Lately i’ve been messing around with my elementalist and picked a nice and fun PvP build with my Ele that works when my class doesn’t bug out(Which happens 3/4’s of the time, thanks for that =/ ).
I use Dual Daggers in sPvP. It’s fun, has decent gap closers and deals decent damage while taking full advantage of all of your attunements which, i’m presuming, is exactly what the developers wanted in Elementalists and not sticking to the one attunement spamming 2, 3 and 5 when off CD(Certainly the case with Staff and Fire attunement especially in PvE). As you can tell, being dual daggers, it’s a close combat build. It works, you can heal and do damage but that’s worthless when your main gap closing abilities are completely broken and only work 1/4 of the time. Specifically i’m talking about Ride The Lightning and Magnetic Grasp.
We’re all too aware of the bugs in RTL and i’m surprised this hasn’t been fixed yet. It’s a huge deal! More often than not you’ll stun yourself, being open to enemies to run away from you and use abilities against you. When you use RTL you almost always get stuck on terrain and for some ridiculous reason RTL decides to take a path with obstacles in it’s way getting stuck on trees or just stopping mid transit for no reason at all. You will literally have a clear path and halfway through RTL will decided to stop. Fix it, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be fixed. It’s a huge flaw and must be addressed.
Magnetic Grasp: Two problems with this ability.
1. It doesn’t connect half the time. You’re within range, there’s no obstacles in your path and there’s no other units or players around to hit instead and it won’t land on the target. I get that you can dodge it but when the player doesn’t dodge, is standing there or moving normally and you’re within range and it doesn’t land? That’s a problem. It needs to be fixed.
2. You manage to land the ability on the enemy but you’re flung twenty feet behind them. Why is this happening on release and why is it happening two weeks after release with no word on fixing it?
There’s also Updraft that doesn’t work half the time either. If you use it you sometimes tumble FORWARD as opposed to backwards. Sometimes you don’t even tumble you just stand in the same spot.
All this needs to be addressed ASAP. The class is basically broken for sPvP because of these abilities. All we can do is run around with a staff and hope enemies are stupid enough to stand in our AoE abilities.
Now, let’s talk about Elementalist’s Down State. It sucks. I have no problem with it, I think it’s fine, rather I thought it was fine until I seen Warriors, Guardians, Mesmers, Assassins and Engineers Down State. Mesmers can go stealth and summon duplicates? Assassins can go stealth and randomly appear in a different location(Of which can be on ledges or hidden under some ledges??)? Both these classes can do this within the time it takes you to perform a Killing Blow and they can do it twice. That’s fifteen seconds of trying to kill these players, sometimes lasting longer than it normally takes to kill them! Warriors can get up out of Down State and have a chance to finish off their target. What do Elementalists get? We get a Mist Form for four seconds. A form that can’t pass through units, only lasts four seconds, takes upward of six seconds to cast and still carries DoT’s with it. It’s next to useless compared to other down states. The only use to this down state ability is in WvWvW when you’re in the phase of knocking down gates or defending castles.
We need RTL fixed.
We need Magnetic Grasp fixed.
We need Updraft fixed.
We need a buff to our down state considering how insane other down state abilities are. Also, Create a Lava Font when you’re downed? Useless. It deals so little damage and a Killing Blow can be used outside of the Lava Font’s AoE. Total waste of a trait.