Guild Wars 2

Erebus, I wouldn’t bother complaining about the state of eles here. Many have left the profession for other better professions, so most of the people left here are desperately holding onto the idea that ‘Eles are great and almost OP’, which is simply not true, though you’ll never be able to convince them otherwise.

The sad thing is that, since so many have left the profession, there are less people complaining about it, so it will likely be in a poor state for quite a while. We also had a major PVP patch, so changes from now will likely be slow going. I know you love ele (as do I), but it’s just probably best to hop to another profession for now that actually fills a good TPVP roll better than ele (other than support obv).

Monkeymoo.6091:

I don’t really think the class description is that far off what it is. From what you quoted

Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding.

YES we are

What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

Yes we are weak but we can heal a load, if you load up on healing and toughness you can heal half your health while sustaining a fair amount.

It’s not the healing that’s the problem, it’s the weak damage that you admit we have. That is completely different from the description.

The only problem I can see with the class specifics is that with Air the Lightning attacks are not very single target high damage. I am trying to build a character with a high single attacks I’ll come back to you once I’ve found it.

It’s been over a month and no one has found the mystical high damage spec that is what Anet described, or the high target damage air is supposed to do. It’s not that we can’t find it, it’s that it doesn’t exist.

Personally I think you and many people including myself have misinterpreted the class description. I think we expect it to be like other MMORPG where we can be a glass canon. I also don’t want the class changed just yet. I think people are still finding how the class works and it’ll be a great shame if we were to be redesigned to fit a description that doesn’t seem that far off anyway.

How is massive damage able to be misinterpreted? You admitted our damage is weak, which is counter to the description. The fact that we can heal well isn’t the point. Our damage sucks, and that doesn’t fit what Anet promised an elementalist to be.

Intigo.1653:

Chill is strong and the Elementalist is better off than you make it seem.

The description of Air may be wrong, but it doesn’t really matter. Sure, they can change that one description and you can play another class that would appeal to your lower skill level?

First off, I think it rude and uncalled for that you suggest I am somehow less skilled for desiring to play the class that ArenaNet said plays a certain way, that actually doesn’t. Please refrain from posting in this thread if you plan on only spouting vitrol about other people.

I think there are two things wrong here.
Firstly I wouldn’t buy a game based on the description of one character. Especially a mmo where basically skill game play etc change and it’s with in their “Anet” right

I buy games based on them doing what they say they will do. It is easy to change a professions design while still staying within the bounds of what you are describing the profession does. They have disregarded their own descriptions and thrown out what the class used to be by giving it low damage and survivability vs what other professions can do with less effort.

Secondly never take the PR guff to heart. If you’re after the damage of a thief from a distance you’re not asking for a balanced game. That being said you are dealing out massive damage in single attacks just not to a single target.
Personally I don’t want the Elementalist changed.
I like the challenge of playing.
I like being thought of as a weak class that everyone can “supposedly” gank.
I like proving people wrong and using the skills available and surviving.
I take pride in my work and don’t blame my tools.

The “PR guff” is the way that people know what to expect from the game. We have nothing to go on for what a profession IS other than their descriptions of what it is designed to be. If this description is wrong, then change it, as it is entirely misleading.

1. I like the challenge of playing.
2. There’s a reason people think this way, overwhelmingly.
3. Fighting an uphill battle due to a disadvantage is great some of the time, but not all the time.
4. Poor tools make performing your job difficult, any workman would know this. This statement is foolish. Get better tools and the work will go better.

I just want what Anet actually describes. Why is this so much to ask?

Anet, I was very taken with your description of the elementalist pre-release and and their playstyle in some of the early BWEs. That was until everything was changed.

Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

The issue is that elementalists do not make up for their squishyness by massive damage as you describe and as used to be the case. I would like the elementalist that you promised in your profession description.

Let’s look at some of the attunement descriptions.

Fire
Elementalists can inflict scorching damage on multiple enemies by turning the ground to fire, raining down molten rock from the skies, and more.

Air
By harnessing wind and lightning, elementalists can target specific foes with focused, high-damage attacks.

Water
Elementalists can chill their foes with ice and rejuvenate their allies with water.

Earth
Elementalists can cause the ground under their feet to come to their aid, turn flesh to stone, destabilize foes with seismic shocks, or trigger volcanic eruptions.

Fire and earth look decently described.

Air? What high damage attacks are we doing? Lighting strike and auto attack? This is not a damage attunement, it’s a utility one, a far cry from what has been described.

Water? Chill is one of the most least used skills in the game other than as a filler skill before you attunement switch to keep the theif from killing you due to its incredibly short duration vs a cripple. Signet of water is never even used due to its terrible active and mildly useful passive.

What I’m basically trying to say is this: I would like the elementalist I bought the game for. The one you described and we would like to play. If you do not want to do this, at least please update the profession description to match so others won’t have to be frustrated by the false advertising.

Thanks for reading.

Did they fix downed state? Yes? Awesome.

Do we still do less damage for more effort vs other classes? Yes? Not so awesome.

The thing that makes me the most sad is that due to the amount of PVP changes in this patch, eles and necros will still probably remain craptastic in terms of damage output for a while as the next patch won’t be for a long while :-/.

Most people you will find on here are happy with their ele, because all of the people who didn’t like it have either quit or gone to a better profession. Additionally, most like the playstyle of ele, just not the lower damage.

Strang.8170:

Nerfs happened, but the not radical enough for it to feel completely different i think.

The spell coefficients for nearly EVERY WEAPON got dropped pretty majorly between the BWEs. Dragon’s Tooth went from 6-7k to 4k on a crit, fire grab from 8k to 5k. Even auto attack damage got nerfed. That massive of a damage nerf changes how the class plays, whether we like it or not.

I don’t care who is on the node, I will attack them every time. If I die, so what??? At least he will be limping and hurt for my teammates who are hopefully right on my heels.
@Slithan, necros are great counters to guardians, why is it so hard to believe that a necro could take them down?

That’s 1 of 8 professions that is reasonably equipped to take down a bunker guardian, and not very quickly at that. Necros may counter guardians well, but they’re relatively worthless outside of that very specific use.

Also, note that I said BUNKERS, not just bunker guardians. Bunker eles, rangers, and guardians, and mesmers are all nigh unkillable 1v1 assuming equal skill levels.

EaGrimdarK.7849:

I kill Guardians without boon stripping, as a Mesmer, Ranger, and Necro. The trick is understanding your class.

If you and a bunker both understand your classes well, the bunker will not die.

Anecdotal “evidence” saying you have killed them before is useless as player skill for both players is entirely unknown.

Seether.7285:

It isn’t that the guardian can not be defeated 1 on 1, it is that they can not be defeated in a time effective manner for the majority of classes, and those that can are pretty exposed to someone coming to assist the guardian.

Actually, most bunker builds can maintain a 1v1 indefinitely and a 1v2 for a decent length of time.

It would take fixing our downed, and putting our damage and survivability on par with most other classes (other than necro lol). We do not do the same damage per the same amount of complexity as any other class. Reward complex play or get rid of it. For PVP, people would rather hit 2-3 buttons to kill you than 10, because it just makes sense.

Updates added. Upvote or report for sticky if you liked this post :-). Bump if you feel led.

Great list. Unfortunately, dodge is not infinite, and most everybody’s skills that break stuns are at 20+ sec CD’s. So, more than 3 of these in a row, and you will get more than 3, you’re screwed.

True. These are primarily so people know what to dodge, as many don’t know the animations or how much damage to expect.

Reserved for future additions.

Mesmer:

Shatters: Clones run at you, then explode. Dodge just before they get to you.
Mirror Blade: Purple axe flies at you and bounces. Can bounce off of the mesmer and give them boons before bouncing back to you. Dodge backward to stop the bouncing.
Leap->Blurred Frenzy: Illusion leaps at you which slows you, mesmer swaps places which roots you, stands still and does a series of rapid sword attacks. Dodging on the leap may be a good choice.

If you notice a mesmer is not really shattering their illusions, they are probably phantasm damage speced and if you’re fighting for any length of time, you’ll need to kill the phantasms.

Thief:

Venoms: Anytime you see venoms go up on the thiefs Buff bar. This can be an indication that steal is coming, and if it isn’t – venoms are dodgeable now – so every auto attack avoided is also a venom avoided.

Scorpion Wire – Slow moving black cable moves toward you, knocking you down and pulling you to the thief. It’s fairly slow, so move out if you can, dodge if necessary.

Backstab: when a thief uses a move that stealths him, a big hit is likely following it. This can be a bit of a guessing game, a good thief will stealth, wait for the dodge – and then attempt the backstab. Dodging away from their incoming direction and constantly moving can help you avoid the backstab.

Pistol Whip: Thief will often infiltrator strike in to immobilize you, then proceed to pistol whip you. If they pop haste immediately, you may not be able to escape the first 2-3 PWs, though spamming dodge while you are stunned can sometimes break you out of their PW cycle, leaving them with no endurance b/c of haste, so go to town. If they don’t pop haste, PW takes a moment to cast in which you can dodge or move out of the initial stun, breaking the entire damage cycle.

Necro:

Marks: AoE patches on the ground, very noticible, all very bad. Dodge or run out.
Lich Form: Run and hide behind something unless they are very near death, you cannot tank this damage 1v1.

Condition removal vs necros is key. If you don’t have any, it could be an uphill battle if the fight lasts very long.

Ranger:

Shortbow: Crossfire rapidly fires and causes bleeding when from the side or behind. Often paired with quickness for massive bleed stacks. Muddy terrain, crippling shots, entangle, and pet snares can all be used to put you in the position required for this skill. Watch your back, use dodges wisely (QZ is only 4 seconds), and prepare condition removal when encountering this type of ranger.

Guardian: This is half “When to Dodge” and half “What to Do.”

General Stuff: If you see a Guardian put up a big, transparent, blue-ish wall, you can’t walk through it. If you attempt to walk through it, you will fall on your kitten and lose about a second of uptime. If you get locked inside one, then run around the interior.

Utilities:
Bane Signet: Guardian raises his oh-so-mighty finger of doom at you, and then knocks you down. Super obvious if you know what to look for, and has a hefty cast time.
Hammer of Wisdom: The third hit causes a knockback. Most of the time this isn’t worth blowing a dodge on, but there will be times when it is. You just need to know when people are focusing you, and when they aren’t; CC while being focused is a death sentence.

Weapons:
1h Sword: The 3 ability blocks incoming projectiles while doing a healthy amount of channeled damage. The guardian is rooted while this happens, so simply walk outside of the 600 range to mitigate what he’s doing, and don’t burn your kitten.
1h Mace: The 3 ability creates a big ol’ ring of block that absorbs incoming attacks for anyone inside. Just don’t burn your big hitters here.
OH Focus: The 5 ability creates a 3-Block shield (another big ol’ ring of block), and detonates after 4 seconds. Detonation does good damage, so take the shield down if the Guardian is being aggressive with it.
OH Shield: Nothing worth mentioning. The KB on 5 is too quick to dodge (read: instant) unless you can predict it.
OH Torch: If the guardian is breathing fire, get away from him. If the guardian is on fire, he’ll throw it at will to do a good chunk of damage. The latter is hard to predict and harder to see in the midst of combat, so duel a guardian a few times who uses torch if you want to get the hang of it.
2H Sword: Auto-attacks hurt. Don’t let him sit on your face. The 2 (rams the sword into the ground) causes AoE retaliation for 4 seconds in a short area, so keep an eye out for it if that’s dangerous for you. The 3 snares the Guardian as he spins in a circle, doing high damage to everyone around him: either dodge this, or run away quickly, as the damage ramps up quickly. The 5 ability throws out a blade, which can be dodged. If the blade hits you, the Guardian can pull you to him whenever he wants within the next 10 seconds, knocking you down. Either dodge the initial blast or keep an eye out for when the Guardian raises his sword in the air, and dodge then; getting hit by this is not good.
2h Hammer: 3 bashes the hammer into the ground, causing a chain to shoot out and head towards the target, at which point it immobilizes. Can be avoided easily as this is effectively an unaimed skill-shot, but dodge if you need to. 4 is an underhand swing with a decent cast time that causes a big knockback. 5 makes the Guardian spin in a circle and create an impassable ring around him; good luck dodging this, as the Guardian can teleport on top of you mid-cast. Be ready to NOT run away if he lands it on you.

Warrior:

Hundred blades: Warrior stands still and attacks VERY rapidly for heavy damage.
Bull Rush: Warrior slides toward you and knocks you down. DIFFERENT FROM RUSH which they charge run at you. Dodge during the slide, as this is often followed by hundred blades.
Earthshaker: Warrior leaps at you with a giant hammer and stuns you.
Backbreaker: Warrior winds up and swing overhead to knock you down.
Pin Down: Warrior fires an arrow that immobilizes. Bow is drawn back.
Eviscerate: Axe MH, Warrior leaps across to you for major damage.
Throw Bolas: Slow moving bolas travel at you to immobilize.
Flurry: Warrior takes out a smaller sword and swings it really fast at you, immobilizes and hits in a cone.
Skull Crack – MH Mace. Warrior swings to stun a single target for 2s at max adrenaline.
Signet of Rage: Axe Signet above head. Major damage incoming, so be ready to dodge.

Thanks to many guildies who contributed to this list. It’s not complete, so feel free to add to it as you see fit and I’ll try to update it. Upvote or report for sticky if you like this post.

Elementalist:

Dragon’s tooth – Giant fire spike above your head. Lands in about 1.5s for large damage. Move if near the edge, dodge if in the middle.
Ice Spike – Same as Dragon’s tooth but with an ice spike.
Phoenix- Flaming bird that slowly travels in a line and explodes for big damage. Can hit 3 times if it passes through you first before explosion. Move out of the line or dodge away.
Churning Earth – Ground rumbles, ele is standing still crouched for 3s. Major damage + bleed if hit. Usually just walk out, dodge if necessary. This is often paired with a teleport, so if an ele is churning earth somewhere else, be ready to dodge at the end of the cast.
Ride the Lightning/Updraft – Ele turns into a ball of lightning and rushes at you, minor damage but often followed by an instant-cast knockdown. Dodge just after/as the lightening explodes to avoid it.
Earthquake – Ele hops up in the air, knockdown and low damage. Dodge during the jump, on the way down.
Meteor Shower – Ele stands still for 3s, flaming hands. Cast continues for a short duration after casting is over. Meteors crit hit for 2-2.5k. Move out of the circle, usually no need to dodge.
Burning Speed – Ele slides toward you shoulder first, explodes for large damage. Dodge when you see him rushing at you, shoulder first.
Shockwave – Ground disturbance, travels in a line. Bleeds and immobilizes. Dodge or move out of the way, it’s pretty slow.
Gust – Same as shockwave but it knocks back with no bleed.
Eruption – Rumbling rocks form and compact, then explode ~2s later. Good damage, 12s bleed. Takes forever to go off, move out; dodge only if necessary.
Lava Font – Small fire pile on the ground, major damage if stood in. Move out quickly or dodge if necessary.
Fire Grab – From chest, ele reaches out and does a short range fire blast. Massive damage if on fire. If you’re burning, they have a dagger OH and close the gap on you, dodge.

If you see an ele with a brown bubble around them, they’ll reflect all projectiles for the next 3s.

If you get immobilized/stunned vs an ele, use a condi removal or stun break or it’s gonna hurt.

Engineer:

Any Immobilize – If a giant net is flying at your face, either dodge or be ready to clear all conditions. Don’t trust that you’ll hit it with a single target condition removal because Engi spams conditions easily to cover it.
Big ol’ Bomb – AoE Knockback with a pretty big radius. It looks like an Asura sized Barrel on the ground and has a couple second delay. It’s best to just run out to get clear of the radius but it is possible to time your dodge to evade the KB.
Overcharged Shot – This one is hard to see but you can predict it if you have good game sense. It has a very short range and most Engi’s use it immediately following Jump Shot – So if an Engi runs up to you and hops up in the air expect to get the KB next. Some practice is likely needed for timing on this one.
Static Shield/Magnetic Field – Both of these can be predicted by watching for the Engi putting up a shield and no longer auto-attacking. One is a reflect so just keep an eye out for the tell-tale reflect bubble for that one.
Turrets – Rocket, Thumper, Net all have CC tied to their activatable. The activatable though is an on next hit attack, so just keep an eye out for when the attacks are hitting you and you can know when each cc could possibly land. For the Rockets KD it can be seen by watching the rockets themselves, a normal rocket will fly essentially straight at the target while the KD rocket has a ballistic approach and will travel much higher before hitting.
Air Blast – This attack is tied to the Flamethrower. Although it doesn’t have an easily spottable animation you can bet that if you are sitting on an Engi’s kitten and they equip the Flamethrower all the sudden that this is the first thing coming out.
Throw Mine – This works similar to a trap or mark from a Necro, so just look for the radius circle and avoid it. Mines in general also have a beacon type light on them that can be seen flashing dimly. One thing to note is that the auto trigger proximity is a bit less than the radius of the KB and the Engi can manually detonate at any time. Because of this I’d just steer entirely clear of it.

It actually takes longer to cast this than it does to res someone up. Can you say worthless?

This is great, OP. I laughed heartily. Till I cried over my elementalist.

If the take away tank/heal ele, I’m seriously hoping they replace it with something, or we’ll be even more useless than we are now.

Mesmer, Guardian, Thief, no particular order.

I feel bad for:
Non-support Elementalists

If “no one” is on it, then just kill it or knock it really low. It’s very possible they saw you coming and left on the other side that you couldn’t see to go get the repair kit expecting you to kill it.

They’re fun to play is why. I love the attunement rotation and all that. I just wish I actually did damage in PVP per the same level of effort.

My favorite part was him running into the whirling mesmer and nearly dying. Pro skillz fo sho.

I’m a thief. I run sword/pistol. I hit 2(inf strike), haste, then just spam 3(pistol whip) until they’re dead, popping steal and/or signets as they are off CD for the might/fury buffs and extra initiative.

Totally balanced.

So I was messing around with SoN and couldn’t quite peg it’s range, does anyone have a decently solid number as to what it may be? My apologies if this has already been asked.

Truga.5897:

People keep bringing on this “effort”. Is pressing 4 keys instead of two really that much more effort? I think you should get into shape if you have to stop to catch your breath after playing an Elementalist. I’m pretty out of shape and fat and all that and even I only run out of breath after 20 keypresses, which is plenty for Eles.

The effort is more that higher skill is required to do the same damage. It also follows that, as you are pressing more buttons, more time elapses and your rather limited survivability becomes an issue. Other classes are compensated for low survivability by high burst contained in relatively few (often spammable) skills, sometimes only 1 or 2. Ele burst is spread out, incredibly obvious, and difficult to setup while still doing the same damage as the easier playstyles. Making playing complex for high payoff = good. Making playing complex for no added payoff vs other classes = bad.

Thanks for all the input guys, keep it up!

For those who disagree with my ‘Damage’ section, I want to clarify that I’m not saying that eles can’t do high damage, because they can. My issue is that the effort required to achieve the same high damage as other classes is substantially higher than those other classes. It’s extra effort for effort’s sake.

5. Signets – The only one of real use is the signet of earth when trying to land a dragon’s tooth or lock someone in an AoE. The crit bonus on signet of fire is substantially weaker than choosing any other damage skill or survivability skill. It’s only real use would be in a condition build, but seeing as those don’t work for eles, it’s kind of a moot point. Signet of air’s passive buff is very minor, and active equally weak, especially in comparison with the thief skill that does the exact same thing, but better (25% speed, AoE blind). Signet of water’s passive condition removal seems useful, but, in addition to mostly cleansing non-existent conditions, it pales in comparison with other ele survivability skills. The active also leaves MUCH to be desired, especially for a 30s cooldown.

6. Damage/CDR traits – Unlike many other professions, our damage/CDR traits only provide damage/CDR for one specific attunement with no other bonuses. This actually discourages the profession mechanic of swapping attunements as you will lose substantial damage trying to do anything else. You essentially LOSE the traits completely when swapping to another attunement, which is frightening. Attunement dancing is now of lesser value the higher you are up a given trait line, further discouraging the use of the profession’s main mechanic, which I doubt is what you are intending.

7. Damage – I’m not going to say that eles do no damage, that’s just silly. What I will say, however, is that substantially more is required of an ele in order to do the same damage that a thief, warrior, or engineer does with much less effort. I have no problem having to attunement swap, chain abilities, and force dodge rolls to land my damage. My issue is that after doing all that, after the best playing I can do and hitting 6-10 button combinations, my damage is just on par (and often below) most other professions hitting just 2. My suggestion: reward players who can play very well with more damage that is above more simplistic playstyles. If you don’t, less and less will want to put forth the substantially higher effort required to achieve the same amount of damage as everyone else.

Thank you for reading, and I pray that this is read in the manner in which it was written, which is out of a respectful desire to see this profession attain the fully enjoyable PVPability that it deserves. If anyone has constructive things to add, such as suggestions or other PVP issues, please add them below.

Happy Gaming :-)

TBH, I love playing an ele. It’s fun, it’s dynamic, you alter your playstyle vs the type of enemy you face, etc, etc. I do believe however, there are several issues of significance that should be addressed to allow eles to stay on a level playing field with other professions. I apologize that I do not have suggestions for each of these, but I do know that people much smarter than I are certain to come up with some.

1. Elite skills – Greatsword is rarely ever used, for the reason that regular weapons put out more damage while allowing attunement swaps, and that the GS #2 is the only real reason to use it. Elementals are incredibly easy to kill (2-3 hits) while not really contributing much to a fight, even without line of sight issues. Tornados can be easily immobilized or stability stripped (making them useless), or killed without great effort.

2. Downed state – We are a free down. In an ideal world where the enemy was a long way off and killed you, this would be a great skill. However, the game is not designed that way. You capture and hold points, you fight over NPCs, all within melee range of your enemies. This doesn’t even include the fact that many professions are melee, and many ele builds require melee range for several important skills. Being a free stomp destroys the whole goal of having a downed state, which, I’m assuming, is not your intention. Please give us a functional #2.

3. Earth/Conditions – Condition builds typically rely on applying a large number of conditions and being able to take hits while the other person bleeds/burns to death. The issue with this for eles is two-fold. First, the traits in earth are far behind when you look at the other trait lines, especially XI and XII when you realize that the earth line provides condition damage. Second, the survivability of eles (light armor) is too low to be able to pull off a condition build, as they cannot keep themselves alive long enough to let the other person bleed out, even without considering the opponent’s condition removal skills. It seems like there is a design for an ele condition-type build (due to the traits), but it just isn’t working. :-/

4. Conjured weapons – I love the design of the individual weapons. They each have something they focus on and do well. The problem arises when you lock an ele into using ONLY that conjured weapon, locking them out of ALL other attunements. Then the weapon must stand alone and be good enough to throw away your other attunements for, and they simply are not worth doing that for. One suggestion would be to have the conjured weapon override the bar of the corresponding attunement for the duration of the conjure (or until dropped), while allowing the elementalist to still swap into his other attunements freely. As it stands, conjured weapons are not being used and PVP elementalists are down 4 utility skills from every other profession because of it.