Guild Wars 2

I would like you guys on this forum to sell me on the Elementalist. I have been debating with Guardian (lvl60) and Engineer(to 33, deleted) which one to settle on. But Elementalist seem to have just as much range of ability as Engineer, with offense support instead of defense like Guardian.

So my questions are, Do you have to hop around atunements to get the best results for supportive builds?

Also any other comments, suggestions and other are much appreciated.
Edit: Spelling

Elementalist will feel overall weaker than other classes, despite having more skills available.
But it gets better as you get better with the class and set him up with right gear.

And you will have to hop around all 4 atunements all the time, because cooldowns are too long in every one of them, so you’ll want to rotate and blow cooldowns on other elements while waiting for the ones you used previously.

cracks knuckles Okay here we go!
Elementalists are currently a very strong and rewarding profession:

In PvE/Dungeons/Fractals:
Staff = Top notch damage, FULL AOE, Fire Fields ALL DAY!
Lightning Hammer = Top notch damage, blind spam, blast finisher spam. Might stacking in between LHs.
D/F = Solid damage, great survivability, great utility.
Icebow = MORE AOE BURST <3!!
Earth attune[Glyph of Storms] = Long duration blind field, blinds faster than Black Powder, NOT A SMOKE FIELD. Cooldown is kind of long but it still has a lot of pros!

With all this power, they tend to have less self-survivability mechanics outside of D/F builds.

In WvW (notably GvG and ZvZ) they are one of the big dogs of backline. I’m going to provide a quick rundown of the totem pole here:
Melee train gets impacted/controlled by backliners. Gankers control/impact Backliners (either defensively [counter-ganking] or offensively by pressuring) Gank Backliners (Mesmer/Ranger) pressure backliners so gankers can choose to go on weakened/pressured targets.
Back to the Ele though: If your melee train is the cannon ball that bombs things, you are the cannon that makes it possible/better.

In SPvP, Eles are currently have one of the more universally dangerous builds with Cele D/x. Check out Phantaram’s stream, I see him using D/F often. D/D Celestial is also a good WvW roaming build!

To wrap it up: Eles are a strong profession in every aspect of play and worth learning!

Lawful.5314:

Elementalist will feel overall weaker than other classes, despite having more skills available.

wut lol

I really hope by “weaker” you only mean “squishier.”

Purple Miku.7032:

Lawful.5314:

Elementalist will feel overall weaker than other classes, despite having more skills available.

wut lol

I really hope by “weaker” you only mean “squishier.”

I think he is talking about during the leveling process.

It is important as an elementalist to give more offensive support. You do this by applying pressure with dps and CC. The CC however must be found and used in other atunements besides your primary dps atunement (fire of staff and air on dagger and scepter mainhand) Your off-hand will only augment what you do. Dagger off-hand = mobility and focus offhand = survivability.

The question should be “Is elementalist the right class for me?” Then you start talking about your playstyle, preference, etc.

Hi again voxrar! (I also commented in the guardian forum)

I’m sure we all want to know what aspect of the game you’d like to play? PvE/WvW/PvP? Both profs are strong at the moment in every environment.

Back to the OP: unlike thy guardian the ele is a very active gamestyle. You have to press a button basically every second or less. There are a few “attunement-camping” builds like Fire or Earth but the rest of the builds are using every attunement. It means you have to calculate your CD’s and sigil procs in your head.

Both class can be really rewarding but as an ele you have to work around your skill and attunement CD’s hard while carefully positioning yourself. As a guardian you have to play a more proactive and slower playstyle while anticipating your enemy’s skills.

While very different – in team-support I think these two professions are in par with each other.

My two cents…

BarnabeJonez.6023:

Purple Miku.7032:

Lawful.5314:

Elementalist will feel overall weaker than other classes, despite having more skills available.

wut lol

I really hope by “weaker” you only mean “squishier.”

I think he is talking about during the leveling process.

Exactly what i meant, they will feel overall weaker than the rest of the classes as you level them and gear them.

About a year ago I made a Guardian specifically to test out the difference between Guardian and Elementalist. Guardians are pretty well regarded as one of if not the best class in game because they just fit in just about every kind of game play mode.

What it really comes down to is whether or not you want ranged options. Guardian has basically no range what so ever and feels very limited when it comes to situations where you need/want range. So if you are more of a stand offish style player who wants to do ranged AOE DPS or ranged AOE support (which in most cases you still gotta get in there a bit) then Elementalist is going to work better for you cause they have those options.

The trade off is the Guardian has to get in there more, but it’s also (arguably) better equipped to do so and is very naturally tanky by design even when offensive. That doesn’t mean you can’t get the same on the Elementalist, and most do, it’s simply a design difference when looking at the base of each class before you get into traits/utilities/etc.

So if you want more range…go Elementalist. If you don’t and you plan to do melee most of the time, Guardian or Elementalist will work just fine.

Well, D/D elementalist, which is currently the most popular and powerful type of elementalist, has to be in pretty close range to execute his abilities (400 range).

In SPvP, for sure. However consider that the OP also mentioned levels, meaning he’s likely not talking about SPvP as levels don’t matter much there. As always most OPs tend to leave out exactly what part of game play they are aiming at so it’s hard to say for sure.

That said none of that really detracts from what I wrote. The main difference is still pretty much the option for range on the Elementalist. Considering the OP also mentioned doing support, hard to say if he’s looking for D/D melee game play as most support for Ele tends to either be boon stacking (which could be D/D or S/D or /F really) or field generation and healing support (from staff play).

Hard to tell till the OP gives more info to go on really.

If you like using a large kitten nal of skills this is the class for you. D/D ele is one of the few builds that can go toe to toe with pretty much any class and build. Guardian is a bit harder to play in my opinion, but thats a personal preference. If you like to free cast aoe damage and run around kiting people engi might be for you. Try all the classes. One of them will just feel “right”.

I have played ele in every form since beta but am currently on a glass canon high. extremely difficult to play if u have poor positioning skills but man does it melt groups fast. in pve its really quite easy to stay alive, in wvw i follow enemy zergs and pick off stragglers and rain fire from the atop the walls. I personally love high risk builds on staff and do not follow meta here. Dont care what build u have, if u and ur group stand in my meteor shower its over. No one does though lol. But those 1 or 2 hits u absorb while trying to dodge out brings most down below half health. I find it fun being someone who cannot be ignored. I wont post builds so dont ask. im just answering the question…yes ele is worth playing, def alot of fun to be had. I will say that im heavy fire build with might stacking. I only attun swap with purpose. ie water field for group, earth and air for control, then right back to fire to melt faces.

For me, it is fairly simple. I’ve quit this game and come back several times. I’ve deleted my main and remade it many times. When I come back each time and when I remake my main each time, it is always an Elementalist. I get bored by other classes (and I haven’t begun to master any other). Elementalist is challenging and fun.

My New Years resolution is to get one of each class to level 80, something which I haven’t done before – and I’ve been playing since Launch -3. I’m struggling with it because I have been devoting all my time to Elementalist, a class which I have had at 80 on three occasions previously.

I am an Elementalist. Give it a go – you may find you are one too!

Well, to start with, on MetaBattle, we are the only one besides Warrior that has a Meta Build in every category of PvE, WvW and PvP. Guardians are a close second. I dont think they have a Meta for dungeons; only a Great.

I find them to be the most engaging and enjoyable class due to the volume of skills that we have access to. I get bored with all other classes besides my Engineer, but Engineer kits lack the synergy our attunements have.

It’s not only the volume of our skills that make it engaging, but the large number of combo fields and finishers we have attached to them that allow a greater variety of combinations to create different effects.

As far as reasons not to play one, a lot of our power and particularly survivability is dependent on traits which makes leveling one difficult in comparison to classes like GS warrior or MM necro. Also how effective you are as an elementalist is tied to how well you understand the class and how skilled you are using your abilities together. It’s not like other classes with one trick wonder builds with simple rotations that can be used to powerful effect.

But that it and of itself can be a boon, based on your perspective, since we are far from a one trick wonder and can fill a varierty of roles.

ive played both guards and ele for a looong time. so heres my 2 cents on both of them.

lets start with ele :

Yes they are squishy in most situations,however in those squishy situations they make up for it with their utility,mobility, and tons of aoe dmg(as mentioned before) If you spend some time with the class youll learn how to avoid and mitigate damage with your healing abilities (raw healing, passive regen, boon regen, condi clenses, blast finisher on water heals ect)

In most cases you will need to switch from attunement to attunement but there are some builds that could be extremely good by simply siting in 1 attunement all the time (along with using utilities)
Such as siting in fire attunement for permanent aoe fire fields, spamming fireballs and casting meteor shower when possible ,all of which hit like a train in a large aoe.
Or siting in earth attunement and spamming bleeding if going on condi ele.

In short, Eles are squishy, but they do have very high mobility, self heal,lots of condi clenses, protection and other bons and tons of dmg. If you learn all your traits and skills, and have some experiences with your enemies you will be a destructive weapon of destruction .

Guardians :

At start they do have the same health as a ele, but they get to have heavy armor which mitigates the dmg to some extent.

Guardians are mostly melee, they are able to pull off some burst dmg with great sword as well as some good sustained dps with hammer (that barely anyone uses cause they never actually tried a hammer at lvl 80… dusk, sunrise and eternity can be blamed for this…)

They have some nice utility skills such as wall of reflection,stand your ground,contenplation of purity,save your selfs, renewed focus (the last 3 can be used for mass party condition clense)

Guardians are also able to use shields and swords (some people think this is awesome regardless of the skills)

They have some nice cc and party wide buffs, regen, and healing

They can become extremely tough even with full zerker stats since most of their skills give some kind of self regen and protection,various boons, blocks, absorption, specially altruistic healing trati (heals when applying a boon to yourself or allies).

Guardians can be balanced pretty well regarding stats.
This is also the only class ive managed to get to all the “sweet spots” regarding stats.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARGlsApaIGChfoJiHEbH9pyANwdZUA-TxREABDt/AhKBTU9HO0BAlyPAeAAloJAA-e

2200 power, 3000 armor,60% precision ,+42% extra dmg from traits and runes(food ,3 sigils and 1 utility not included)

ofc, i could go “glass” zerker guardian…but honestly how much power do you need in this game for trash mobs?

In short: Guardians is a tough melee class that can be well balanced regarding stats and will always somehow support themselfs and people around while still managing to do some initial burst damage.

Basically what everyone is telling you is that, Elementalist is jack of all trades, master of none.
They also have the lowest base stats among the classes, so its hard to balance out the stats of an elementalist and get a “great” feel for it.

For example, if you can balance out guardian who has default high armor, you dont have to focus as much on it and you can work on your other attributes to get over 2000 power and high precision, extra damage, ect , while its not as easy to do that with elementalist, you would have to sacrifice in a few areas to get to the same heights as classes with base higher stats get.

But thats what you have to deal with as Elementalist, we are overall weaker but with more variability in our combat, as in – we can do everything at once, just not as effectively as other classes, we can heal, deal damage, have mobility , CC and somewhat survivability.