Guild Wars 2

Freakiie.8940:

No you won’t.

There is no doing well when your biggest nuke (Churning Earth) hits a Warrior for 2k, the Warrior can remove all the bleed and other conditions you put on him with one click and Eviscerate yourkitten for 8.5k.

No offense, but saying the Elementalist is strong is the same as saying our down state is fine. Oh wait, for a lot of you our down state is fine. Nuff said.

Also, you realise you’re doing exactly what you’re accusing the other side of? But hey, if we say Elementalist isn’t up to the challenge we’re nubs and need to L2P, when you say the Elementalist is strong you’re a guru on the subject. Yeah, totally legit.

PS: Now watch people say I need to get more power and I’ll do dmg with Churning Earth and need to be less glass cannonish and I won’t get hit for 8.5k. And be expected to somehow manage doing both at the same time.

Your first mistake is assuming my argument hasn’t any substance when I’ve yet to make one. You’re trying to simplify the PvP down in to very simple if/when scenarios and that’s not how this PvP works. Everything is a conditional upon a conditional, if a Warrior uses his heal to clear the bleed stacks from the Churning Earth he just stood in then he is opened up to uncleansable blinds and stuns from Air, Chill from Water, Burning from Fire, and easy Bleed application in Earth. And that doesn’t even cover it.

Your Churning Earth doesn’t do enough damage, yet no matter what amalgamation of stats you try you can’t add more power to the skill without sacrificing too much defense? Change your perspective on the skill. It’s not a nuke. It’s a Graveyard wide mega-snare with healthy parts direct damage and damage over time components. Elementalists aren’t about nuking competent players from 100-0 (neither are Thieves or Warriors), they are about outputting more pressure than your opponents can heal. If you land Churning Earth be it a bunker build, power build, or condition build, you are most likely going to do exactly that – unless it’s a specific Guardian or Necro build.

And whereas you’re making end statements about a topic with more factors than you could probably account for, I’m telling you to try playing your class a different way – none of this crap is cut and dried. There are issues with Elementalists that need to be fixed, Lightning Rush and our downed state pre-mist form is a huge one, but that isn’t to say that Elementalists need help. The problem exists between keyboard and chair, not in the class mechanics. One trick ponies currently rule sPvP, learn their trick and suddenly you aren’t wasting all of your cooldowns to get out of one bull rush or a hasted HS spike. If you play Dagger/Dagger (like I do, primarily), you have 5 (potentially 6, if you’re good at the Earth immobi) get out of jail free cards not counting correct use of dodges or utilities.

150 tournament games played on my Elementalist, 120 wins. Top of TWL/CAL ladders in two different FPS, 2700 on BG9, Elementalist main since Guild Wars 1 in HA/GvG, been playing the GW2 Elementalist since the first BWE. I’m no guru yet, and neither are any of you. Look at what people post subjectively and follow their reasoning to its conclusion instead of coming in to a thread with your own (misguided, in this case) prejudices and conclusions and trying to force them on the OP. Kyros provided some great content, and hating on him for it is ridiculous. You should feel bad.

Straight up if I was a mod I’d seriously consider banning Erebus from posting in the Elementalist forums. His attitude is awful for the community, is very often baseless, and demonstrates a distinct lack of intellectual effort.

Having said that, Kyros has had it right from Day 1. Elementalist is incredibly strong in tPvP, and even though the 8v8 clusterduck of sPVP is more suited to 1 trick ponies (GS Warriors, Illusion Mesmers, Minion Bomb Power Necros, HS Thieves, Retal Guardians etc) Elementalist surely has a strong place and a wide breadth of playstyles and roles that it can fulfill and be viable in the 8v8 setting. In that sense, Elementalist is one of the better balanced classes.

No one is arguing that Ele doesn’t need some QoL changes on cast animations (Shatterstone is a big one) across all weapon sets and improvements on skill interactions, but to say that Ele is a weak class hints at a fundamental lack of understanding of GW2 PvP – which is fine, the game hasn’t been out very long and the PvP scene is still in its infancy. I don’t expect everyone on the forums to understand how the whole thing works, yet. But people… for the sake of the community, please don’t act like a guru when you’re very obviously not. Spend time learning the class, and instead of confronting every obstacle (perceived or real) with, “omg worst class NA kitten <insert other class here> has it SO MUCH EASIER WOE IS US” use the obstacle as an opportunity to learn and grow as an Elementalist and as a gamer. Trust me, if you actually sit down and play Ele and figure out how to use its weaknesses as strengths you’ll dokittenwell.

The amount of whine in this thread is glorious ;.;

Kyros, keep up the good work; I’ve been mainly on the D/D side of things, but moved to S/D against competent teams (because while instantly putting out 10k+ damage against non-tanks is hilarious, I’ve only got a few real escapes, and competent players initiate on me as soon as I re-engage a team fight). I appreciate the guide and commentary, this community needs to realize that the more people putting up videos with commentary, the faster the competitive community will grow – and that makes it better for everyone. So much blind hate in this thread.

Ele doesn’t need the sweeping fixes people are suggesting, and Ele doesn’t need a huge rework to be viable. Some QoL changes, some minor fixes here and there on cast animations, and Elementalist is good to go.

Tbh, Ele has some of the most variety in viable or semi-viable builds in the game – Warriors have a handful of workable builds, Thieves have a handful of workable builds (and very few roles), and Mesmers have… one viable build. While Elemantalist has a viable build or role for every weapon set, even though Focus needs some love. DD has a condi/bunker/roam build as well as a power/crit roam build that does probably some of the highest damage in the game, S+D is one of the better roam sets out there across all classes (see: Phantaram, Kyros, etc) and has a great bunker build, and Staff has some of the best team fight and bunkering viability in the game next to guardians and certain engineers.

Please guys n’ gals, learn your class and ask for the changes that will do the most good, the ones that Eles need, and the ones that we are mostly likely to get – the small ones.

One thing you need to realize as DD is that not only do you have some of the best mobility in the game, you provide equal parts some of the best burst and best condition damage. I think DD Ele needs some help in the combo fields department, but the play-style is very hectic and hard to pick up in an sPvP environment. It works much better in a 5v5 setting.

I named my Sylvari Requiem. Pretty much nailed it.

Fenix.4795:

Wotan.2034:

Jim.1698:

Wreckz.4053:

All I have to say is this, I’m a Warrior and have little to no problems soloing thieves. They’re very squishy, and any CC on a thief, usually ends with them dying. The classes in GW2 are honestly pretty balanced for game launch. Just learn how to counter them, and GG.

Now impress me by playing an elementalist and still saying the same thing.

As someone with 100 Tournament wins on an Elementalist, I’m going to go ahead and say the same thing. The standard HS spam spec dies instantly to pressure, the Thief can either run (their strong point), or die. Initiative isn’t returned if you miss the ability, and the usual gambit of the HS spam Thief is to pop Haste and spam HS x3 (or 4 if they are specc’d properly).

If you have less than 2.5k Armor and stand still for it all, it will do a fair bit of damage; but of course, a single teleport/endurance bar/CC/etc will pretty much open them up for an easy counterkill. When Thieves use haste, they lose all endurance and its regeneration – so if they mess up their window of opportunity, they can die very easily.

People need to learn to use their dodges when needed, not just whenever. There are layers and layers of uses for each mechanic in the game, and blindly pressing your buttons will get you killed.

Having said that, I also have 70 Tournament wins on my Thief, and Heartseeker could stand to have its initiative cost increased by 1.

Greed.1702:

There already exists a condition spec that has an amazing ability to single-handed-ly defeat a group of 3 or less mediocre players with ease. The ability to evade almost nearly any attack and continuously apply cripple to an opponent is by far the most aggravating thing for any class to go up against. This is called the Death Blossom Build.

It’s actually called the FLYING UNICORN BACON BABY build, please address it as such.

I actually spam heart seeker 14 times in a row, why the kitten would I make a heart seeker spam build that can only spam 4 times?

No you don’t, Fenix. If you wait for regen, you can hit 5 before burning out your bar. If you use Roll for Initiative, you can hit 6 and 7 waiting a second for regen. If you use Quick Hands (which you really shouldn’t for a HS build) you can hit 7, 8 with regen. Besides, while you’re using your entire trait tree and initiative for crap damage on anything with Toughness, that thing you’re hitting is taking you from 100 to 0.

There is no combination of traits and skills that lets you hit HS 14 times in a row.

Yeah, all I’m getting from this is something along the lines of, “I’m just pressing my buttons as they come off CD and I don’t know why the person waiting for the mobs health to get to the point at which he one hits it always steals my mob!”.

Couple of tips,

Download League of Legends. Learn a jungler. Learn how to properly use smite. Rejoice at your newfound skill at never losing another jungle buff in GW2.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Irascible.8210:

If you did tournaments you would see very quickly that Heartseeker spam builds are extremely weak. It burns all of their initiative so they have to invest EVERYTHING into spamming HS… Giving you ample time to get away / damage them / heal up / etc. If you’re getting downed by heartseeker spam, you’re doing it wrong… You need to time your dodges and always have your utilities and CC ready. Incredible how this forum is FILLED with completely illegitimate complaints about sPvP that basically sum up to, “You’re not playing well.”

If Heartseeker spam builds are ineffective in tournament sPvP, then you obviously have no problem with nerfs that make it equally ineffective in pick-up sPvP. Thanks for your vote of support.

“I can’t play against this class, remove it from the game please”.

Only rank 20 Buddies I play with are all 30+ >.>

Jim.1698:

Wreckz.4053:

All I have to say is this, I’m a Warrior and have little to no problems soloing thieves. They’re very squishy, and any CC on a thief, usually ends with them dying. The classes in GW2 are honestly pretty balanced for game launch. Just learn how to counter them, and GG.

Now impress me by playing an elementalist and still saying the same thing.

As someone with 100 Tournament wins on an Elementalist, I’m going to go ahead and say the same thing. The standard HS spam spec dies instantly to pressure, the Thief can either run (their strong point), or die. Initiative isn’t returned if you miss the ability, and the usual gambit of the HS spam Thief is to pop Haste and spam HS x3 (or 4 if they are specc’d properly).

If you have less than 2.5k Armor and stand still for it all, it will do a fair bit of damage; but of course, a single teleport/endurance bar/CC/etc will pretty much open them up for an easy counterkill. When Thieves use haste, they lose all endurance and its regeneration – so if they mess up their window of opportunity, they can die very easily.

People need to learn to use their dodges when needed, not just whenever. There are layers and layers of uses for each mechanic in the game, and blindly pressing your buttons will get you killed.

Having said that, I also have 70 Tournament wins on my Thief, and Heartseeker could stand to have its initiative cost increased by 1.

Greed.1702:

There already exists a condition spec that has an amazing ability to single-handed-ly defeat a group of 3 or less mediocre players with ease. The ability to evade almost nearly any attack and continuously apply cripple to an opponent is by far the most aggravating thing for any class to go up against. This is called the Death Blossom Build.

It’s actually called the FLYING UNICORN BACON BABY build, please address it as such.

I really don’t see a single Elementalist build that struggles with HS thieves. Elementalists do not need a hotfix, they don’t need an emergency buff. Those casually playing them should realize that the tools of the Elementalist aren’t as straightforward as the tools of the Warrior (for example); if you aren’t doing damage or able to survive, maybe try a different class for a bit until you learn the base mechanics of the game shared across the game type.

Different traits, different armor runes, etc. Don’t give up because you’re getting stomped in the clusterduck of 8v8 PvP.