Guild Wars 2

So for those who’ve watched the twitch video you can hear what Arenanets vision is of the elementalist. That is that we can’t do both damage and healing at the same time as well as other professions.
We will always be able to heal and do damage but arenanet doesn’t want us to outshine ANY profession in ANYTHING! They don’t want us to have mobility that matches or exceeds other professions. No we have to be slower than other professions too!

If you want to see what the vision is for the elementalist equip Dagger/Focus and use traits: 15/15/15/15/10 with divinity runes. (you won’t win any 1v1 fights, you won’t be able to run away but hey. You can do defence, attack and healing at the same time so its alright, right)

But that’s just my reaction to what he said as to what they’ve done to our traits in the last patch I’m actually happy about the changes. Its still hard to do decent dps and still be survivable but its possible.

Um…. if you’re just now realizing that Ele is the Hybrid prof of the game i’m kinda thinking you should get your eyes checked…

That being said they don’t want ele to be the BEST at anything, they’re certainly not going to be the worst at anything.

EX: An ele will NOT have the damage of a warrior, but it’s going to have high damage, and it WONT be as mobile as a thief, but it will still be one of the most mobile profs (or can be). etc.

Durzlla.6295:

Um…. if you’re just now realizing that Ele is the Hybrid prof of the game i’m kinda thinking you should get your eyes checked…

That being said they don’t want ele to be the BEST at anything, they’re certainly not going to be the worst at anything.

EX: An ele will NOT have the damage of a warrior, but it’s going to have high damage, and it WONT be as mobile as a thief, but it will still be one of the most mobile profs (or can be). etc.

And thus the reason, as I stated elsewhere in the posts and I won’t repeat myself, that guilds remove their d/d elementalist from their ranks in WvW. There used to be a viable slot for d/d elementalist, however post patch they bring nothing to the table that can’t be done better than any other class and they are more of a liability than an asset for a WvW raiding party nowadays.

Of course one can go staff elementalist. However, try to coordinate a WvW raid with more than 2-3 staff elementalist though, it’s not an easy thing to do.

So bottom line in a WvW environment since everyone can do better than an elementalist, yes, the elementalist is worse at anything.

Durzlla.6295:

Um…. if you’re just now realizing that Ele is the Hybrid prof of the game i’m kinda thinking you should get your eyes checked…

That being said they don’t want ele to be the BEST at anything, they’re certainly not going to be the worst at anything.

EX: An ele will NOT have the damage of a warrior, but it’s going to have high damage, and it WONT be as mobile as a thief, but it will still be one of the most mobile profs (or can be). etc.

Why roam on a class that can be caught by any other class save the necro very easily.

Why support on a class that can be outclassed in boon generation by the guardian?

Why do damage on a class that can be outdone by a warrior or a thief?

If you are second best at everything, it means you don’t shine at anything save doing everything. It means there is no need in a coordinated group to have this class, as there really is no need to bring the second best, when you can have the best.

I can relate to this…aside from providing fields and auras, anything an Ele can do is done way better by other professions. I have all classes aside from engi but mained a D/D Ele (I use S/D for certain spots) for dungeons and WvW with my guildies. I have always felt as more of a hindrance than an asset. I have tried bunker, zerk and kinda balanced builds and still felt inferior in every aspect. my Guardian and Mesmer and even my necro have provided far more benefit to my group in utility, support and damage on so many levels that I sometimes question myself as to why would I ever need to use my ele aside from the colorful boom boom that barely packs a anything but sparks.

sadly I still love this class and play it because it was the most fun and has its unique style but it is the least rewarding.

some might argue that I am wrong for any reason but I have played other classes and have seen that they contribute far more than an ele.

Ele isn’t in that bad of shape, but with all of the buffs other classes have gotten, it would have been balanced 2 or even 3 patches ago. They’ve steadily slipped out of dominance and even ele’s best builds are at the bottom of the competitive meta (but still viable). You have to be much more skilled to achieve the same results on an ele as most other classes.

We’ll have to see how the current patch changes things over the next few weeks, but before this ele was consistently on the short end of the stick vs engi/ranger, and trading more or less evenly against mesmers with team utilities.

I don’t think anet realizes that “jack of all trades” is a derogatory term. In mmos where min/max is the law of the land, there is no room for a class that doesn’t do anything better than another class.

It is a real problem if they consciously base our nerfs and buffs based on whether or not we will end up better than another class, while not holding other classes to the same standard. Inevitably they nerf us too much while letting op builds of others slide because “hey, that’s what they are good at”. That’s how we ended up with the current necromancer condition apocalypse (two damaging conditions added to one already condition heavy class in one patch is somehow seen as a good idea).

Durzlla.6295:

Um…. if you’re just now realizing that Ele is the Hybrid prof of the game i’m kinda thinking you should get your eyes checked…

That being said they don’t want ele to be the BEST at anything, they’re certainly not going to be the worst at anything.

EX: An ele will NOT have the damage of a warrior, but it’s going to have high damage, and it WONT be as mobile as a thief, but it will still be one of the most mobile profs (or can be). etc.

Not saying that I don’t like being a hybrid profession. But every single option we have or had is getting nerfed.
Since patch:
healing nerfed
damage nerfed
mobility nerfed
survivability nerfed
There are very few skills that have not been nerfed in the past year and even fewer that received buffs. If this continues then nothing’ll be left for the elementalist to do.

Even though we say that we can do everything I’m pretty sure the warrior, guardian and mesmer can do the same but better. (Not sure about a condition guardian though).

While I have been whining like a legless dog in the back of a black car in the summer, about them changing the elementalist role, I do not dislike the idea of a jack of all trades, as long as it works. The positive side of it is that you can do what others can do, but with one profession, although not as impressively but with tools others might not have in order to make it viable.

If I recall correctly, Anet tends to nerf things a bit, before buffing again.

Malcastus.6240:

If I recall correctly, Anet tends to nerf things a bit, before buffing again.

You made that up. Anet doesn’t think. The video proves they just do things and say “hey let’s see what happens”. What happens is they killed our class and don’t care.

They pretty much want us to be 4th or 5th out of 8 in every aspect I think. Although they’re letting us stay up there on bunker builds for now.

Navzar.2938:

They pretty much want us to be 4th or 5th out of 8 in every aspect I think. Although they’re letting us stay up there on bunker builds for now.

Wrong. Bunker builds don’t work if you stop moving, and the nerfed everything that lets ele’s keep moving.

“worst at everything”

Man the hyperboles are flying left and right on this sub-forum today. Or are you implying warriors are better at laying down combo fields? And are thieves better at group support? And I suppose guardians are better at condition builds?

darkace.8925:

“worst at everything”

Man the hyperboles are flying left and right on this sub-forum today. Or are you implying warriors are better at laying down combo fields? And are thieves better at group support? And I suppose guardians are better at condition builds?

Thives have awesome group support if specced for it (e.g. poisonshare), warriors actually can lay a lot of firefields with longbow, and guardians do have a lot of conditions if specced for it (fyi ele condition builds are completely non-viable).

Now go somewhere else with your “that ele once touched me in a dark place 2 years ago therefore they should all suffer my wrath” crusade.

Now go somewhere else with your “that ele once touched me in a dark place 2 years ago therefore they should all suffer my wrath” crusade.

:D

It’s okay to be a jack of all trades, because the game doesn’t lock you into being a ‘tank healer or DPS’.

From what I remember (because it was a long time ago), in that-MMO-that-starts-with-‘W’, hybrids were shunned because they could do everything decently, but nothing was top tier. You had to go completely tank, or healer, or DPS. Nobody really needed a mediocre tank which could sometimes heal and do okay damage.

However, this is different in GW2. No longer are we locked into the same three roles. In fact, it is perfectly fine to do all three at the same time.

As long it is balanced properly, I don’t see why their stated design goal is a problem

Obviously the actual balancing is easier said than done. Should we be 2nd best at everything, or a distant 5th?

One thing in particular stands out to me: hybrid characters should do everything at the same time. If one decides to go all-out-glass-cannon, it is okay to do less damage than a Thief, but for some reason they get better survivability too. Alternatively if you decide to be a bunker, it’s alright for a Guardian to be harder to kill, but only if you do considerably more damage (which is the case right now – I don’t think there are many people who will dispute that Guardians are in a nice and balanced spot).

One thing to note: I don’t play sPvP very much, so this is all based off WvW and PvE (which has it’s own non-Elementalist-specific problem of ‘just do a lot of damage and dodge a lot’). From what I gather there are specific roles in a team like ‘roamer’ and ‘bunker’, so it might conflict with the rest of this post.

U guys are all wrong.. There is one thing we are REALLY excel at. Guess what?

Stealth.9324:

U guys are all wrong.. There is one thing we are REALLY excel at. Guess what?

Looking cool? We get four semi-permanent exotic weapons for the tiny cost of up to 10 skill points each. All the other spell animations are also flashy and colorful.

Nobody can mess with an opponent who has synthesia as well as we can. Nobody.

That is onw but my answer will be being the other class farming field. LOL.

The Ele’s fine, relatively speaking.

ARM.3912:

Malcastus.6240:

If I recall correctly, Anet tends to nerf things a bit, before buffing again.

You made that up. Anet doesn’t think. The video proves they just do things and say “hey let’s see what happens”. What happens is they killed our class and don’t care.

Well, eles did get quite a few positive changes this patch around, and admittedly they didn’t always nerf the right things the other times to bring down the popular bunker, but they did improve things, to allow offensive builds to come to light.

And no, they wouldn’t kill off a class. No sane game developer would kill off a profession. That is going against everything you work to strive for. Game balancing is just hard, when you have to listen to a million voices.

Stealth.9324:

U guys are all wrong.. There is one thing we are REALLY excel at. Guess what?

-Ranged aoe damage
-Combo fields

Aether McLoud.1975:

Thives have awesome group support if specced for it

So can elementalists.

Aether McLoud.1975:

warriors actually can lay a lot of firefields with longbow

If by “a lot” you mean “one every 7 to 10 seconds” sure. Now let’s discuss the ice fields the warrior can lay. And then let’s discuss the warrior’s ability to say water fields. And then we should talk about the warrior’s ability to lay lightning fields.

If you’re implying for a second that warriors are better at laying combo fields than elementalists then it’s going to be real hard to take anything you say seriously.

Aether McLoud.1975:

and guardians do have a lot of conditions if specced for it (fyi ele condition builds are completely non-viable).

“If specced for it.” You keep saying that like elementalists can’t spec for condition damage, or crowd control, or group support, or anything else. And it doesn’t matter if elementalists condition damage build are completely non-viable, they’re still objectively better at them than guardians. That means the statement “worst at everything” a false statement.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Now go somewhere else

Ah, the classic “you disagreed with me, so you should leave” reply. I suppose next you’re going to call me a troll? Before you do, I’d love to hear you explain why you think I’m “crusading” against a profession I play and enjoy.

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

We are actually on the very edge of fine now. With any further push, we will be pretty useless. Want Dam/Control: Warrior. Want Bunker/Support/Boon Share: Guardian. Want Assault Far Point Bunker: Engine. Want Trickster: Thief. Want Condition Pressure: Necromancer. Want an Extra Player: Ranger. I don’t say we are doing bad atm but any further nerf will make the class becomes a joke.

Stealth.9324:

We are actually on the very edge of fine now. With any further push, we will be pretty useless. Want Dam/Control: Warrior. Want Bunker/Support/Boon Share: Guardian. Want Assault Far Point Bunker: Engine. Want Trickster: Thief. Want Condition Pressure: Necromancer. Want an Extra Player: Ranger. I don’t say we are doing bad atm but any further nerf will make the class becomes a joke.

lol

Sunflowers.1729:

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

Or grenade specced engineers. or mesmers with glamour skills (quickness AoE?).

May I also note that the elementalist don’t get retaliation, quickness, aegis. OR give fear- torment – poison etc. All very usefull boons and conditions. Thus I conclude that we can’t do everything. Therefore we aren’t a jack of all traits we’re just worst or 5th place at anything we do.

Also forgot to mention the lowest health pool and light armor, take away our mobility after disabling bunkers means we’ll be on deathrow.

Sunflowers.1729:

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

Nope. Wells are ground cast unless traited for it.

Also, no necro goes crit damage(?)

Razor.6392:

Sunflowers.1729:

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

Nope. Wells are ground cast unless traited for it.

Also, no necro goes crit damage(?)

Either I see Eles goes Condition Dams (?)

Razor.6392:

Sunflowers.1729:

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

Nope. Wells are ground cast unless traited for it.

Also, no necro goes crit damage(?)

necros can hit for 28k dmg

if he kills rats in pve…

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Razor.6392:

Sunflowers.1729:

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

Nope. Wells are ground cast unless traited for it.

Also, no necro goes crit damage(?)

necros can hit for 28k dmg

each of my meteors hit for 4k damage on top of lava font and other aoes.

I guess wells / life siphon is spammable now?

I like how pretty much everyone is using the, “But hybrids are bad because everyone else can do everything better!” argument, yeah yeah, that’s cute your warrior can out DPS the ele, but can that same warrior also be throwing condis out, and bringing support and control? kitten no they can’t, if a warrior goes damage, just like pretty much every other prof, that is literally ALL they can do.

Durzlla.6295:

I like how pretty much everyone is using the, “But hybrids are bad because everyone else can do everything better!” argument, yeah yeah, that’s cute your warrior can out DPS the ele, but can that same warrior also be throwing condis out, and bringing support and control? kitten no they can’t, if a warrior goes damage, just like pretty much every other prof, that is literally ALL they can do.

2 Cars:

Car A can drive 200mph max, has awesome breaks that decelerate it to a standstill in 0.5 seconds and has extreme grip so you can take corners at high speed.

Car B can drive 50mph max, has kittened up brakes that take it 10 seconds to standstill, lose control in pretty much every corner, but it can make you ice cream while driving, has an exhaust pipe that leads back into the car and smells of roses, and it has a button that changes it’s varnish from red to blue to white to brown.

Being able to do needless stuff doesn’t make Car B better, it actually makes it objectively worse, because cars are supposed to drive, stay on the road, and brake.

That video does make me wonder if this game will ever achieve any sort of actual balance. Let’s just say it didn’t instill any confidence.

My WvW staff Elementalist is geared about 50/50 between offense and defense. I also have a Healway Guardian specced almost entirely healing/defensively. My Guardian puts out more damage, while having exponentially more survivability.

That right there is proof that we have some problems.

In the video, Izzy makes the point that all stats are important to Elementalists and we need to be balanced with our stats to be effective. The problem is that even if we spec totally offense, our DPS is only average and if we spec totally defense, our survivability is some where short of average. Balanced spec just makes us completely sub-par.

I have to work really hard to achieve baseline levels of performance with my Ele that I can achieve with any other profession on cruise control.

I was looking at base damage for weapon skills yesterday. Elementalist has Slot#1 damage, across weapon sets and attunements, that put us at the very bottom of the list. Most professions do 1.5x to 2.3 x DPS with their #1 skills. Most #1 skills in the game are also 20% proc finishers, while almost none of our 16 possible #1 skills are finishers.

What makes things worse is the fact that most professions don’t need to spec heavily in defensive trait lines and invest at least half their stats in defense just to attain minimal survivability. It’s much easier to stack power/precision, with out sacrificing sustainable survivability, for pretty much every other profession in the game. So, not only is Elementalist base damage pathetic, but most other professions can build much more heavily into Power/Precision, which makes Elementalist damage even more pathetic.

First, I think it’s horrible game design to force a profession to go balanced stats just to reach minimal capability. A big part of customization of builds for various roles in this game come from the ability to lean heavily in one direction stats wise to amplify and support a role or playstyle, with out compromising the playability of the profession. That approach becomes a lot less viable for Elementalists.

Second, if you are going to design a profession with the assumption that all stats are necessary, then base damage for skills needs to be higher, not lower, than average, to compensate for the need to take defensive stats and traitlines to achieve even modest survivability.

Izzy tossed out that a healing specced Elementalist can be the second best healer in the game. The problem is that healing in this game is diminished and even the best healer doesn’t gain much survivability via healing if their base survivability is poor. A fully healing specced Elementalist also is going to have to sacrifice DPS completely for that utility. Which, of course, brings me back to my Healway Guardian, who is a better healer, has much more survivability and can notably outdamage even a balanced stat Elementalist. Pitted vs. the DPS of a healing specced Elementalist, you’d find the gap is exponential.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t bring us back to pre-launch commentary by developers on professions in GW2. We were told that profession choice was more about aesthetic and playstyle choices than raw capability. Each profession may do things differently, but you’d be able to spec any profession to any role and do so competently. Some professions might be slightly better at one role than another, but we would never have to worry about our profession not being viable for what ever role it needed to fill or being excluded from a party invite because of a lack of needed capability.

So, yeah, what ever happened to that?

Sad thing is that many professions in the game do have that degree of flexibility, but then flexibility is used as an excuse for balancing Elementalists to be sub-par at any role they spec for. Huh? That makes sense how?

We know that ANet has to have a lot of talented developers to have produced this amazing game. However, it’s becoming more and more apparent that post launch, a lot of developers have been assigned to things they really have no business being involved in, or positions they really don’t have the capabilities to hold.

The long term viability of the game is being threatened and it’s a very sad state of affairs to witness as a true fan of the game.

It’s “Jack of all trades”.

/grammarlesson

Every class can play every role in this game. Developers saying the elementalist should be a Jack of all trades show either a lack of understanding of their own game or a lack of a clear vision for the profession.

(this all basically refers to WvW, we all know that warriors/guardians/andsometimesamesmer are all you need for PvE and tPvP has it’s own little meta about holding and flipping/contesting 2/3 circles for ~10-15 min which is just weird to me)

My engineer packs better support (water fields, fire fields, a light field that pulse heals, blasts, condition removals, various CC, perma-regeneration) and ranged aoe damage (spammable GTAoE with a ton of conditions, I’ve made many groups of 10+ run for their lives chucking grenades off a wall, can’t say the same for meteor shower). The only things my elementalist can still do better are static fields, auras and conjured weapons…..

My warrior can be built to put out massive damage or support (in either role can exceed the capabilities of my elementalist) and has several good hybrid builds that can do both. Static field is good, but earthshaker has a shorter cooldown….. Also: Warbanner. ’nuff said

My thief has more HP and armor than my elementalist, moves faster, can stay invisible indefinitely has 3k attack and over 100% crit damage and auto-crits from stealth. Sure, he can’t lay down water fields, but as long as there is someone who can, the shortbow blast finisher spam is actually doing far more “healing” than the elementalist. Hybrid thief seems to actually outshine hybrid elementalist in nearly every way except fun (for me anyway).

So really they don’t want elementalist to be a Jack of all trades. What they apparently want is elementalists to re-roll as kit enginners. I did, and dang is it fun. Kit swapping is like attunement dancing without a cooldown. Either that or get a staff and be a field slave (preferably an aura share build….. see below…..).

(Ah, aurashare, the one thing elementalists can do that no other class can. Besides conjures, okay, two things. The way traits are arranged, makes the ideal aurashare build impossible. This locks one possible high end build into mediocrity. Imagine if the relevant cantrip traits were spread so that you could only take 2/4, well, that’s aurashare’s problem.)

I like the new traits, for what that’s worth. I’m having fun dusting off my attunement swapping skills while I experiment with new builds, but I can already see going back to engineer for most things. I don’t feel that they have brought elementalist to the level of viability that most other classes enjoy, but they are a start. Currently running 0-30-20-0-20 as an experiment, had to switch from knight’s back to mostly soldier’s to make up the lost survivability from the water line. Even with the added toughness and stability, the hp pool is too low to survive spikes (necro condition bombs are the new meta anyway).

My suggestion for balance is simple. Bump base HP to the level of mesmers. Guardians have aegis and virtue-regen without any traits or utilities/weapons and they also have higher base armor (don’t give me that crap about how it’s not much different either, damage reduction is damage reduction in this game of number vs. numbers more numbers is ALWAYS better, I’ve long lost count of how many times I’ve lived by a handful of HP). Thieves have escape/damage/mitigation built into every weapon, we have to actively choose to have damage or mitigation available and what to put on cooldown when. Elementalists need to trait for water/arcane to get similar regeneration to an untraited guardian, have limited active and no passive blocks.

This is not the balance I am looking for in a game.

darkace.8925:

Aether McLoud.1975:

Being able to do needless stuff doesn’t make Car B better, it actually makes it objectively worse, because cars are supposed to drive, stay on the road, and brake.

What part of the elementalist’s arsenal is needless? Is it the damage? The combo fields? Perhaps it’s the group support? Or maybe the crowd control?

Here’s an idea, if you want to be King of X and you hate the idea of being the Jack-of-all_Trades, perhaps you should choose a class that better suits your playstyle? To use your car analogy, if you want a fast car or something that can haul a boat or something to haul the kids to soccer practice, then don’t buy a mid-sized sedan and complain that it doesn’t do what you want it to do.

Most professions are capable at being good to excellent at any role you might desire. Elementalists lack that flexibility, because the balance between survivability and capability is so precarious that we are frozen into mediocrity. Why can I build for damage, or tankiness or support with any other profession in the game, becoming excellent at my focused role and still maintain respectable performance in the off focus capabilities, while with elementalist I have to sacrifice off focus capabilities entirely to just be ok at my focused role?

That’s the issue here. Jack of all trades, master of none implies competence at those trades, while sacrificing true mastery of any. With elementlist, the balanced approach makes us poor at all trades and the best we can do when pushing an area of focus is to be OK at that focus, while becoming horrible at everything else.

I’d be fine even if we had to work a little harder to reach peak levels of capability, but, unfortunately, we have to work really hard just to reach average levels of capability, which is an important symptom of the profession’s problems.

Fiontar.4695:

darkace.8925:

Aether McLoud.1975:

Being able to do needless stuff doesn’t make Car B better, it actually makes it objectively worse, because cars are supposed to drive, stay on the road, and brake.

What part of the elementalist’s arsenal is needless? Is it the damage? The combo fields? Perhaps it’s the group support? Or maybe the crowd control?

Here’s an idea, if you want to be King of X and you hate the idea of being the Jack-of-all_Trades, perhaps you should choose a class that better suits your playstyle? To use your car analogy, if you want a fast car or something that can haul a boat or something to haul the kids to soccer practice, then don’t buy a mid-sized sedan and complain that it doesn’t do what you want it to do.

Most professions are capable at being good to excellent at any role you might desire. Elementalists lack that flexibility, because the balance between survivability and capability is so precarious that we are frozen into mediocrity. Why can I build for damage, or tankiness or support with any other profession in the game, becoming excellent at my focused role and still maintain respectable performance in the off focus capabilities, while with elementalist I have to sacrifice off focus capabilities entirely to just be ok at my focused role?

That’s the issue here. Jack of all trades, master of none implies competence at those trades, while sacrificing true mastery of any. With elementlist, the balanced approach makes us poor at all trades and the best we can do when pushing an area of focus is to be OK at that focus, while becoming horrible at everything else.

I’d be fine even if we had to work a little harder to reach peak levels of capability, but, unfortunately, we have to work really hard just to reach average levels of capability, which is an important symptom of the profession’s problems.

implying that you sacrifice boons when you go full damage?

Fiontar.4695:

darkace.8925:

Aether McLoud.1975:

Being able to do needless stuff doesn’t make Car B better, it actually makes it objectively worse, because cars are supposed to drive, stay on the road, and brake.

What part of the elementalist’s arsenal is needless? Is it the damage? The combo fields? Perhaps it’s the group support? Or maybe the crowd control?

Here’s an idea, if you want to be King of X and you hate the idea of being the Jack-of-all_Trades, perhaps you should choose a class that better suits your playstyle? To use your car analogy, if you want a fast car or something that can haul a boat or something to haul the kids to soccer practice, then don’t buy a mid-sized sedan and complain that it doesn’t do what you want it to do.

Most professions are capable at being good to excellent at any role you might desire. Elementalists lack that flexibility, because the balance between survivability and capability is so precarious that we are frozen into mediocrity. Why can I build for damage, or tankiness or support with any other profession in the game, becoming excellent at my focused role and still maintain respectable performance in the off focus capabilities, while with elementalist I have to sacrifice off focus capabilities entirely to just be ok at my focused role?

That’s the issue here. Jack of all trades, master of none implies competence at those trades, while sacrificing true mastery of any. With elementlist, the balanced approach makes us poor at all trades and the best we can do when pushing an area of focus is to be OK at that focus, while becoming horrible at everything else.

I’d be fine even if we had to work a little harder to reach peak levels of capability, but, unfortunately, we have to work really hard just to reach average levels of capability, which is an important symptom of the profession’s problems.

Yes, every prof can be any role, HOWEVER they can not be every role AT THE SAME TIME, a “DPS” ele can have almost as good of support and control as a support/control ele, just as those 2 can have similar damage to the “DPS” one, all other profs need to pick one or the other and they completely suck at everything else.

If a Guardian wants to have support and control, they gotta give up their damage, an ele doesn’t need to give up that much of their other roles which is what makes them the jack of all trades. This isn’t WoW or some other MMO where Jack of All Trades means they can respec into another role(which isn’t what it originally meant anyway), it means you can do all roles at once with just a press of a button.

darkace.8925:

Aether McLoud.1975:

Being able to do needless stuff doesn’t make Car B better, it actually makes it objectively worse, because cars are supposed to drive, stay on the road, and brake.

What part of the elementalist’s arsenal is needless? Is it the damage? The combo fields? Perhaps it’s the group support? Or maybe the crowd control?

If eles want to do damage they don’t have group support or combo fields besides 1 fire field, and even then they do less damage than other classes and survive worse. And their crowd control isn’t better than other classes.

Thrashbarg.9820:

It’s “Jack of all trades”.

/grammarlesson

Every class can play every role in this game. Developers saying the elementalist should be a Jack of all trades show either a lack of understanding of their own game or a lack of a clear vision for the profession.

(this all basically refers to WvW, we all know that warriors/guardians/andsometimesamesmer are all you need for PvE and tPvP has it’s own little meta about holding and flipping/contesting 2/3 circles for ~10-15 min which is just weird to me)

My engineer packs better support (water fields, fire fields, a light field that pulse heals, blasts, condition removals, various CC, perma-regeneration) and ranged aoe damage (spammable GTAoE with a ton of conditions, I’ve made many groups of 10+ run for their lives chucking grenades off a wall, can’t say the same for meteor shower). The only things my elementalist can still do better are static fields, auras and conjured weapons…..

My warrior can be built to put out massive damage or support (in either role can exceed the capabilities of my elementalist) and has several good hybrid builds that can do both. Static field is good, but earthshaker has a shorter cooldown….. Also: Warbanner. ’nuff said

My thief has more HP and armor than my elementalist, moves faster, can stay invisible indefinitely has 3k attack and over 100% crit damage and auto-crits from stealth. Sure, he can’t lay down water fields, but as long as there is someone who can, the shortbow blast finisher spam is actually doing far more “healing” than the elementalist. Hybrid thief seems to actually outshine hybrid elementalist in nearly every way except fun (for me anyway).

So really they don’t want elementalist to be a Jack of all trades. What they apparently want is elementalists to re-roll as kit enginners. I did, and dang is it fun. Kit swapping is like attunement dancing without a cooldown. Either that or get a staff and be a field slave (preferably an aura share build….. see below…..).

(Ah, aurashare, the one thing elementalists can do that no other class can. Besides conjures, okay, two things. The way traits are arranged, makes the ideal aurashare build impossible. This locks one possible high end build into mediocrity. Imagine if the relevant cantrip traits were spread so that you could only take 2/4, well, that’s aurashare’s problem.)

I like the new traits, for what that’s worth. I’m having fun dusting off my attunement swapping skills while I experiment with new builds, but I can already see going back to engineer for most things. I don’t feel that they have brought elementalist to the level of viability that most other classes enjoy, but they are a start. Currently running 0-30-20-0-20 as an experiment, had to switch from knight’s back to mostly soldier’s to make up the lost survivability from the water line. Even with the added toughness and stability, the hp pool is too low to survive spikes (necro condition bombs are the new meta anyway).

My suggestion for balance is simple. Bump base HP to the level of mesmers. Guardians have aegis and virtue-regen without any traits or utilities/weapons and they also have higher base armor (don’t give me that crap about how it’s not much different either, damage reduction is damage reduction in this game of number vs. numbers more numbers is ALWAYS better, I’ve long lost count of how many times I’ve lived by a handful of HP). Thieves have escape/damage/mitigation built into every weapon, we have to actively choose to have damage or mitigation available and what to put on cooldown when. Elementalists need to trait for water/arcane to get similar regeneration to an untraited guardian, have limited active and no passive blocks.

This is not the balance I am looking for in a game.

I agree with most of this post.

I think our traits needs a much more massive overhaul than what we got with tis patch. You are probably right that we should have the same base HP pool as Mesmers. I think we also need a fair to significant boost to base damage numbers. IMO, Our #1 skills are so underpowered that an across the board 25% boost would just be a starting point, with further upward balance tweaking for many still likely once the dust settled.

The flaws to the profession’s design are just amplified by mildly to woefully inadequate base damage numbers for most of the profession’s skills.

Fiontar.4695:

Thrashbarg.9820:

It’s “Jack of all trades”.

/grammarlesson

Every class can play every role in this game. Developers saying the elementalist should be a Jack of all trades show either a lack of understanding of their own game or a lack of a clear vision for the profession.

(this all basically refers to WvW, we all know that warriors/guardians/andsometimesamesmer are all you need for PvE and tPvP has it’s own little meta about holding and flipping/contesting 2/3 circles for ~10-15 min which is just weird to me)

My engineer packs better support (water fields, fire fields, a light field that pulse heals, blasts, condition removals, various CC, perma-regeneration) and ranged aoe damage (spammable GTAoE with a ton of conditions, I’ve made many groups of 10+ run for their lives chucking grenades off a wall, can’t say the same for meteor shower). The only things my elementalist can still do better are static fields, auras and conjured weapons…..

My warrior can be built to put out massive damage or support (in either role can exceed the capabilities of my elementalist) and has several good hybrid builds that can do both. Static field is good, but earthshaker has a shorter cooldown….. Also: Warbanner. ’nuff said

My thief has more HP and armor than my elementalist, moves faster, can stay invisible indefinitely has 3k attack and over 100% crit damage and auto-crits from stealth. Sure, he can’t lay down water fields, but as long as there is someone who can, the shortbow blast finisher spam is actually doing far more “healing” than the elementalist. Hybrid thief seems to actually outshine hybrid elementalist in nearly every way except fun (for me anyway).

So really they don’t want elementalist to be a Jack of all trades. What they apparently want is elementalists to re-roll as kit enginners. I did, and dang is it fun. Kit swapping is like attunement dancing without a cooldown. Either that or get a staff and be a field slave (preferably an aura share build….. see below…..).

(Ah, aurashare, the one thing elementalists can do that no other class can. Besides conjures, okay, two things. The way traits are arranged, makes the ideal aurashare build impossible. This locks one possible high end build into mediocrity. Imagine if the relevant cantrip traits were spread so that you could only take 2/4, well, that’s aurashare’s problem.)

I like the new traits, for what that’s worth. I’m having fun dusting off my attunement swapping skills while I experiment with new builds, but I can already see going back to engineer for most things. I don’t feel that they have brought elementalist to the level of viability that most other classes enjoy, but they are a start. Currently running 0-30-20-0-20 as an experiment, had to switch from knight’s back to mostly soldier’s to make up the lost survivability from the water line. Even with the added toughness and stability, the hp pool is too low to survive spikes (necro condition bombs are the new meta anyway).

My suggestion for balance is simple. Bump base HP to the level of mesmers. Guardians have aegis and virtue-regen without any traits or utilities/weapons and they also have higher base armor (don’t give me that crap about how it’s not much different either, damage reduction is damage reduction in this game of number vs. numbers more numbers is ALWAYS better, I’ve long lost count of how many times I’ve lived by a handful of HP). Thieves have escape/damage/mitigation built into every weapon, we have to actively choose to have damage or mitigation available and what to put on cooldown when. Elementalists need to trait for water/arcane to get similar regeneration to an untraited guardian, have limited active and no passive blocks.

This is not the balance I am looking for in a game.

I agree with most of this post.

I think our traits needs a much more massive overhaul than what we got with tis patch. You are probably right that we should have the same base HP pool as Mesmers. I think we also need a fair to significant boost to base damage numbers. IMO, Our #1 skills are so underpowered that an across the board 25% boost would just be a starting point, with further upward balance tweaking for many still likely once the dust settled.

The flaws to the profession’s design are just amplified by mildly to woefully inadequate base damage numbers for most of the profession’s skills.

I gotta say, i do agree that our #1 skills need some love, granted i don’t use them very often due to using my other skills almost constantly, but my god do our #1 skills SUCK in most scenarios….

I think our traits are fine for the most part, but there are some areas that need some more love.

Durzlla.6295:

Yes, every prof can be any role, HOWEVER they can not be every role AT THE SAME TIME, a “DPS” ele can have almost as good of support and control as a support/control ele, just as those 2 can have similar damage to the “DPS” one, all other profs need to pick one or the other and they completely suck at everything else.

Nonsense. Support elementalist has nowhere near the damage of DPS elementalist. The difference is that one falls over in a slight breeze and the other doesn’t.

Hybrid guardian will both outdamage and outsupport a hybrid elementalist, as will the full DPS and full support builds. There is a reason gw2lfg doesn’t have many posts specifically asking for elementalists (actually never seen one) but every page tends to have several specifying guardians preferred. One water field is enough to heal a zerg, and one static field is enough to cut an enemy zerg in half, so more than a handful of elementalists in a group are redundant.

Durzlla.6295:

Fiontar.4695:

darkace.8925:

Aether McLoud.1975:

Being able to do needless stuff doesn’t make Car B better, it actually makes it objectively worse, because cars are supposed to drive, stay on the road, and brake.

What part of the elementalist’s arsenal is needless? Is it the damage? The combo fields? Perhaps it’s the group support? Or maybe the crowd control?

Here’s an idea, if you want to be King of X and you hate the idea of being the Jack-of-all_Trades, perhaps you should choose a class that better suits your playstyle? To use your car analogy, if you want a fast car or something that can haul a boat or something to haul the kids to soccer practice, then don’t buy a mid-sized sedan and complain that it doesn’t do what you want it to do.

Most professions are capable at being good to excellent at any role you might desire. Elementalists lack that flexibility, because the balance between survivability and capability is so precarious that we are frozen into mediocrity. Why can I build for damage, or tankiness or support with any other profession in the game, becoming excellent at my focused role and still maintain respectable performance in the off focus capabilities, while with elementalist I have to sacrifice off focus capabilities entirely to just be ok at my focused role?

That’s the issue here. Jack of all trades, master of none implies competence at those trades, while sacrificing true mastery of any. With elementlist, the balanced approach makes us poor at all trades and the best we can do when pushing an area of focus is to be OK at that focus, while becoming horrible at everything else.

I’d be fine even if we had to work a little harder to reach peak levels of capability, but, unfortunately, we have to work really hard just to reach average levels of capability, which is an important symptom of the profession’s problems.

Yes, every prof can be any role, HOWEVER they can not be every role AT THE SAME TIME, a “DPS” ele can have almost as good of support and control as a support/control ele, just as those 2 can have similar damage to the “DPS” one, all other profs need to pick one or the other and they completely suck at everything else.

If a Guardian wants to have support and control, they gotta give up their damage, an ele doesn’t need to give up that much of their other roles which is what makes them the jack of all trades. This isn’t WoW or some other MMO where Jack of All Trades means they can respec into another role(which isn’t what it originally meant anyway), it means you can do all roles at once with just a press of a button.

Actually, I have to go back to my guardian, because it’s just my second most played profession and provides a perfect example. I can spec my Guardian for healing and utility, while still maintaining high survivability and noticeably higher DPS than my “balanced” elementalist.

Going “Glass Cannon” for an Elementalist is very different than going “Glass Cannon” for my Guardian. My zerker Guardian is going to do more damage, have more survivability and even better utility than my zerker Elementalist.

Going “Full heal/support” for my Guardian is going to provide better healing/support than my “Full heal/support” with my elementalist, while maintaining better damage output and providing more survivability.

Going balanced with my Guardian will provide me with more damage and exponentially more survivability than going balanced with my Elementalist.

What exactly does my Elementalist gain in compensation. Nothing.

All professions in the game give up some capabilities when going focused, but most of the time they can go focus while still maintaining respectable damage/survivability. Not so with the Elementalist.

Thrashbarg.9820:

It’s “Jack of all trades”.

/grammarlesson

I choose to believe that the OP was making a pun about trait lines. I like to think that other people make as many terrible jokes as I do, even if they don’t mean to! ^__^

Thrashbarg.9820:

It’s “Jack of all trades”.

/grammarlesson

Jack of all traits
traits as in those things you can pick and choose to make a build.
It was a play on words. Because the webcast made it seem like they want us to trait and stat into everything a little bit in the hope that we’ll have some kind of viability in game. I’ve tried and its not viable in the least. 15/15/15/15/10 build with divinity everything gets you killed 10/10 times in pvp, wvw and pve. Only way to do notable damage, healing or survive at all is to spec-ifically spec for it. But even if we do spec for it (what we’re forced to do anyways) we’re sub par whatever we end up deciding to spec towards. (I didn’t agree with it for a long time but after seeing videos of other classes I can’t help but agree)
Thieves (you know about them; no need for me to repeat it)
Warriors…. same thing
Mesmers…..
Guardians….
Engineers…..
Rangers (are/were decent not sure about where they’re currently at)
Necromancers (used to think they were worse off but after seeing what they’re capable of I’d say they do the most damage in the game and still have more survivability than us elementalists. I mean they have biggest hp pool in game and they can one-shot warriors with ranged.)

Razor.6392:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Razor.6392:

Sunflowers.1729:

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

Nope. Wells are ground cast unless traited for it.

Also, no necro goes crit damage(?)

necros can hit for 28k dmg

each of my meteors hit for 4k damage on top of lava font and other aoes.

I guess wells / life siphon is spammable now?

28k was with an axe no. 3, I hit 5-6k dmg with my meteors but I’ve never seen more than 3 meteor hit the same target nor seen anyone in pvp or wvw stay in the giant obvious red circle. Axe no. 3 of necro hitting for more than killshot off of a zerker warrior with no long wind up at medium range but a class with the biggest health pool in the game (next to warriors) meaning not only are necromancers better damage dealers but its also easier for them to spec towards it without losing too much survivability in comparison to us elementalists.

Raif.9507:

Durzlla.6295:

Um…. if you’re just now realizing that Ele is the Hybrid prof of the game i’m kinda thinking you should get your eyes checked…

That being said they don’t want ele to be the BEST at anything, they’re certainly not going to be the worst at anything.

EX: An ele will NOT have the damage of a warrior, but it’s going to have high damage, and it WONT be as mobile as a thief, but it will still be one of the most mobile profs (or can be). etc.

Why roam on a class that can be caught by any other class save the necro very easily.

Why support on a class that can be outclassed in boon generation by the guardian?

Why do damage on a class that can be outdone by a warrior or a thief?

If you are second best at everything, it means you don’t shine at anything save doing everything. It means there is no need in a coordinated group to have this class, as there really is no need to bring the second best, when you can have the best.

You do realize that several professions all say this very thing? Go read the Necro forums sometime and you’ll see people strongly arguing that no one takes Necros into dungeons because every other class can do everything a Necro does, except better. I haven’t checked lately, but at one time that was the cry of Thieves as well.

The thing is, celestial stat gear just doesn’t pay out. It gives the same total stat bonus as other gear, but spread evenly, which is bad because you’d (for general purposes) want to put more points into the type of combat abilities you have need most. In terms of damage- the type you deal most, in terms of defenses, the place you’re naturally lacking most.
In short, unless your build generally uses everything the exact same amount, it’s better to have a different gear type.

In terms of traits, it’s be bad minor traits in fire and air that make the spread scheme really bad.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Sunflowers.1729:

Razor.6392:

-Ranged aoe damage

That would probably go to Necromancers.
(But I agree with the other one!)

Or grenade specced engineers. or mesmers with glamour skills (quickness AoE?).

May I also note that the elementalist don’t get retaliation, quickness, aegis. OR give fear- torment – poison etc. All very usefull boons and conditions. Thus I conclude that we can’t do everything. Therefore we aren’t a jack of all traits we’re just worst or 5th place at anything we do.

Also forgot to mention the lowest health pool and light armor, take away our mobility after disabling bunkers means we’ll be on deathrow.

This so much. We are not even jack of all trades yet we are still relegated to sucking at what we can do for no reason other than the myth that we are too versatile. We only get the most generic conditions and boons and even then not in enough quantity to mean anything. Fear, stealth and aegis are among the strongest mechanics in the game and we have absolutely no access to them.