Guild Wars 2

I get this problem occasionally too!

Massive pain. Experienced this bug multiple times.
Going to the top of the door works, but upon activation, you will possibly spawn in the terrain/the door itself. So you get stuck and unable to move unless you have a teleport skill handy.

I like the idea of making Greatsword dependent upon your attunement, no idea why they just decided to make it fire. Probably just a lazy development decision.

Not quite sure what your suggestion is regarding the conjure utility skills- you mean take them out and replace with real weapons? Or when you use them, have it replace the skills of your current attunement?

I like the idea of making it function like an Engineers toolkit or something. I’m not sure if they were purposely fiddly to use, to stop eles having access to so many skills. However I think this would be a good way of fixing ‘range’ issues. If you’re a d/d ele, you can switch to frost bow when you need to do ranged stuff. If they went down this route, maybe just let you equip one conjure maybe? I think that actually gives ‘utliity’ without sacrificing your other attunements.

Cempa.3645:

I have every other class other than Guardian one of which is 80 and the other is on its way to 80 while the rest are a mix. For my last character slot I decided to try Elementalist!

My gaming experience with this class is so negative I have to reach to the conclusion its me not the class. On its own, or in isolation the class seems ok BUT as soon as I reflect to my gaming experience while playing ANY of the other classes in lots of different roles Elementalist appears to be this horrible leveling class that can’t do anything particularly well.

Can any one tell me how can I play this class as ranged/control? Thief, Necro and Ranger all are more than capable of AE kiting and are outstanding single target kiters/control classes. Can Ele do that?

Comparatively, I think Eles are a bit…. weaker than other professions. My first profession was an ele, and it wasn’t until I played a different one that I began to notice that. If you’re playing ele as your ‘last’ profession, then I can certainly imagine that initially it’s going to be a negative experience.

However, I don’t think eles are too bad, and it takes a while to appreciate their (minimal) strengths. Don’t wory though, after you’ve undertaken years of elitist training, you’ll be just about ready to compete with the inexperienced members of other professions.

PvE wise, at least in my experience I found levels 15-30 ish quite a big struggle. I really struggled with the story quests here too. After that though, I’ve found progression quite smooth. Admittedly, you’ll be raking in loot (especially with staff) due to your numerous aoes during group events. I think eles excel here

Providing you can get the balance between raking it in, and not dying (which admittedly can be a pain!) it is an enjoyable profession I think. It will take time to get the momentum going though. It’s not an easy ride initially, but it eases out towards the end. (At least in PvE).

I’m 5 levels away from 80 yay!

In my PvE experience:
I found levels 1-10 fine.
From about 15-30, I struggled significantly, in comparison to my Mesmer.
30-40 things improved for me.
40 up until now I’ve been great!

Especially those later personal story quests, maybe with the exception of the Skritt Destroyer quests (which are awful!), ones such as ‘battle for claw island’ and ‘fort trinity’ I actually found quite enjoyable. I think those maps where you have a significant number of allied npcs, just seems to suit the ele playstyle much better.

Having said that, I would definitely make changes. Things like extremely uninspired and highly chance-based traits (flame barrier!!!). Comparatively, I think eles have the worst traits. Some of them are quite good, but you compare things like the ‘20% reduction traits’ from other professions and they receive an additional bonus. I’d like to see more synergy other than the aura traits, and maybe less attunement specific and chance-based traits. On my mesmer, engineer and thief I often feel spoilt for choice. On my ele, I feel funneled into taking very specific traits, because only a few of them are worth taking. Otherwise, fire focus skills, some minor staff tweaks… and of course the crazy bugged skills should be looked into.

I don’t think the ele is in too bad a place, but I sincerely hope Anet takes priority in fixing skills/traits which are broken, over nerfing niche skills to pad out the patch notes.

Absolutely agree with this!

It irritates me when a potential buff is held back because it would unbalance the other format of play. In GW1, I think that the PvE/PvP split was an amazing decision. It gave the developers more leeway for buffing ‘PvE useless’ skills and giving all professions more interesting options. Similarly, they could tailor for PvP, either changing functionality completely or just balancing without fear of ruining the PvE experience.

I definitely think it allows for more freedom to develop interesting skills and more interesting ways to play.

You’re absolutely right, many of the traits are either just awful or are extremely situational. Some are quite nice for example elemental attunement. Some can combo quite well such as the aura stuff. Which Ohdear mentions

Otherwise, there are far too many that state ‘you gain a small bonus if you stay in the same attunement for 3 years’. Or ‘there is a small percentage chance that something completely useless may happen if you put yourself in danger’ cough flame barrier cough. If anything I think flame barrier deserves an award for most dire trait imaginable.

“You have a 20% chance to cause burning whenever a foe attacks you in melee. Only triggers when attuned to fire.”

…. then the fact that there is a major trait that ‘improves’ this awful trait if you stay attuned to fire. Why would you want to get hit? It only triggers on melee. It’s absolutely horrendous. When you begin comparing these traits to other professions, you begin to see how lacklustre they are.

Another example would be the ‘20% recharge reduction traits’, in which other professions receive an additional bonus.

They’re just extremely dull.

noobdestroyer.4271:

do you know what their cooldown is on 100kittens. Ive never played warrior

I’m sorry, I had to come in here and lol at 100kittens. The filter does make me laugh sometimes

Err 8 seconds according to wiki? Probably lower with a ’20% lower recharge" trait.

Again lost my ability to quote

@boozer that’s fair enough. Admittedly I know very little about sPvP

In PvE at least, the skill felt appropriate. A very powerful skill to cut through underwater mobs (which sometimes seem to be stupidly densely packed), but used inappropriately you’d be completely slaughtered. The cooldown and the complete loss of utility in PvE was enough to balance I think. It’s an elite skill. At least in my opinion.

Also to clarify (at least from my PvE experience), I actually like the trident skills, and think it’s one of the best and probably the most diverse weapon the ele has. Underwater combat certainly isn’t bad, but then again I’ve only just hit level 70. Not sure if this will continue into level 80 areas…

Otherwise yes, fair points from you.

My ability to quote has gone again

What an awful update. Not only are some of them very silly changes (GoR??) I don’t understand why these things took precedence over other currently bugged skills. Seems like these were done spur of the moment, whereas I’m sure we’ve been told that skills are ‘watched before we buff/nerf’. If anyone was watching GoR, then perhaps the most obvious thing was that was still buggy in certain attunements. . Now it’s just useless.

Whirlpool, I think the damage was justified by the fact that you literally couldn’t do anything else. If you could use utilities, move fast or deflect projectiles, then I can imagine a nerf would be in order. I don’t think nerfing the base damage of this skill was the right kind of approach though, because it really does put you in a vulnerable position. You’re slow, can’t heal… so if you use this skill incorrectly you’re erm kittening yourself over. For the damage, it ‘was’ an elite skill after all and it’s not like eles were dominating underwater otherwise.

I’m curious as to if we’ll be receiving any updates on our awful traits. If anyone is watching the game, then they may notice the comparative awfulness of our traits compared to other professions. Of course, I can only assume this will take the form of a nerf to flame barrier.

So true! Love this

Maybe you could add some traits that only provide a benefit if you play the game in an extremely rigid and inefficient way? Mmm having said that, traits that provide a meaningful benefit might be a bit op for an ele…

Anyway I’m just surprised the resident forum ‘l2p bullies and trolls’ haven’t arrived yet to start preaching

Baah my ability to quote has gone again
@Splatomat

I thought my “Feather fall” suggestion fits in perfectly with the current Elementalist traits

Jokes aside, something more serious could be :
Dragon Stomp: 50% fall damage, adjacent foes are knocked down. Earth. Perhaps an ICD on the knockdown effect…

Something like that maybe…

Admittedly I’m level 69, so I’ve still yet to venture into the super high level/end game areas. The story here could be different from my post

Outside of that though, I’ve been ok. Again I’ve not been able to compare to other professions… Maybe they have much easier lives under the sea?

Karl McLain.5604:

We do have some improvements in mind for the elementalist’s main-hand dagger, along with reworking the downed state a bit. Keep in mind that you might not see this for a bit, but it is in the works.

hugs you

I’m happy we have received a post like this. Thank you

With regards to the suggested changes in the OP, they look quite nice
Would it be broken for firegrab to have a lower cooldown? Not a significant drop, but just so I can use it a bit more often in PvE anyway.

Something that puts me off using d/d is just being up in the mobs’ faces. ‘Flexibility’ is limited to a single range. Flexibility at a single range can be good! Although I think there are more drawbacks from being locked into a single range. In PvE I can think of examples where the floor is lava, the boss spawns in the centre. You’re unable to do anything meaningful until someone pulls him onto land, whereas other profession can change. When he’s pulled onto land, you’re far too squishy to be up close and personal… Although if anyone has experiences of d/d against major bosses, that’d be cool to share!

In an example where you’re fighting generic monsters, your ‘flexibility’ is often necessary to perform efficiently in the encounter. Other professions, while not as ‘flexible’ because they don’t have attunements, do absolutely fine anyway and often outperform you.

Overall, I think being able to function at two different ranges is a much better advantage than swapping attunements. Of course, this is slightly off topic, so a story for another day

Nice changes suggested

I actually think the trident is one of the best weapons that the Ele has. I think it’s just a great combo of skills, that function at different ranges with a variety of effects. While some are arguably more useful than others, I think it offers the greatest versatility for the reason that you can function at different ranges and the ability to deal with single/multiple mobs well. I just don’t find this with the land based weapons, I feel locked into a specific range, and some skills just feel redundant in PvE (lightning surge and its 50 second cast time for example).

I’m not experienced in underwater combat with other professions, I can’t make a comparison here.

Otherwise, I’m not opposed to tweaks for underwater, I think one of the biggest issues is extremely poor collision detection. I notice that the earth skills can be impossibly hard to hit people with, even when ‘level’ and close to person, the 1 skill in particular tends to shoot over their head. This is on occasion though.

(Also, water attunement under water appears to be the biggest damage dealer, don’t underestimate 2, 3 and 5 )

Luterin.9876:

Aiglos.2907:

I mean if that was the case, you realise there’s a difference in having to use a utility slot to do what the other classes achieve through traits.

Not really, it’s all part of ones “spec”.

Yay I can quote again

Fair enough. Although hopefully you can still elaborate on errm this:

“Also, it’s not really an issue, since you can get around it by using the tools at your disposal. I can get around in places where others classes cant, including from high heights.”

Would be interesting to learn some tips I think

1 I guess as Korth stated? It’d probably be good for traits that trigger on crits or something due to the number of times it hits. However, it’s still extremely weak? Literally, I’ve noticed the bar barely decreases. So any more suggestions would be awesome

2 is quite nice though, a nice little jump in damage.

Baah lost the ability to quote directly

Could you elaborate Luterin? Not that I’m disagreeing with you, but I want to know specifically how you are using all the tools at our disposal. I assume you’re not referring to lightning flash? Just curious I mean if that was the case, you realise there’s a difference in having to use a utility slot to do what the other classes achieve through traits.

Otherwise I think it’s very odd to exlude the elementalist from this particular thing. Unlike stealth, poison aoe fields etc which are understandably limited to a few professions, the fall damage trait seems like a fairly generic thing. I still think it’s weird to exlude the ele when all other 7 professions receieve a similar trait. This may give significant tactical advantages in some forms of play? Someone will need to back me up on this, because I can’t give specific examples on this particular point.

Lore wise, you’d think an elementalist would cope better with fall damage (air levitation etc). In fact any of the attunements could be used to soften the fall. Not using the lore wise thing as an argument btw. Just speculating

I really don’t see the reason for the exclusion though, which is my personal opinion. ‘Everyone not supposed to have everything’ is fair enough, but when all 7 professions have this trait. If it offers them better mobility, then that’s not very fair

Albane.8367:

Mist Form needs to be a stealth. When you use it, the other players just follow you for 3 seconds and then finish you off, if you are lucky enough to get to it in the first place. Same thing with our Mist Form skill.

If we are stuck with our lame kitten root, then at least have it deal out similar damage to a mesmer downed illusion that hits me for 7k crits with 1k every second I stand there trying to finis them, before they blink away and make multiple copies of their downed state.

Elementalist Downed ability is the joke of the game, which goes great with the current theme.

Yay! Plus 1.

Yes the game is different.

Although I do think it’d be interesting if they gave eles a way to stealth. Could be added to the beginning of mistform/vapour form? I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to break aggro in PvE with these skills. Having stealth in the downed state could offer something interesting. Normally the monsters just follow me and proceed to kill me lol. My mesmer seems to have a significantly better downed state overall…

Anyway back on topic! If that is op, maybe make it a trait (or so that cantrips can cause stealth), maybe toy with an icd to stop repeated stealth spamming. Just a suggestion.,,

It’d be nice I think…

Well if it follows the current trend of ele traits:

Elementalist: ‘Feather fall’
If you have been attuned to air for longer than 40 seconds, there is a 10% chance, that there will be a 5% chance that fall damage will be reduced by 2%. (ICD 20 seconds so that it can’t be abused).

Bug: attuning to a different element causes an internal cooldown of 90 seconds.

During the next bug fix:
Feather fall no longer triggers when attuned to air.

Probably wasn’t included because it’d encourage too much trait synergy. Although I think it’s more likely that those fall damage traits don’t have a conditional activation. To be an ele trait, it either has to achieve very little or at least have a moderate chance of not activating.

In PvE, my original opinion on the Ele was that it was extremely underpowered and that I was dying in like 2 hits. In the middle of dancing around like a mad man trying to kill a wolf, I’d roll into the aggro radius of another monster and normally die due to paper thin defenses. When playing with other professions, I never experienced that level of difficulty.

As time went on, things definitely got better. I’m currently around level 60 and I do feel that my damage is less than other professions, but I’m playing much better. I’m not dying and fights with randomly aggored Moa’s are no longer stressful fights to the death. I used to play s/d, but due to me normally rolling into multiple mobs, I changed to staff. It works pretty well! I’m happy. I’m still trying to work out effective builds, but I’m definitely not finding it too difficult now that I’ve given it time. Glyph of Storms (earth) is an amazing utility skill. Evasive arcana also goes extremely well with staff.

Having said this, whenever I watch other professions killing mobs, especially ranger/warrior they slaughter them effortlessly. A notable moment for me was… Bloodtide Coast I think it was. There’s a part of the island where large groups of risen randomly spawn, and I accidentaly ran into their path. I got slaughtered. However a guardian then came along, and proceeded to destroy most of them. He took down several, before more risen joined the battle. He got downed, and then managed to rally after killing risen in the downed state. Then killed several more, before downing again and then eventually dying. I wish I took pictures, but it was amazing to see! So I don’t know what to make of that really. Other than I could never achieve that on an ele (unless I had glyph of storms perhaps).

I also dislike when people say ‘Ok, if you want to faceroll PvE play warrior, don’t play ele’. There’s nothing wrong with a learning curve, I enjoy the challenge as an ele. Ele was my main in gw1, which is why I keep playing the profession. I just don’t like complexity where the only reward is ‘you survived, but all your skills are on cooldown k sorry’.

I don’t think this class needs a major rework- well maybe the traits do because they’re absolutely dire. A few tweaks to damage/cooldowns in combination with traits that encourage viable flexibility would be awesome

Some nice advice…

I notice ‘glyph of storms’ keeps being mentioned, and it’s a very good skill! I use it quite often. However I dislike the idea of people of using it as a solution to end all of the world’s problems.

If taking glyph of storms is the only solution to improving the ele, then I think something is a bit bad? I’m not saying that every utility skill should be super incredibly amazing, but noone should be forced to take a single skill just to be effective. However, that seems to be a major suggestion that certain people have. It leads to a very rigid/forced style of gameplay if you know what I mean?

I absolutely agree with this because it would save so much time. Going into the menu can be quite irritating, especially after I’ve killed monsters and I’ve gained several new additions to the hero’s inventory.

Agreed, skill is garbage and buggy.

Popularity does not determine effectiveness of a class. It can correlate, but no in this case.

People probably play them because they look cool! I mean it’s a guy who uses the elements!

Additionally people may actually like them. However you begin to realise that they can achieve far less than other professions. It won’t stop people playing, but it makes them grit their teeth more.

I’ve had this happen, although I just ran around for about 4 minutes and went close to the water edge and the cutscene triggered. Definitely something up with this quest though!

Agreed! Elementalist traits are pretty dull at the moment, so this would be interesting.

Related to this, I find that underwater mobs can be a bit weird. They can occasionally disengage from combat, become invulnerable and regenerate health, before beginning a renewed assault.

This can happen sporadically, even when there are no obstacles in the way, it can literally happen at point black range. They’ll swim away and become invulnerable. Can be quite irritating as it happens often enough to be noticeable.

Having played several professions, I think elementalist is definitely the weakest. I initially had extreme trouble in the teens. However I’ve slowly gotten better at using the profession and do find it enjoyable and it can certainly cope.

However, it’s a high risk, pitiful reward class that requires far too much effort to be effective. I feel that I can achieve far more on my guardian in less than half the time it takes for my ele to do something. The amount of keystrokes needed to pull off a decent elementalist is just ridiculous.

Additionally the 4 attunments don’t provide ‘diversity’ in the sense that you’re forced to switch between them if you want to survive. This isn’t a problem! It’s just people seem to think that the attunements are magically good on their own and open up many different builds. I don’t think elementalists have that many ‘good’ builds, in comparison to other classes which have viable builds across all their weapon sets.

Finally, I think that elementalist is one of the few classes that can actually be a detriment to the group. You can be a detriment in dungeons unless you play in a very rigid way, whereas I think other classes have more room to experiment. Indeed, I’ve seen people refusing to take elementalists into dungeons.