Guild Wars 2

Hello, my fellow Elementalist mains! While the forums here tend to have an atmosphere of doom-and-gloom, I thought it might be nice if we took a moment to remember what it is that keeps us passionate about the Elementalist. Nothing’s preventing you from abandoning the Ele for another profession, or even another game entirely, and it’s passion, not apathy, that drives us to post about what we think is wrong, so what five things about your Elementalist do you find appealing or fun?

Please, this isn’t a thread for discussions of balance or for sarcasm. You can rage about the traits you hate elsewhere. Please try to approach this thread with only a positive attitude.

My five, in no particular order:

1. I absolutely adore ZvZ fights as my Elementalist. The staff may not be a perfect weapon but it fulfills the fantasy of a powerful wizard wreaking the power of the elements upon armies very admirably. I love feeling like mobile artillery which can also throw out some great support.

2. While I was initially resistant to Attunement-swapping (coming from GW1, I wanted to specialize into elements), it’s come to be one of my favorite profession mechanics in the game. Done right, it makes every combat feel like an intricate dance where my movements are done in perfect harmony with my foe’s, except I’m one step ahead. Done wrong, I fall on my face. I love that skill-based dichotomy.

3. As something of an extention of #2, I love the range of options constantly available to you as an Elementalist. There are rarely circumstances where you just can’t do anything at all and that appeals to me on a deep level. I love always having an answer.

4. I love virtually all our animations. They’re just so visceral, so brutal, so full of gravitas. Churning Earth’s animation makes you feel like a bad***, Burning Speed is quick and frantic, Cleansing Wave is pretty and wild, and Static Field is just the most magnificent of prisons.

5. Our unprecedented ability to slip into keeps in WvW. No other profession in the game can enter a keep after being Downed. Lightning Flash into Mist Form into a dodgeroll and you can get to a door in spite of a zerg of nearly any size or competence; usually I find you only need one or the other, too. If there’s a zerg sieging a keep, I want to be there on my Ele and the Ele’s kit leave us well-equipped to get there.

There’s five of my reasons. What are five of yours?

1. The ability to give permanent party-wide swiftness makes moving around with friends a LOT easier.

2. Ride the Lightning off of cliffs. Nuff said.

3. The ability to conjure one of 4 moderately-constant elemental pets, all of which have floating bits and/or are scorpions made out of lightning.

4. Ether renewal. Feel like the Avatar every time you heal.

5. Zippimg and weaving around as a D/D ele has been the most enjoyable PvE playstyle I’ve seen so far.

I love the attunements

conjures – they’ll be more powerful one day

animations – feels powerful even if it’s not that much :p,

love being able to save people with boons and cc and resses

RTL is the best, though now it’s more tactical (need to find critters :p)

no particular order

- The feeling of flowing through attunements in combat. You totally feel like you control the character.

- The ele’s ability to be able to synchronize with other classes through combos/supportive abilities. (Example d/p thief drops a smoke field. Ele evasive arcana earth rolls into smoke field for aoe stealth mid combat.)

- The creative combos available especially when using the elemental surge trait. One of my faves is lightning flash → burning speed —> double arcane. Or scepter auto attack in fire→ start fire grab animation → lightning flash mid fire grab → use arcane power(optional). If conjures worked like engi kits the amount of self combos would be so fun ^.^

-The animations

- I like that the class is based around being the jack of all trades master of none. Although I still miss the old RTL the nerfs have put the class more in line with its philosophy.

Eh, pretty much just the theme.

I only play classes that I could justify being if I lived in the setting of a game, which limits my options to ele and engi. Since everyone in this setting has access to magic I really only wanna play an ele, because the only justification I can think of for why I wouldn’t practice magic at all is kinda weird, and might not be canonically feasible.

Yeah, I’m one of those guys.

1. The active and fun play-style of fast paced attunement swapping.

2. The great and effective utilities you can bring to any party in any game mode.

3. Having skills for every situation, I like the jack of all trades aspect.

4. Being in high demand for WvW for fire fields+ Static fields and such.

5. Being amazingly formidable for a cloth armor profession, which is such a cool concept, and seems unique to me!

1: Combo fields
2: Versatility during the gameplay, allows for great on-the-spot tactics.
3: Melandru’s Staff
4: The fact that they’re not the standard MMO damage caster
5: The way boons and conditions stack so there’s never a feeling of having wasted an effect.

All weapon sets are viable and allow for very different ways of playing the class.

Like the fact that so many skills are wrapped up in one character.

Ele is a fast paced character to play requiring swiftness and endurance continually to keep moving and avoid damage. Thieves can disappear. Messmers hide in their clones. Necros can turn into a shadow. We are out in the open, an easy target in light armor. It is very challenging.

1.) The flashy animations.

2.) Ride the lightning

3.) I love being able to fly into the middle of an enemy zerg, wreak havoc, and actually be able to get back to the safety of my comrades/tower… most of the time. Feels great when you’re enough of a distraction to turn the battle in your sides’ favor.

4.) Did I mention the flashy animations?

5.) Say what you might, but I love the t3 human light armor.

everything, but think the most part i like is dancing in the battleground

6. Blasting Staff. I just love having those massive AoEs to rain down.

1. The ability to have 20 skill in a single weapon.
2. Water attuned.
3. Rtl.
4. Combo field.
5. Meteor shower.

1. I
2. Like
3. Jumping
4. Off
5. Rata Sum

1) flashy looking skills
2) complex gameplay
3) all kinds of versatility
4) the wide assortment of weapons and armors
5) RTling off of cliffs

1. RTL allows for sooo many shortcuts in jumping puzzles that you just can’t do with any other class.
2. Being able to keep 4 zerkers at full health throughout CoF p1.
3. Being able to do 11k dmg while in a healing build thanks to fiery greatsword and lots of might-stacking.
4. Contrary to some I had wished for the elementalists to be able to swap elements in gw1 and I was thrilled when I heard that that’s what they were doing for gw2. Honestly I don’t need any other game ever again (unless they have the excact same elementalist).
5. When y’r bored of your usual skills its always fun to bring a conjured weapon with you just for the change of pace.

Honestly there are sooo many other things I love about the elementalist like jumping off of cliffs with mistform after being downed just so my armor won’t get damaged that 5 points just aren’t enough to show how much I love this class.

1. Ability to synchronize well with nearly any other class you might play with
2. Ice bow 4 skill
3. Having 4 attunements to swap through emphasizes on-the-fly thinking and adjusting
4. Great combo potential
5. Rtl

1. LoS and PbAoE: being able to use the environment structures (trees, walls) to protect yourself from enemy attacks while at the same time having your own attacks go through these environmental structures to damage the enemy is amazing.

2. Attunement swapping and using it to solve literally any problem thrown at an Elementalist.

3. Being able to free target without actually targeting an enemy. I love using this to quickly disengage or engage another enemy that just entered the battle. Along with the fact that you have to position your character correctly to execute skills instead of having to target so that your skills with follow that target.

4. Not a cheesey professions where either you burst with 1 combo and hope someone dies or you just bunker and do no damage. An Elementalist feels in between where they do damage not as high as say Warriors, Thieves, or Mesmers. At the same time, they can be durable and bunker like.

5. Lots of AoE

1. The HotW armor is pretty kitten.
2. The potential to be a great class is there.
3. It shares the name “Elementalist” with a related but far superior class in gw1.
4. Be the bunker – love the bunker. Or don’t love the bunker, but be the bunker anyway, because there’s no choice.
5. He serves as a great mule.

1. It makes sparkling thunder with scepter
2.“Behold, the ocean power” makes it sound epic
3. It makes me giggle to see him getting nerfed patch after patch
4. It made me more giggle to see the “Buff” on signets (and the nerf on a specific one)
5. I can share a weaker version of an engineer kit with other, for some seconds

1. Versatility:
Support, damage, conditions, crowd control, combo fields and loads of boons. Whatever weapon choice or trait combo you will also bring some of the above to the table.

2. Mobility:
D/D offers a really fun and mobile gameplay. burning speed, magnetic grab and mainly ride the lightning bring a unique flavor to gw2’s combat, making you feel like an element-based ninja. Well, I guess they are still not as slow as an engineer or a necro…

3. AoE burst:
Spec’d as a glass cannon, the AoE damage numbers that an ele can pull off are huge. It certainly won’t match the single target burst of some classes though, but when you factor together the overall damage that you’ve inflicted, it outclasses everyone with ease.

4. Flashy spells:
Warrior, thief (lol aoe stealth cute house), necro, ranger… meh, most classes have boring abilities and animations that aren’t even visually attractive or seem to have a significant effect on the battlefield, because of that, they often go unnoticed. That’s not the case with the elementalist at all.

5. Above average skill floor:
It takes some practice to master the elementalist class, it is not the hardest to play at all in my opinion, but the initial skill floor usually discourages most button-mashing players from giving a try to this class. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t like playing popular classes / characters / champions / etc.

4 reasons instead of 5, still powerful enough to keep me going. Let’s see if ANet destroys more of the aspects listed above…

I’m almost exclusively WvW, here’s my list:

1. Wrecking zergs with Static Field

2. Damage bath!

3. Scrubbing siege off wall tops

4. Rapid attunement-switching to activate “on weapon swap” sigils

5. Can almost always make it through a zerg into a friendly doorway

Favourite things about the Elementalist that I wished for back when I played the first Guild Wars extensively.

1. Use of all 4 attunements on the fly.
2. Ground targeting skills.
3. No ‘exhaustion’. I see it’s now called overcast. shrug
4. Self healing.
5. Skills accessible for most situations.

1. Fiery Greatsword
2. Using fiery greatsword 3 to slash through a zerg of enemies in wvw.
3. Using fiery greatsword 4 to run back out of the enemy zerg.
4. Dodge a couple times and drop firestorm.
5. Have a good laugh because they could have killed my glass cannon butt but instead i weakened them with massive crits. =)

1- Ability to burst down hybrid and bunker/healer build players really quick without being glass cannon
2- lightning flash utility. It my favorite of them all. It is the only utility I consider it to be a must with whatever build I try/play
3- The idea of having 4 elements with 5 skills on each at our disposal, so may offensive/defensive combos are possible
4- Being underestimated because enemies think i will be the typical d/d bunker healer ele and then they get downed so quick. Afterwards they send party invite and say “wtf! I will report you for hacking!”
5- Awesome profession for solo/small group roaming or running with the zerg

1. 2x Weapons – 20 Skills
2. D/D – I don’t have to waste time targeting people!! \o/
3. Perma-Vigor, Perma-Swiftness, Perma-Healing
4. The class feels extremely skillful and rewarding to play with uber keyboard micro.
5. Cantrips, Cantrips, Cantrips

(D/D only)

1. Freedom feeling
2. With some skills, can shine in pve and pvp as well.
3. Disruptive gameplay : No need to target, always moving through the battlefield.
4. Jack of trades : can damage, heal, move at the same time
5. Playing with all four elements

1. ‘I can move mountains!’
2. ‘Urgh, oogh, growl, SPLASH! (fully healed) – Summoned Elite Water Elemental
3. ’Klang, thud’ BAM!’ – The impact sounds of the conjured Lightning Hammer
4. ‘Behold: the ocean’s power!’
5. All previously mentioned things above me

-Attunement dancing.
-FGS … such a fun Conjure, and a pretty BA Elite
-D/D feels like a frigging fighting game character. (Especially Fire/Air … I’d almost think that Dev played a crapton of Guilty Gear.)
-Cast animations for the “big” spells are smexxy
-Nuking that requires tactics and positioning, not button-masher abilities.