Guild Wars 2

It’s not rhetorical question – I really need explanation. Maybe there is a point, that I can’t see? Elementalists have smallest amount of health among all light armor wearers in this game. Ok, necromancers were built around using health as resourse, so they should have large health pool. But why elementalists, that have lot of melee-based setups and no ability to switch to ranged attack, have less health than mesmers, that have almost highest evadeability in this game? It makes no sense in my opinion.

Because elementalist was designed to survive with active defense: cc, mobility and shield skills.

If that´s working is a whole different debate.

You shouldn’t have too much trouble surviving with an ele. My ele has constant protection up. Protection turns that 14k health pool into an effective 21k health pool. Not to mention all the knockdowns, stuns, interrupts, heals, and mobility we get. If things start going south, run. It’s one of your biggest strengths; being uncatchable. You can’t be engaged to the death unless you want to.

Thieves have it just as hard, but like eles their biggest strength is also being slippery.

Simplicity.7208:

You shouldn’t have too much trouble surviving with an ele. My ele has constant protection up. Protection turns that 14k health pool into an effective 21k health pool. Not to mention all the knockdowns, stuns, interrupts, heals, and mobility we get. If things start going south, run. It’s one of your biggest strengths; being uncatchable. You can’t be engaged to the death unless you want to.

Thieves have it just as hard, but like eles their biggest strength is also being slippery.

Valid point, but Thieves have a billion more ways to get away from a fight. Ele’s aren’t as slippery as you say they are.

Donut.6914:

Simplicity.7208:

You shouldn’t have too much trouble surviving with an ele. My ele has constant protection up. Protection turns that 14k health pool into an effective 21k health pool. Not to mention all the knockdowns, stuns, interrupts, heals, and mobility we get. If things start going south, run. It’s one of your biggest strengths; being uncatchable. You can’t be engaged to the death unless you want to.

Thieves have it just as hard, but like eles their biggest strength is also being slippery.

Valid point, but Thieves have a billion more ways to get away from a fight. Ele’s aren’t as slippery as you say they are.

Eles are extremely slippery, as long as Ride the Lightning is off cooldown or you have some cantrips available, I find myself self escaping hairy zergs all the time.

Originally, we had extremely high dps, and the lowest hp/armor was set to balance that.

I’m fine with their being variation between the classes, but I think it should be smaller. Sure give us the lowest health and lowest hp but not the huge difference that is in there now.

Simplicity.7208:

You shouldn’t have too much trouble surviving with an ele. My ele has constant protection up. Protection turns that 14k health pool into an effective 21k health pool. Not to mention all the knockdowns, stuns, interrupts, heals, and mobility we get. If things start going south, run. It’s one of your biggest strengths; being uncatchable. You can’t be engaged to the death unless you want to.

Thieves have it just as hard, but like eles their biggest strength is also being slippery.

I don’t think OP was talking about survival issues. More like…a mesmer has 50% more hp than an elementalist and the mesmer also has stealth and clones to take a lot of heat off the char. So, if protection turns your 14k hp into 21k hp, the mesmer protection turns his/her 21k hp into 30k hp.

I never got the idea behind different hp or, for that matter, armour type. That is primary a healer-tank-dps feature and makes the whole “we are all dps” thing feel unfinished.

Elementalists have low hp because of the huge damage output they put out. It’s to balance that awesome plus side out with the negative of being squishy.

For example elementalists can put out more damage than other class doing their elaborate combos with all their elements, so to compensate we’re squishier.

Or at least what is above is perhaps that was supposed to be the theory of it, I personally think the reality of it is that our elaborate combos are subpar to any other classes trying to perform the same role. Outside of perhaps support.

And then we’re pretty much the squishiest class on top of that unless you roll Earth focus (for button 5), arcane shield, mistform, earth shield to attempt to spam invincibility.

^You don’t need to spam all that to be survivable. Eles have a ton of ways to provide protection, and runes can increase boon duration and protection duration specifically. You probably shouldn’t spec glass cannon, though. Imo the payouts are not worth what you give up.

Google Gstar 2011 guild wars 2 pvp. That’s why we have the lowest HP.

silvermember.8941:

Google Gstar 2011 guild wars 2 pvp. That’s why we have the lowest HP.

Unfortunately that’s no longer the case

Let’s put it this way. My D/D elementalist has the following

Healing from switching to water attunement: +1652
8s of regen from switching to water attunement: +1392
9of soothing mist from passing through water attunement: +873

All of the above just from entering water attunement. Now, let’s dodge and press skill 5

Dodge: +1652
Skill 5: +1652

There is also water skill 2 that I can’t remember how much it heals for right now. And I can get regeneration in another way as well.

Yes, I am more vulnerable to getting one shotted by stupid thief burst builds, so I basically have to stack some defensive stats on my gear to prevent getting instant killed. But once that hurdle is cleared, my survivability is top notch as I can get all of the above (except skill 5) every 12s or so.

The only sad part is that it does limit elementalist builds fairly drastically. For an elementalist build to be taken seriously it should have at least 15 water and preferably 30 arcane (15 minimum). But really, most of that problem is because of underwhelming earth/air/fire traits. It is our water/arcane traits that are well balanced.

If anything I would like to see fire/air traits that significantly increase survivability in some way or another, so that it is possible to go down those trait lines without becoming a totally useless glass cannon.

TWMagimay.9057:

Simplicity.7208:

You shouldn’t have too much trouble surviving with an ele. My ele has constant protection up. Protection turns that 14k health pool into an effective 21k health pool. Not to mention all the knockdowns, stuns, interrupts, heals, and mobility we get. If things start going south, run. It’s one of your biggest strengths; being uncatchable. You can’t be engaged to the death unless you want to.

Thieves have it just as hard, but like eles their biggest strength is also being slippery.

I don’t think OP was talking about survival issues. More like…a mesmer has 50% more hp than an elementalist and the mesmer also has stealth and clones to take a lot of heat off the char. So, if protection turns your 14k hp into 21k hp, the mesmer protection turns his/her 21k hp into 30k hp.

I never got the idea behind different hp or, for that matter, armour type. That is primary a healer-tank-dps feature and makes the whole “we are all dps” thing feel unfinished.

IIRC it’s something called parallel balancing. It’s when you balance classes/factions/whatever by their strengths and differences rather than making them all the same.

If all the classes had homogenous health and armor it would be rather boring no?

Professional mathematicians in here.

TWMagimay.9057:

HrI don’t think OP was talking about survival issues. More like…a mesmer has 50% more hp than an elementalist and the mesmer also has stealth and clones to take a lot of heat off the char. So, if protection turns your 14k hp into 21k hp, the mesmer protection turns his/her 21k hp into 30k hp.

This exactly what I mean.

Active defense? But thieves or mesmers have stronger active and passive defense both. Thief has more armor, mesmer has more health, and they both have stealth. Also, what benefit? Damage? I didn’t notice that ele’s damage output is really huge, it more seems average. Not bad, but average.

Ghertu.7096:

TWMagimay.9057:

HrI don’t think OP was talking about survival issues. More like…a mesmer has 50% more hp than an elementalist and the mesmer also has stealth and clones to take a lot of heat off the char. So, if protection turns your 14k hp into 21k hp, the mesmer protection turns his/her 21k hp into 30k hp.

This exactly what I mean.

Active defense? But thieves or mesmers have stronger active and passive defense both. Thief has more armor, mesmer has more health, and they both have stealth. Also, what benefit? Damage? I didn’t notice that ele’s damage output is really huge, it more seems average. Not bad, but average.

They’re more escape mechanics than active defense, for example if a thief gets low they need to stealth to run, they can’t use the stealth to stay in the fight longer (Well could be arguable at the moment due to the rendering bug) they have to use it to escape whereas Ele’s active defense keeps them alive and last longer and if you’re D/D you still have decent escape mechanics. Most of the time thief’s have less armour than us and Ele’s damage is more about sustainability, in fact the whole class revolves around sustainability.

You know the main thing I find disturbing?

The all-in-all answer to this and other survivability questions is nearly always:

Well, you obviously don’t run D/D with water/arcane.
Great so then your saying the only way to survive is by running a SINGLE build on a SINGLE weapon set…. and we can’t swap, so we can’t just keep D/D around to help us survive.

We simply need to be more flexible. While our traits are balanced b/c D/D is strong, they make it so running another build is almost entirely non-viable because those weapons dont’ have enough to survive on. Make us more hardy and you would make D/D OP. Perhaps the answer is to nerf D/D a little bit and buff our base survivability and/or the other weapon-sets so we can run something else in PvP.

That aside, if your REALLY good, you can do decently with any weapon set but a really good enemy will almost always beat you. Ever try to kill a warrior with a rifle whose auto attack hits harder than our heals can heal for and faster than any of our attacks go off (again, for more damage as well and more accurately since our projectiles are so kittening slow)? Its fun… really.

I personally find that the only really viable weaponsets are staff (when not alone, its amazing) and D/D; Even then, with a relatively small number of build options since we need arcane to get anywhere with any build.

Finished my Ele last week. 14.5k health. Defining it as squishy couldn’t be more incorrect.

As I learned with my Guardian, health pool isn’t such a big deal.

And to above, Staff is ranged AoE that is sub-par when alone, or in smaller groups. Dagger is best when alone or in small groups. Scepter is in between. I find that pretty well balanced to be honest. Switching attunement is what the Ele is all about, so of course Arcana is best. Ignoring that is like a Guardian ignoring supports, Thief ignoring stealth/mobility, Mesmer ignoring clones, Necro ignoring death shroud, etc.

I do agree that the Ele needs some work though.

Kneemin.4235:

You know the main thing I find disturbing?

The all-in-all answer to this and other survivability questions is nearly always:

Well, you obviously don’t run D/D with water/arcane.
Great so then your saying the only way to survive is by running a SINGLE build on a SINGLE weapon set…. and we can’t swap, so we can’t just keep D/D around to help us survive.

We simply need to be more flexible. While our traits are balanced b/c D/D is strong, they make it so running another build is almost entirely non-viable because those weapons dont’ have enough to survive on. Make us more hardy and you would make D/D OP. Perhaps the answer is to nerf D/D a little bit and buff our base survivability and/or the other weapon-sets so we can run something else in PvP.

That aside, if your REALLY good, you can do decently with any weapon set but a really good enemy will almost always beat you. Ever try to kill a warrior with a rifle whose auto attack hits harder than our heals can heal for and faster than any of our attacks go off (again, for more damage as well and more accurately since our projectiles are so kittening slow)? Its fun… really.

I personally find that the only really viable weaponsets are staff (when not alone, its amazing) and D/D; Even then, with a relatively small number of build options since we need arcane to get anywhere with any build.

Staff is a lot more survivable than D/D however D/D has more mobility and sustained DPS. And I do agree, it seems like every ele I see runs D/D, not saying there is anything wrong with that but when the majority of the player base is using X it’s usually because Y and Z aren’t kitten good as X, for example D/F is considered unviable and I haven’t seen a single person use it (Not that I see many people use focus anyways).

You don’t need arcana, though yes the buff and synergy it gives is far too powerful in respect to the other trait lines, those need a buff to bring them in line and most people do feel pigeon holed into arcana due to it’s effectiveness.

striker.3704:

If all the classes had homogenous health and armor it would be rather boring no?

No, why would it? It would, after all, be all about player choices. Kind of like, you know, ArcheAge. Heavy armour gives more defence and hp, light armour gives more dmg(maybe even ms). So if you want to have a 20k hp ele, you can.

Now, your turn, how does 4-5k hp difference make for “not boring”?

I agree with TWMagimay. Let’s delete all professions and just create one profession that can do anything. Gawd, the choices would be endless.

Gisei.5749:

I agree with TWMagimay. Let’s delete all professions and just create one profession that can do anything. Gawd, the choices would be endless.

Where did I ever say that? In any possible way? Like, even remotely? That’s right, I didn’t. You just failed at reading.

the lowest HP classes are the best bunkers (elementalist and guardian) and the highest burst (thief)

Unfortunately bunkers are sapping the fun out of the game quickly. I would rather have a bunch of glass cannons of all professions running around than a guardian that can permanently hold a cap against the entire enemy team.

Navzar.2938:

silvermember.8941:

Google Gstar 2011 guild wars 2 pvp. That’s why we have the lowest HP.

Unfortunately that’s no longer the case

I know.

Which is why i dont play my elementalist or any class until thursday when the patch hits. (hopefully things are a little better).

Curring.9752:

They’re more escape mechanics than active defense, for example if a thief gets low they need to stealth to run, they can’t use the stealth to stay in the fight longer (Well could be arguable at the moment due to the rendering bug) they have to use it to escape whereas Ele’s active defense keeps them alive and last longer and if you’re D/D you still have decent escape mechanics. Most of the time thief’s have less armour than us and Ele’s damage is more about sustainability, in fact the whole class revolves around sustainability.

Thieves don’t have to stealth to run, they just need to use their warps. Either using shadowstep (utility) or far more common, by switching to a shortbow and using skil 5. Thieves inherently have more armor, they just tend to have less because dps is viable for them. Of course eles with /d are skill more mobile thanks to RTL, but its not like thieves aren’t. Stealth is just a nice bonus to use before a warp.