility to escape any and all sticky situations against any number of people. Third, you get conjured weapons. While not super useful, the ice bow does have uses in giving d/d eles range, the greatsword gives staff eles some extra damage, and the earth shield gives glass cannon builds some extra survivability. Furthermore, the earth shield can literally pull people off keep walls for your teammates to obliterate. Lastly, perhaps the most significant, you get TONS of immobilizes, knockdowns, and swiftness. Anything that tries to flee from you better be packing tons of stunbreakers, constant swiftness, and its own version of ride the lightning.

I’m working on a video showcasing some 8v8 and 5v5 as an Ele. Both D/D and bunker. On top of this I’m also taking screenshots of every compliment or build request I get, since I get up to 3 per day. Today a Thief of all people told me what I was doing was “bad kitten”. Maybe seeing some stuff in action will start changing some minds. I really think a lot of Ele UP comments come from build issues primarily. I like our active defense/offense style. You’re never sitting idle, and always have something to do. Dumbing this down would be a travesty. Not that anyone is suggesting that, but those complaining about the amount of effort we require need to step back and think not only about the bigger picture (perma boons, AoE condition removal/regen/protection/swiftness, lots of AoE damage, etc.) but also need to consider how that would be fixed – by dumbing the class down.

I make a significant impact in any game I’m in, assuming I’m playing well. Ele isn’t fine, it needs bug fixed above all else, then animation tweaks, and a fixed down state, and maybe, just maybe a slight increase to damage. But I’d hit the first three before considering the last.

idk staff to me seems to do good single target dmg also, between going back and forth from earth for bleeds then fire, speced into the traits that give you 5 % dmg with bleeds and burns up with carrion gear.

Only con with what i do is my survivability is prety limited when i get focused.

Iv heard some good things about D/D tho im gona try that next.

Please don’t Judge all elemental’s just because the ele in your group failed doesn’t mean the entire player base of eles are fail.

You know I have seen plenty of every class fail in dngs. You know why? because some people just don’t even understand how to move or dodge or what skills to use at the right time. It’s how you play not how fail your class is. So what, warrior can do the most aoe dmg burst*… but maybe not everyone wants to play the same class huh? it would be pretty boring if everyone was a warrior now wouldn’t it be?

My ele can’t do 40k crits not even close ever. But If theres 20 mobs in a dng run at least I can use 6 aoe’s and get them all down faster then anyone else can.

Some people think full crit dmg and max prec build is everything and then presume to aoe and pull all the mobs and instantly die is the answer.. Not really a smart strategy is it? And hold on why is ele pulling all mobs from the warrior and guardian in every party I thought they could do no damage right? I know because I made full glass canon and this is what happened to me, people thought i was useless and weak which was the truth until I changed my build slightly. I went from being dead every fight to alive.

I can heal others and slow mobs unlike what warrior can do. I can run faster then you to and I can have signet passives work even when they are activated, can you warrior? I have more healing ability to with full earth and full water traits but with full glass cannon gear. I don’t get 1 shot anymore because of this and I lost not much damage.

There is a fine line between playing ele right and playing ele wrong. You play it wrong and you make all of us look like fools. Why is that you say? because many people are judgemental and will just assume all eles are bad. Then people come on here saying whats up with this class and why is this happening. Why is my class so fail? Why is not the question but rather your lack of understanding of the class quite simply put. Sorry if that offends anyone, we all learn from our mistakes. I know i have.

It’s easy to blame a class when you have not compared other classes yourself. You probably are thinking I have not played warrior, This guy doesn’t know what he is talking about! Well it just so happens I have played warrior and I have played ranger as well. Warrior is the easier way out it feels less challenging To me. (my opinion really)
Furthermore it requires less thinking, you can button mash play and not get faced with death as much.

I’ve been in runs where warriors and guardians died while we skipped packs of mobs where I have the least health and defense yet I knew how to get past the mobs and survive. Then I get blamed because we should not skip mobs in dngs runs and people rage quit. I actually have personally kited 7 silver mobs myself in arah and killed them all, granted they did not range me only spitted poison fields everywhere but Just proved in my group that ele is no pushover when someone at the wheel is good at it.

Well I tried to put as much logic and reasonably response I could to what I’ve seen over my 700+ hrs playing this game so far.

Veenix

Because you keep failing to understand what “versatility” means.

To be honest, I don’t think you do either. It’s not the range number in the skill description that determines the versatility. Unlike other professions, the Elementalist’s weapons aren’t more or less effective at different ranges. This may seem like a contadiction because other classes DO have a difference between ranged and melee weapons.

Take Static Field for example. At longer ranges, it’s a great snare/interrupt ability. At shorter ranges, it’s great at helping you escape combat. The versatility of the skill lies in the fact that it can do various things depending on the player’s creativity.

As for the daggers, they may require shorter ranges to deal their damage, but Elementalists are also extremely mobile. How, where and when you get into melee is for the player to decide. And when they do, they got a lot of ways they can actually fight the fight, making it hard to predict and counter their attacks.

Range has more to do with fighting style than with weapon effectiveness. The staff isn’t any less potent in melee than it is at range. Just different.

Just curious. I know there are many bugs and about half our traits and trees being a bit undesirable, but to the people utterly convinced ele is non-viable, and so underpowered, what would it take to convince you otherwise?

I’m usually not the one who needs convincing, as I like to explore options and try new things all the time, nor do I need convincing that elementalists are a great class. However, in my experience from other games, people will complain as long as you’re just saying things, finding the most rediculous excuses and most impossible scenarios as for why it wouldn’t work. What usually does work is videos. PvE soloing of very hard bosses, pvp fights againts incredible odds, things where people believe the class is no good, but are then proven with their own eyes that it can be done.

So, wanna convince the nonbelievers? Find a thing that most complain about, then record doing it. That does the trick for most.

TWMagimay@ because my first character was ele and i liked it but when i swaped to another class well it does a lot better and no it is not the thief exploit
thats what i meant if u change to another class u’ll forget that the ele exist
theres is something unfinished about it

Ele is good support other than that…

ThiBash.5634:

To be honest, I don’t think you do either. It’s not the range number in the skill description that determines the versatility. Unlike other professions, the Elementalist’s weapons aren’t more or less effective at different ranges. This may seem like a contadiction because other classes DO have a difference between ranged and melee weapons.

Take Static Field for example. At longer ranges, it’s a great snare/interrupt ability. At shorter ranges, it’s great at helping you escape combat. The versatility of the skill lies in the fact that it can do various things depending on the player’s creativity.

As for the daggers, they may require shorter ranges to deal their damage, but Elementalists are also extremely mobile. How, where and when you get into melee is for the player to decide. And when they do, they got a lot of ways they can actually fight the fight, making it hard to predict and counter their attacks.

Range has more to do with fighting style than with weapon effectiveness. The staff isn’t any less potent in melee than it is at range. Just different.

You’ve missed my point. It isn’t a pure “range” dilemma. Am not voicing a concern for daggers to be a viable long range alternative to staff. More so, dagger to just not be void if it cant be on its target 100% of the time. There are plenty of situations within the game where your in melee and then suddenly melee isn’t an option anymore. No not cause they kited away, not cause my gap closing skills are on CD. But when a melee fight becomes a range fight due to Player numbers/Boss mechanics. Being locked in a weapon set in combat leaves little room to adept in that scenario.

idk what versatility means to you, but in a context of a game. it means to me the ability to fluidly adept to any situation not just excelling at 1 given task. (dagger/melee : staff/aoe : scepter/burst)

I use weapon swap and engineer kits as an example because they offer room for diverse and customization for playstyles that the player controls. Where as with elementalist the weapons ARE the playstyle.

Haette.2701:

Bugfixes and time, that’s all. I’m already convinced ele can do amazing things, I’m just curious how everyone stacks up in an environment where everything is working as written.

This.

Ele is hard to play, agreed.
But that is mainly why a lot of players like the class. If we get our bugfixes, we will be pretty much the force to be reckoned with. Not just the few players with naga mouses and really great awareness/fast fingers, but also the players who are still learning the class (like me) and like the challenge it offers. I´m also dying like the ppl who complain here, but with more time spend on my Ele, I die less often, because I´m discovering new ways and techniques how to deal with my enemies, that´s all. That is the “learning curve” that lot of ppl here are talking about. That´s the Elementalist. Get used to it guys :-)

When a tPvP needs a elementalist or is actively seeking one I’ll be convinced they are good.

Weapon X.5163:

Xriah.5743:

I’ve got over 200 hours, 98% of that on D/D, and I’m still discovering new combos. Yes, you can trigger Churning Earth and use Lightning Flash to get within range for big damage, but you can also trigger Churning Earth, hit Armor of Earth for stability regen and 3xMight, attune to water for regen, hit Frost Aura to slow anyone that hits you while giving you fury, then hit Lightning Flash to get you in range with another 3xMight to really hammer your opponent into a bad place. That’s 6 key presses in the span of channeling Churning Earth, but it hits like a monster truck and puts you in a great position.

And then, i’ll press #5 on my sheild warr and block it….or drop a well on you to strip your boons with my necro, or #5 short bow out with my thief, or thow down a sanctuary or a aegis with my guard, or RTL the kitten outta there with my Ele. Sorry, i dont play any other classes…

and it took all of 1 key press and no thought to block all your 45 sec c/d’s you just blew to try and get 8 stacks of bleeds and some cripple……..and i could just remove the cond. if i wanted to eat all that and then smash your face in.

I still get what you’re saying, but because you work twice as hard doesnt me you get paid twice as much.

First off, that combo is just an opening. You have to see it coming to block it. I will often set this up while someone’s distracted and teleport in at the last second. If you do manage to successfully block it. I’m still loaded with boons and have both fire and lightning open. It’s not like I’m gonna try to use Churning Earth mid fight. Frost aura will regen pretty quickly. Lightning flash is nice but it’ll come back in a long fight. The main cooldown that’s a loss is Armor of Earth, and since most people open with their hardest bursts, it’ll still come in handy. At this point, I’ve got a ton of regen, vigor, and might stacked. Nothing in fire or lightning is on cooldown, and you’re already on the defensive.

Also, neither of us are getting “paid”. You call it work if you want. I call it fun. If playing your class feels like work, you shouldn’t be playing it.

Wulfrim.4793:

When a tPvP needs a elementalist or is actively seeking one I’ll be convinced they are good.

I play tPvP on my ele and my team hates it that I don’t play much on the weekend. The problem is the limited number of ele’s that have become skilled. Most QQ and reroll and 100b spam war or whatever floats their boat.

I don’t think eles will be sought after unless the team knows exactly what the PLAYER is capable of

I think ele could use either a defensive buff or damage but definitely not both, on top of the various bug fixes plaguing all classes. I’m still a noob in spvp but ele and Mesmer make it fun. My Mesmer can go in and throw the gauntlet killing a majority of the opposing team, my ele can prevent death to team members set up fields and provide sufficient damage to help get the job done. They feel totally different in spvp and wvw. I’d like to think of myself as skilled, not the best by far but appropriately skilled. Dd ele is a blast to play IMO. I especially enjoy locking down thieves who are trying to flee.

dont get me wrong, I FAVOR classes that are hard to use hard to manage but have high upside.
im just currently seeing hard to use to get AVERAGE effects.

I play my gun warrior with 15% of my playing time, and get INSANE amounts of kills with him compared to my ele and I prety much only use 2 buttons and wait for quickness cooldown.

Prince.3682:

Just curious. I know there are many bugs and about half our traits and trees being a bit undesirable, but to the people utterly convinced ele is non-viable, and so underpowered, what would it take to convince you otherwise?

When it becomes closer to the Guildwars 1 Ele i’ll play it again, this version we have now is just bad..

Does something have to be utterly devoid of flaws for someone to find enjoyment in something, does someone have to write something off as perfect before they can admit they enjoy it?
Its not about what other classes have just as bad, its about what other classes do better.

Being imperfect =/= sucks eggs, you know. You can, ofc, enjoy smth that has flaws. I find it hard to believe you can enoy smth that has only flaws….

It really doesn’t much matter how good or bad anyone is at playing an Elementalist.

What matters is if they’d get better results playing anything else.

The answer to that seems to be, in most cases: yes.

From what I’ve been seeing, the Elementalist can be viable. But that viability comes at the cost of flexibility. If you want to have an effective Elementalist, your build options become very limited, and you have to play it in very precise ways.

For example, is it a coincidence that most everyone who claims Elementalists are good are using Dagger/Dagger and/or Staff? I don’t think it is. That pattern right there is an indication of a design flaw.

I enjoy my Elementalist, but I’m aware that the path to playability, in comparison to other classes, has been very narrow. That should be addressed, I think.

So… is the Elementalist good? I’d say, for now, it’s good enough. But I do think it needs to get better.

A month ago, we were shown a chart that revealed how often the various classes had been created up to that point. I’d like to see those statistics revisited. I’d be willing to bet that the Elementalist has since plummeted, while the Mesmer and Guardian have shot up.

That would be a telling data point.

Make their auto attacks on par on those off the thieves. I don’t care which specc that will be as auto attacking with ele is like tickling your opponent so low damage it does compared to other classes.

Oh you can also easily always outplay an ele, ele need to really do it’s skills very good to even get average results if you are against a noob. If you are evenly skilled you usually lose.

Just make a thief/guardian and stop playing this kitten class that’s just how bad it is to play elementalist sadly. As thief/guardian outperform ele’s in every aspect and ele’s are competitively a death weight class that adds sadly nothing.

Yes, most rational people aren’t saying Eles are so broken they’re unplayable. I do ok with my ele and I enjoy playing it. But I created some alts just so I can take them into the mists and try them out to learn their mechanics so I knew how to beat them (esp thieves, but mesmers and others as well)….and during that time, knowing next to nothing about the mechanics of those classes and their playstyle and optimization (not like knowing my ele having leveled it 150-200 times already)….I was more dominanti with almost every other class.

That means with same keyboard skills, same brain behind the player, less knowledge….and much faster better results. I mean, with thieves I needed 3 buttons one of them being quickness. I can’t believe how fast people go down….Im like her I just started, 3 seconds later you’re down?

Still play my ele becaues thats what I chose from the start and thats how my brain works, but right now its not up to snuff with other classes , regardless of the videos you see of people destroying others with eles, because those same people investing that much time and effort in other classes would do just as well and better with them imo.

Veenix.5248:

ThiBash.5634:

To be honest, I don’t think you do either. It’s not the range number in the skill description that determines the versatility. Unlike other professions, the Elementalist’s weapons aren’t more or less effective at different ranges. This may seem like a contadiction because other classes DO have a difference between ranged and melee weapons.

Take Static Field for example. At longer ranges, it’s a great snare/interrupt ability. At shorter ranges, it’s great at helping you escape combat. The versatility of the skill lies in the fact that it can do various things depending on the player’s creativity.

As for the daggers, they may require shorter ranges to deal their damage, but Elementalists are also extremely mobile. How, where and when you get into melee is for the player to decide. And when they do, they got a lot of ways they can actually fight the fight, making it hard to predict and counter their attacks.

Range has more to do with fighting style than with weapon effectiveness. The staff isn’t any less potent in melee than it is at range. Just different.

You’ve missed my point. It isn’t a pure “range” dilemma. Am not voicing a concern for daggers to be a viable long range alternative to staff. More so, dagger to just not be void if it cant be on its target 100% of the time. There are plenty of situations within the game where your in melee and then suddenly melee isn’t an option anymore. No not cause they kited away, not cause my gap closing skills are on CD. But when a melee fight becomes a range fight due to Player numbers/Boss mechanics. Being locked in a weapon set in combat leaves little room to adept in that scenario.

idk what versatility means to you, but in a context of a game. it means to me the ability to fluidly adept to any situation not just excelling at 1 given task. (dagger/melee : staff/aoe : scepter/burst)

I use weapon swap and engineer kits as an example because they offer room for diverse and customization for playstyles that the player controls. Where as with elementalist the weapons ARE the playstyle.

Meet conjured weapons. That’ll completely solve your problems. Now you have 5 weapons to choose from based on the situation.

Batlav.6318:

TWMagimay@ because my first character was ele and i liked it but when i swaped to another class well it does a lot better and no it is not the thief exploit
thats what i meant if u change to another class u’ll forget that the ele exist
theres is something unfinished about it

Ele is good support other than that…

And it’s still personal, not some sort of a fact. I went ele→mesmer→ele. Just because you liked smth else better doesn’t make it a universal truth….

Inconceivable.7823:

Still play my ele becaues thats what I chose from the start and thats how my brain works, but right now its not up to snuff with other classes , regardless of the videos you see of people destroying others with eles, because those same people investing that much time and effort in other classes would do just as well and better with them imo.

About the ele, it’s always going to seem unbalanced. Let’s look at the “ele to press 4x as many buttons as it takes a thief to kill someone”.

Do you feel you should be rewarded that you can press 20 buttons instead of 5, and that if you press them in the right order you should always win?

Of that you want your ele to have 3 strong abilities and the rest to be crap?

If you were a developer, you’d want to balance everything. Meaning if:

Ele = thief

So lets give ele 20 buttons and thief 10 (including swap)

ele 20 buttons = thief 10

But you want

Ele press 20 buttons = Better than thief

Why should you be better than a thief just because you press more buttons? Otherwise all the best players would play eles and nothing else.

For being able to press these 20 buttons, you get 100000% more utility, that’s the pay off.

Fact is, if you don’t want a micro intensive class, you shouldn’t play ele. It is a class where you need to press more buttons for the same results as other classes, that’s exactly what it is. If people don’t like it they should reroll imo.