Guild Wars 2

It is completely unfair how eles are so low on health and armor that it makes it extremely hard to PvP/pve . When will anet actually make a real balance? When it comes to ele they always make us weaker… Its like we’re sitting ducks just to get killed by mobs or other players.

Ele is a cool guy, he specs Arcane and doesn’t afraid of anything.

Eles are squishy for mainly these reasons:
-They have twice the weapon skills as the other classes with no investment to do so
-They have immense damage capability if they spec for it
-They have immense healing capability if they spec for it

The latter two, I’m really talking about the extremes of the spectrum. Eles have possibly the highest damage in PvE while also giving out very very good uptime on party Might and Fury, and Eles have some of the strongest regeneration and healing capabilities in the game with insanely high boon uptime on Regeneration and Protection.

Because the heavy armor, high HP classes don’t get 20 weapon skills, 5 thousand on-demand boons and more escape spells and CC than you can count on one hand on reasonable cooldowns. (OK maybe warriors do, but they are lame and eles are cool)

The people that use the extra weapon skills as an excuse for poor profession balance fail to see the obvious.

And that is that a player can only input so many commands/skills at a time. If it take an Ele two or three skills to accomplish what another profession can do with one, then it is ALSO taking two to three times as long to accomplish the same thing.

Add in extra long cooldowns on most Ele skills, coupled with attunement cooldowns and a player community that has had a hate-on for Eles ever since daphoenix stalled a few uplevels in WvW and made some videos about it, and you have the current trend of people touting the Ele’s supposed strengths while downplaying the fact that everything about the class is a double edged sword. Not to mention they usually use hyperbole and exaggeration to make sure the Ele remains a free kill.

My main is an Ele though, but I always prefer the underdog in any fight, makes me try harder and it feels much more satisfying winning with an Ele than a Warrior.

The Ele has incredible versatility that nobody else can get without heavy trait/utility investment. Our weapon sets all include CC, healing, damage, support, mobility - other classes have to make do with only a couple of these things.

Kaleban.9834:

And that is that a player can only input so many commands/skills at a time…..
Add in extra long cooldowns on most Ele skills, coupled with attunement cooldowns … current trend of people touting the Ele’s supposed strengths while downplaying the fact that everything about the class is a double edged sword.

This is wrong and misleading. Without attunements I can blast through all my weapon skills once before hitting cooldown and spamming 1. With Attunements I can blast through at least 2 full sets of weapon skills before someone without attunements leaves cooldown. If I run through all 4 attunements I’m cycling back to my first attunement about the same time the #5 skill is coming off cooldown.

In effect I am unleashing constant havok on my opponent, gaining boons and throwing out conditions continuously without ever having to worry about cooldown. If I spec full Arcana I can jump back and forth between attunements even faster and have even more devastating effects.

We are the only class that doesn’t have to worry about cooldowns. There is no double edge to this. It is pure benefit.

We are the only class that doesn’t have to worry about cooldowns. There is no double edge to this. It is pure benefit.

What you dont see is that our important spells have the highest cooldowns ingame. Firegrab, Frost Aura, Cleansing Wave, Updraft and Earthquake in d/d spec are on a 40-45 second cooldown.

On the other hand, our low cooldown spells are mostly close to useless. Let’s keep talking about d/d spec for one moment. Frost Explosion does about 0 damage and inflicts only 3 seconds of chill. The blast finisher is basically useless because if you want to stack might on your fire field, you switch to earth, dodge once with evasive arcana, use earthquake and then ring of earth to keep it on cd. Water, earth and fire auto attacks on d/d are completely useless.

Fire 2, earth 2 and lightning 2 are only used as gap fillers because you have to kill some time to get your important spells ready again. But they all have low damage/dps and short debuff times. For example, every good d/d elementalist will stay in lightning attunement a little bit longer (if the situation allows it) to kill some time using lightning whip, although it only crits for about 1,5k assuming you have balanced gear and let’s say 10-15 might stacks.

So: What might feel like many usable skills off cooldown is in fact just chaining small effects while other classes can achieve the same effect with fewer spells. THATS the double edge.

Torsailr.8456:

Kaleban.9834:

And that is that a player can only input so many commands/skills at a time…..
Add in extra long cooldowns on most Ele skills, coupled with attunement cooldowns … current trend of people touting the Ele’s supposed strengths while downplaying the fact that everything about the class is a double edged sword.

This is wrong and misleading. Without attunements I can blast through all my weapon skills once before hitting cooldown and spamming 1. With Attunements I can blast through at least 2 full sets of weapon skills before someone without attunements leaves cooldown. If I run through all 4 attunements I’m cycling back to my first attunement about the same time the #5 skill is coming off cooldown.

In effect I am unleashing constant havok on my opponent, gaining boons and throwing out conditions continuously without ever having to worry about cooldown. If I spec full Arcana I can jump back and forth between attunements even faster and have even more devastating effects.

We are the only class that doesn’t have to worry about cooldowns. There is no double edge to this. It is pure benefit.

What’s really annoying is when someone who clearly doesn’t understand marginal cost declares something as “wrong and misleading.”

Yes, you can blast through all your cooldowns, so can any other profession. That’s not the issue I was remarking on, which shows you completely missed the point. The point is that due to the Ele having double the skills it takes TWICE AS LONG (or longer depending on cast times) to set off all the skills on the bar as any other profession, usually for a lesser effect.

Which means of course that if you’re balancing damage and versatility around the idea that because an Ele has more skills they have to do less overall, this is completely ignoring the FACT that a player can only input so many commands at once.

On top of that, to even come close to other professions’ DPS an Ele HAS to blast through every skill and hit every combo with perfect timing, regardless of the tactical situation, whereas other professions use their skills as needed not just for damage but for other purposes such as kiting, CC, etc. A Greatsword Warrior for example does not even need to swap weapons to do top DPS, nor use skills like Rush or Whirlwind Attack on CD, instead keeping them in reserve for a chase or evade. Not so the Ele, who has to use skills like Frozen Burst in a set rotation for Might stacking and damage, ignoring the tactical aspect of keeping it in reserve for an AoE chill, or Magnetic Wave for the same reason, completely ignoring its multiple other tactical uses, because Ele skills are massively under par on damage, and much of this is due to the “eles have more skills” bologna justification.

As you say, the upside is you don’t need to worry about CDs but that’s because you have to use them as they come up to stay competitive for DPS, and completely ignore their secondary effects and intended use. This is completely obvious to anyone who even puts a bit of thought in, as ANY guide out there that details how to maintain somewhat comparable DPS to other professions lists specific rotations solely for their damage component.

But if you take away only one thing from what I’ve posted, it should be this: The game engine only allows a set number of inputs per unit time from the player. A Player playing a Warrior can run through two rotations of his skills in the time it takes an Ele to do one. Given that the Ele’s skills are also underpowered (due mainly to the moronic justification of having more skills) that means that on average a Warrior is three to four times more powerful per unit time than an Elementalist. And this is across the board for all professions that have two weapon sets. The Engineer’s kits are a special case, but are balanced against the loss of utility skills that don’t replace weapon skills and are freely accessible, unlike Conjures or even the CD timers on Ele attunements.

People say having so many skills where we need to do like 3 skills to achieve what another class can do in one is a bad thing.

Think of it this way, 3 skills that your opponent has to selectively dodge, or one skill they can easily dodge.

I really don’t see why everyone is complaining about ele being underpowered. After this feature patch I feel more equal and on par with the other classes then ever before. As for PvE, well we all know how good eles are for that so I won’t delve into it.

I’m not going to tell you to L2P but eles aren’t that underpowered in my honest opinion – atleast in the hands of a decent player that is. Put an ele in the hands of a bad player and they are so much worse off that anyone on the map can spot them out lel.

Ok, so let’s take 2 different professions.
The first one has 2 skills that do damage:
- Skill A, does 50 damage, has a 10 second cooldown.
- Skill B, also does 50 damage, and also has a 10 second cooldown.

Now the other professions, sadly has only one skill to do damage with.
- Skill C, which does 50 damage, and has a 5 second cooldown.

Clearly, the first profession in this example is stronger (overpowered), because it has twice as many skills.

Neko.9021:

Eles are squishy for mainly these reasons:
-They have twice the weapon skills as the other classes with no investment to do so
-They have immense damage capability if they spec for it
-They have immense healing capability if they spec for it

The latter two, I’m really talking about the extremes of the spectrum. Eles have possibly the highest damage in PvE while also giving out very very good uptime on party Might and Fury, and Eles have some of the strongest regeneration and healing capabilities in the game with insanely high boon uptime on Regeneration and Protection.

You just had to pull those facepalm arguments.

-They have twice the weapon skills as the other classes with no investment to do so
+ Incorrect! Engineers, guardians, mesmers and necros have extra abilities, but people tend to forget that. Also ours are “balanced” with double the cooldown on everything, so point is moot either way.

-They have immense damage capability if they spec for it
+ As does every other class, only almost every single other class can do it better and not be tissue paper in combat. We are also probably the worst class for condition spec besides guardian due to minimal access to “cover conditions”.

-They have immense healing capability if they spec for it
+ As does every other class if they spec for it and some do self healing much better due to other synergies like blocking, stealth etc.

Extremes in PvE are moot since you play against an AI. And not a very smart AI at that (it doesn’t adapt at all).

To answer the OP – don’t know man. I wish I could have 20k base health and spam condition AOEs all day with my 2.5k+ armor and have some extra minions on top while using the powers of fire and ice…

Scrib.9207:

Ok, so let’s take 2 different professions.
The first one has 2 skills that do damage:
- Skill A, does 50 damage, has a 10 second cooldown.
- Skill B, also does 50 damage, and also has a 10 second cooldown.

Now the other professions, sadly has only one skill to do damage with.
- Skill C, which does 50 damage, and has a 5 second cooldown.

Clearly, the first profession in this example is stronger (overpowered), because it has twice as many skills.

A more correct example would be

Profession A:
- Skill A, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill B, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill C, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill D, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
Profession B:
- Skill E, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill F, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.

Clearly Profession A is better…. wait a minute

I have played every class extensively in PvP and WvW, and in all honesty, I do feel I’m pretty good at them.

Elementalist however..

I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t seem to do well on it at all, I feel like i’m forced to go bunker and do no damage or full DPS with no survivability.

It’s a shame too, because Elementalist is probably the class I would enjoy most at the moment if it weren’t for me being so awful.

There is a reason why eles is the highest skill cap class in the game.

One of the first steps that needs to be done to rectify this situation: move the Elemental Attunement trait back to Adept … OR … make Elemental Attunement a standard baseline that’s included but self-only and change the trait to apply boons to nearby allies.

We are forced nudged towards the arcana and water line for survivability. Which means we are bound to be squishy. Ele defense is all about damage mitigation and healing ability. You can heal your full health pool in one swap to water combined with a dodge roll (evasive arcana) and cleansing wave. You get in, do your damage, get out and stack might. And go back in. Rinse and repeat. Healing can be done on the fly and accomplished faster than any other class in the game. We don’t need to be tough. We need to be smart. Not to mention we have absolutely wonderful kiting ability. We can run directly away from chasing opponents while using PbAoe skills that cripple chill and Immobilize. Now, this is very reliant on fast fingers and knowing how to attunement dance properly. All in all we have some of the best dmg and survivability of any class. If your keeping protection, regen and signet of restoration up, as well as being aggressive. You should have no problems staying alive. Practice practice practice.

SteeleTek.7064:

One of the first steps that needs to be done to rectify this situation: move the Elemental Attunement trait back to Adept … OR … make Elemental Attunement a standard baseline that’s included but self-only and change the trait to apply boons to nearby allies.

The trait is fine as it is. It is a powerful trait hence why it is moved to Master instead of Adept. And making those boons as a standard baseline will only make certain build to be overpowered. Example? Diamond skin builds and s/d burst. This will just make ele too easy to play again and make it braindead and getting another nerf that is not needed just because you wanted one trait to be changed.

Beside, don’t forget the fact that why most people pick Elemental attunement instead of other trait in Master is because every other trait in Master suck balls. How about buff/change those trait so more builds will be available.

Buzzcrave.6197:

SteeleTek.7064:

One of the first steps that needs to be done to rectify this situation: move the Elemental Attunement trait back to Adept … OR … make Elemental Attunement a standard baseline that’s included but self-only and change the trait to apply boons to nearby allies.

The trait is fine as it is. It is a powerful trait hence why it is moved to Master instead of Adept. And making those boons as a standard baseline will only make certain build to be overpowered. Example? Diamond skin builds and s/d burst. This will just make ele too easy to play again and make it braindead and getting another nerf that is not needed just because you wanted one trait to be changed.

Beside, don’t forget the fact that why most people pick Elemental attunement instead of other trait in Master is because every other trait in Master suck balls. How about buff/change those trait so more builds will be available.

How about Lingering Elements includes the basic Elemental Attunement buffs, and there’s a Master Major choice about bringing teambuffs as well?
Lingering Elements is really very bad right now, and it’d be nice to have a trait in our profession mechanic line that actually benefited the class in any meaningful way.

If LE isn’t going to include +damage traits, or Stone Heart, or anything apart from 5 point minors… it needs serious help to be a useful option, and to encourage anyone to go less than 30 points in Arcana.

ANet’s excuse for keeping Ele’s squishy is because of having access to lots of abilities. I know, it makes no sense at all right?
Firstly there is a HUGE disparity between base health values. Low-tier classes get 10.8k health, med-tier get 15k, high-tier get 18.3k.
Thieves and Guardians are the other 2 classes who have the same base health as Ele’s, but there’s a catch – Thieves are designed around stealth, evades, teleports to compensate for their health. It’s fairly difficult to actually land a hit on thieves, a good thief is almost impossible to kill because at the last second they always stealth and run away.
Meanwhile Guardians wear heavy armor and have tons of defenses like blocks, invulnerabilities, powerful heals, etc and make arguably the best bunkers and point-holders in SPvP.

Ele’s have….attunement swapping. A pathetic excuse of a mechanic that forces us to track extra cooldowns between a huge number of abilities out of which less than half are actually worth using. We can’t stealth, our mobility sucks, healing is so-so and damage revolves around the target standing still (Dragon’s Tooth and Lava Font anyone?).

The recent buffs have changed very little about our core weaknesses….super-squishy health and extremely long cooldowns on attunement swapping.

Eles aren’t squishy.

If you’re building full zerk in any PvP situation you’re going to have a bad time.

Ele’s are rad as kitten.

oh jeez, here we are again xD
well, copy & paste from one of the thousands previous post of mines (this in particular is from 8 months ago):
“well let’s get along with it as always: Elementalist is not rewarding. We just have to do twice the effort for the same results of any other class (in the best scenario, that is).”

due note: after 15 april patch, our situation improved considerably in sPvP, at least in staff and d/d weaponsets. Scepter and Focus still in dire need of love.
In WvW the situation didn’t change as much, our overall survivability in small skirmishing improved (again, you may prefer to stick with d/d) but hambow warriors and backstab thieves can still be a threat without putting much effort in it.

Grevender.9235:

In WvW the situation didn’t change as much, our overall survivability in small skirmishing improved (again, you may prefer to stick with d/d) but hambow warriors and backstab thieves can still be a threat without putting much effort in it.

And p/d thief, any necro build, phantasm/PU mesmer, dps guard, engi (though not really power) and regen beastmaster rangers.

Renny.6571:

Grevender.9235:

In WvW the situation didn’t change as much, our overall survivability in small skirmishing improved (again, you may prefer to stick with d/d) but hambow warriors and backstab thieves can still be a threat without putting much effort in it.

And p/d thief, any necro build, phantasm/PU mesmer, dps guard, engi (though not really power) and regen beastmaster rangers.

c’mon…they have to click at least one or two more buttons

JustinFarfan.6840:

It is completely unfair how eles are so low on health and armor that it makes it extremely hard to PvP/pve . When will anet actually make a real balance? When it comes to ele they always make us weaker… Its like we’re sitting ducks just to get killed by mobs or other players.

So the real reason is because nearly all of the elementalist skills are insta-cast.
It is also true that we have one of the highest damage capacities but we will be extremely squishy. Luckily we have lots of perks to keep us alive a bit longer. I think we’re the only profession that can bring two invulnerability spells (focus earth 5 and mist form) not counting the downed state mist form. It can help you get through alot of stuff. Like all those traps in dungeons, big groups of mobs etc.

If a pro elementalist goes full on bunker there is absolutely nothing that can take him down in pvp.
If a pro elementalist goes full damage spec he’ll be able to kill anything and everything that comes at him… except for a thief because you don’t see them coming. Or PU condi mesmers… I think that’s about it. I’ve met one tanky warrior once that I couldn’t take down but those are the only things we need to be wary of. But since only 1/10 thieves are skilled enough to kill and PU condi mesmers are scarce in pvp because they have much difficulty keeping a point and high armor warriors don’t do any damage at all I would say that the elementalist is top game right now.

*correction, a power necro, dps skilled ranger can also take us down quite easily if we don’t go full bunker spec. Seriously a power necro can hit for 3k on auto attack.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

So the real reason is because nearly all of the elementalist skills are insta-cast.

lolwut? not even our autoattack is insta-cast.

If a pro elementalist goes full on bunker there is absolutely nothing that can take him down in pvp.

/nods/ yup, that’s why there are so many pro elementalists in the top ten pvp chart!

*correction, a power necro, dps skilled ranger can also take us down quite easily

condimantra mesmer, hambow warr, MM necro, decap engi, spirit ranger ecc, they can all easily get rid of your Elementalist no matter how good you play or what weaponset you use, in the best scenario you will struggle untile they make an error of which you can take advantage of…. how can you consider “good” a class that relies on others errors to have chances of winning?
Winning should be a matter of outplaying your foe (not his build /facepalm ) instead of hoping he makes a mistake.

Also, I will never stress enough how a much more complex class should also be way more rewarding to play than an autoattack drone: Elementalist is still in a phase in which you just have to do thrice the work to barely stay alive or do what anyone else can do with 1/3 of the effort.

So, I agree if we say that 15 april patch improved our “quality of life”, but it is not healthy for the Elementalists community to spread misleading informations about the state of a class that’s still in dire need of love in most of its skills and utilities.

Grevender.9235:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

So the real reason is because nearly all of the elementalist skills are insta-cast.

lolwut? not even our autoattack is insta-cast.

If a pro elementalist goes full on bunker there is absolutely nothing that can take him down in pvp.

/nods/ yup, that’s why there are so many pro elementalists in the top ten pvp chart!

*correction, a power necro, dps skilled ranger can also take us down quite easily

condimantra mesmer, hambow warr, MM necro, decap engi, spirit ranger ecc, they can all easily get rid of your Elementalist no matter how good you play or what weaponset you use, in the best scenario you will struggle untile they make an error of which you can take advantage of…. how can you consider “good” a class that relies on others errors to have chances of winning?
Winning should be a matter of outplaying your foe (not his build /facepalm ) instead of hoping he makes a mistake.

Also, I will never stress enough how a much more complex class should also be way more rewarding to play than an autoattack drone: Elementalist is still in a phase in which you just have to do thrice the work to barely stay alive or do what anyone else can do with 1/3 of the effort.

So, I agree if we say that 15 april patch improved our “quality of life”, but it is not healthy for the Elementalists community to spread misleading informations about the state of a class that’s still in dire need of love in most of its skills and utilities.

I think that we’re currently in or near the sweet spot. Not all weapon combinations are incredible yet. Especially the scepter which in my opinion only has one viable build (fresh air build) going for it and the D/D is kinda lacking but makes up for it with average mobility. We have generally good sustain and nice boons but things can turn very ugly if y’r unable to dodge a burst or two. But this is the case for all professions… Except the Warrior and Necromancer.
*talking in general a zerker warrior will still have trouble. A zerker Necromancer with low life force as well.

I can outplay every profession with every build except the following:
Tanky Warrior. (simply cannot down them fast enough before their allies show up unless I go fully dps which I don’t like)
Condi PU mesmer (unless I can pinpoint where they are before they stack conditions on me a second time (after I cleared the first load))
Sw/Warhorn spirit ranger with good sustain. But I’ve found a way around them with my new build.

For the rest its only when I am caught unawares which happens alot with all those classes getting stealth nowadays.

you may have not noticed, but you just confirmed my theory….

I Am Dansker.7105:

Scrib.9207:

Ok, so let’s take 2 different professions.
The first one has 2 skills that do damage:
- Skill A, does 50 damage, has a 10 second cooldown.
- Skill B, also does 50 damage, and also has a 10 second cooldown.

Now the other professions, sadly has only one skill to do damage with.
- Skill C, which does 50 damage, and has a 5 second cooldown.

Clearly, the first profession in this example is stronger (overpowered), because it has twice as many skills.

A more correct example would be

Profession A:
- Skill A, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill B, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill C, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill D, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
Profession B:
- Skill E, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill F, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.

Clearly Profession A is better…. wait a minute

If that would be correct, we could make the best burst in the game, and that is not the case. There are classes with a lot better burst damage than us and more survival going zerker, and they have more base armor/health than us.

Ebisun.9682:

I Am Dansker.7105:

Scrib.9207:

Ok, so let’s take 2 different professions.
The first one has 2 skills that do damage:
- Skill A, does 50 damage, has a 10 second cooldown.
- Skill B, also does 50 damage, and also has a 10 second cooldown.

Now the other professions, sadly has only one skill to do damage with.
- Skill C, which does 50 damage, and has a 5 second cooldown.

Clearly, the first profession in this example is stronger (overpowered), because it has twice as many skills.

A more correct example would be

Profession A:
- Skill A, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill B, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill C, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill D, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
Profession B:
- Skill E, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill F, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.

Clearly Profession A is better…. wait a minute

If that would be correct, we could make the best burst in the game, and that is not the case. There are classes with a lot better burst damage than us and more survival going zerker, and they have more base armor/health than us.

That is ONLY for the zerker spec. We outlast any other class when we go cleric or celestial.

correction I guess it also counts for any condition spec but I’m not sure since I haven’t tried condis on my elementalist yet. Guardians are supposed to be pretty bad at them too though.

The ele of Team KPz during ToL is pretty bunker, if you ask me. He was able to handle several de-capping enemies by himself so well.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Ebisun.9682:

I Am Dansker.7105:

Scrib.9207:

Ok, so let’s take 2 different professions.
The first one has 2 skills that do damage:
- Skill A, does 50 damage, has a 10 second cooldown.
- Skill B, also does 50 damage, and also has a 10 second cooldown.

Now the other professions, sadly has only one skill to do damage with.
- Skill C, which does 50 damage, and has a 5 second cooldown.

Clearly, the first profession in this example is stronger (overpowered), because it has twice as many skills.

A more correct example would be

Profession A:
- Skill A, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill B, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill C, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill D, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
Profession B:
- Skill E, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill F, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.

Clearly Profession A is better…. wait a minute

If that would be correct, we could make the best burst in the game, and that is not the case. There are classes with a lot better burst damage than us and more survival going zerker, and they have more base armor/health than us.

That is ONLY for the zerker spec. We outlast any other class when we go cleric or celestial.

correction I guess it also counts for any condition spec but I’m not sure since I haven’t tried condis on my elementalist yet. Guardians are supposed to be pretty bad at them too though.

I am only saying that what they said is not true, there are more things to take in mind for saying something like this.

We can go celestial, but because we can stack might pretty easy, so we can make the damage that we need to take them down before us. This not support what they said either.

What i am trying to say is that having more skills wont make you make more damage, the output damage come from autoattacks and skills plus traits, and our autoattack sucks in some elements, we have to take traits that don’t help to make damage, so if they punish us this way, why punish us also with lesser survival stats?

Iris Ng.9845:

The ele of Team KPz during ToL is pretty bunker, if you ask me. He was able to handle several de-capping enemies by himself so well.

this has been ping pongin’ since launch of gw2: we are not arguing about possible or not possible to do this or that. The point is to make clear to everyone that this class has the lowest efficiency (efforts/results = efficiency) in the game, meaning that you have to work n times harder than x class to get the same result (if not worse).
Balancing would also mean “yeah ok it’s harder to play, but once mastered it will surpass everything” (another key concept missing: “rewarding gameplay”)

I am 1000% sure that after the patch, it is pretty effortless to play a bunker ele. So, to answer the OP’s question: No, the ele is now not squishy.

Iris Ng.9845:

The ele of Team KPz during ToL is pretty bunker, if you ask me. He was able to handle several de-capping enemies by himself so well.

Please watch Master Splinter during the entire fights of KPz in NA:ToL and answer me one honest question: is this particular ele not a living proof of ‘ele is not squishy’?
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/525879111

Iris Ng.9845:

I am 1000% sure that after the patch, it is pretty effortless to play a bunker ele. So, to answer the OP’s question: No, the ele is now not squishy.

Wow that’s entirely not the case. So you’re 1000% wrong.

I am 300% done.

Ele’s are still overall an inferior WvW and SPvP class, a few tweaks here and there aren’t going to change our core issues i.e. heatlh/armor too low and attunement cooldowns too long.

Iris Ng.9845:

Please watch Master Splinter during the entire fights of KPz in NA:ToL and answer me one honest question: is this particular ele not a living proof of ‘ele is not squishy’?
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/525879111

that’s probably cleric and 6 water 6 arcana: he is doing extremely low damage, is role is party healer and he does an excellent job at it.
Team fights are a totally different matter, the discussion is about the lack of self sustain when Elementalist aims to actually kill other classes in 1v1.

Then, perhaps, the OP should get another class that suits his play style, instead of blaming the (ele) class as a whole? Because based on my exp, a good ele hits like a truck and is difficult to kill in pvp.

Ebisun.9682:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Ebisun.9682:

I Am Dansker.7105:

Scrib.9207:

Ok, so let’s take 2 different professions.
The first one has 2 skills that do damage:
- Skill A, does 50 damage, has a 10 second cooldown.
- Skill B, also does 50 damage, and also has a 10 second cooldown.

Now the other professions, sadly has only one skill to do damage with.
- Skill C, which does 50 damage, and has a 5 second cooldown.

Clearly, the first profession in this example is stronger (overpowered), because it has twice as many skills.

A more correct example would be

Profession A:
- Skill A, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill B, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill C, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill D, does 40 damage, has a 8 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
Profession B:
- Skill E, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.
- Skill F, does 50 damage, has a 4 second cooldown with a 2 second cast time.

Clearly Profession A is better…. wait a minute

If that would be correct, we could make the best burst in the game, and that is not the case. There are classes with a lot better burst damage than us and more survival going zerker, and they have more base armor/health than us.

That is ONLY for the zerker spec. We outlast any other class when we go cleric or celestial.

correction I guess it also counts for any condition spec but I’m not sure since I haven’t tried condis on my elementalist yet. Guardians are supposed to be pretty bad at them too though.

I am only saying that what they said is not true, there are more things to take in mind for saying something like this.

We can go celestial, but because we can stack might pretty easy, so we can make the damage that we need to take them down before us. This not support what they said either.

What i am trying to say is that having more skills wont make you make more damage, the output damage come from autoattacks and skills plus traits, and our autoattack sucks in some elements, we have to take traits that don’t help to make damage, so if they punish us this way, why punish us also with lesser survival stats?

While I used to agree with your claim:
‘having more skills wont make you make more damage’
I went and put it to the test and its false. More skills does allow you to do more damage. I went and got my elementalist every single point black aoe damage dealer that I could find ending up with a strange 3-2-3-0-6 build. Got pretty good results.
I just jumped into a group of 3 enemies in tPVP with full zerker gear ofcourse.
Killed all three of them in 20 or so seconds. Now if this was a one time occurence then yea that’d be it but it happened time and time again 30 games long. The only time I really really lost was when there were two experienced thieves who were able to keep their heads cool and beat me solidly 4 times in a row.

The Nameless One.4672:

We are forced nudged towards the arcana and water line for survivability. Which means we are bound to be squishy. Ele defense is all about damage mitigation and healing ability. You can heal your full health pool in one swap to water combined with a dodge roll (evasive arcana) and cleansing wave. You get in, do your damage, get out and stack might. And go back in. Rinse and repeat. Healing can be done on the fly and accomplished faster than any other class in the game. We don’t need to be tough. We need to be smart. Not to mention we have absolutely wonderful kiting ability. We can run directly away from chasing opponents while using PbAoe skills that cripple chill and Immobilize. Now, this is very reliant on fast fingers and knowing how to attunement dance properly. All in all we have some of the best dmg and survivability of any class. If your keeping protection, regen and signet of restoration up, as well as being aggressive. You should have no problems staying alive. Practice practice practice.

I definitely feel you on this one. I’ve played Thief, Necro, warrior, and Ele in Spvp/Tpvp. I have to say that by FAR, I like my Ele the most and don’t die nearly as much. I have a Razer Naga mouse so attunement swapping for me comes naturally. I use combos as I should be, dodge roll as much as I can. I have more stun breaks with cantrips than I do on any of the other profs I listed, and I can kite or completely GTFO of a fight if need be to heal up, then just jump back in. I just wish our highly necessary skills like RTL, Updraft, Earthquake, and fire grab had lower CD’s. I feel the 40-45 second CD’s on these are pretty unjustified when other classes have some heavy damage and CC abilities on much shorter CD’s.

EDIT: When comparing a D/D Ele to a Hambow warrior, a warrior can Backbreaker (30 sec’s) for a two second knockdown, follow that with a Staggering Blow knockback (20 sec CD), then swap to their blow and Pin Down for a 3 second immobilize (25 sec CD), and by this time, they probably have full adrenaline, swap back to hammer, Earthshaker for a 3 second stun (10 sec CD), and by this time, their other hammer CC abilities are more than likely off CD and they can just rotate through them again.

Ele CC compared to warrior has far too long of a CD while they are able to passively heal themselves with their OP healing signet. Of course, this is a compare and contrast of Ele next to Warrior, who has been the flavor of the game since release.