Guild Wars 2

DrakeWurrum.6049:

There’s a reason that certain traits reward you for remaining in air attunement longer, you know.

So spamming Lightning Whip is worth it because you can move 10% faster? You won’t even get that bonus if you’re not traited for it.

Let’s get back on topic, please.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

What’s “best to do” is situational. It might be better to just sit and wait for a bit, as not all of your cooldowns are really that significantly long.

It’s nice when we’re about to kill an enemy and are too lazy to switch back, but generally, an elementalist that is stuck on air spamming Lightning Whip, with all other air skills under full recharge and all other attunements available to use, leads to very poor results.

The only exception I might see is if fire and earth were under recharge, but even then you could switch to water and stack vulnerability for a later big burst (and still have enough defensive skills to use in the meantime).

DrakeWurrum.6049:

DiogoSilva.7089:

because if you want to deal damage, you’re much better coming back to fire or earth

Here’s the problem you’re having. It’s not all about dealing damage. It’s really not.

Here’s the problem you’re having: you didn’t read correctly what I’ve said.

When all your DD air skills are under recharge, what do you think it’s the best to do, spam the whip, or change to fire/ earth?

You say it’s not all about damage, but there’s literally nothing else to do but damage when your dagger air skills are under recharge, because Lightning Whip does nothing but deal damage.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Nope. The forums are a vocal minority. Popular forum opinion: loleleisweak!

That’s the minority opinion.

The elementalist is rarely seen at organized pvp, and possibly the only profession so far where dungeon pugs sometimes refuse to accept.

That’s not the minority opinion.

This is possibly the worst skill for the elementalist. :P It’s basically asking for you to suicide yourself for the sake of 1s burning.

It’s half-decent for aura builds, but then you can use OH daggers and use the much better frost aura for a smaller recharge.

Also worth mentioning that most people are not talking about how weak they are, but about how weak their profession is when compared to others.

It’s irrelevant if you can survive once you “learn 2 play”, when you can do it with a lot less effort for other professions.

And then you learn to dodge, and then you learn to attunement-swap, and then you learn to burst, and then you realize that the elementalists are still not quite there up with other professions.

Ayame Yoshimoto.1860:

This is ridiculous. If you’re having to use all four bars to kill regular mobs in PvE, perhaps you should stop gearing and traiting as a glass cannon? Against regular mobs, I never swap attunements unless I pull a bunch at once.

There’s reason we tell you to “learn to play”. It’s not just learning what skills you have. It’s learning to not be dumb and put all of your everything into power. A little toughness goes a long way.

I certainly don’t fight every mob like it’s a boss. I fight bosses like they’re bosses (like a boss). Are we squishier than all of the other professions? Of course! But, we certainly don’t do drastically less damage than anyone else.

Please stop complaining about how elementalists are underpowered or suck until you stop trying to be a glass cannon, use your dodge key once in a while, and actually do learn how to play this game.

You’re judging my builds without knowing what they are, my ability to play without knowing how I play, and then, much like our other “pro” elementalist players in this board, come in to suggest extremely basic game advice like “dodge lol”, which, honestly, is pretty much common knowledge around here.

I have a fire/ earth trait build (hey, I have toughness, who would have guessed?), I constantly use my dodge keys (in fact, my build is around dodging, with evasive arcane and stronger endurance regeneration), I love dodging btw, and yes, before you give me more pro advice that no-one-has-heard-before, I also dance through my attunements and know how to hit the right skills for the right situations.

And if for an elementalist to do any good, they must be forced to use a very specific build, then that by itself is already problematic.

Finally, I’m not even saying that elementalists suck in this topic. I don’t think they suck. I’m giving my point-of-view about why they require more effort than normal, and an alternative suggestion to fix that instead of a straight-up buff to all skills.

I really think more meaningul auto-attacks could come a long way. I forgot to mention, but for longer fights, when all our skills are recharging, auto-attacks become even more important.

There are a lot of details to keep our power in check. It’s not only that we have weaker skills, simpler skills and longer recharges than other professions. We also have longer casting times, the worst passive defense of the entire game with no main mechanics to support it (no stealth, no clones, no virtues, no main pet), and we also have to sacrifice a lot when we change attunements (to deal any damage, you must sacrifice any defence from your weapon skills, and vice-versa, exceptions aside).

With all this considered, would better auto-attacks break the elementalist? To note that there’s already a few meaningful ones. Dagger’s water #1 or Staff’s earth #1 are worth by themselves. One sets up a spike before switching attunements, the other keeps your foe weakened while you find the best moment to use your other skills. But other than a few examples, they offer nothing. Will an elementalist ever need to use their Dagger’s fire #1? Drake’s Breath is so much stronger for a very small recharge, and chances are, when everything else is on recharge, you’ll want to switch your attunement, even if the attunement you’re switching to is not the best for the situation.

EDIT: Suggestions? Give more utility to auto-attacks, and make them more relevant to the strategy behind their skill set. No need for a damage increase.

If MH dagger’s air is a defensive line, why does lightning whip not contribute to it? You switch to air for the shocking aura and the weakness effect from #2 skill, and then switch out, because if you want to deal damage, you’re much better coming back to fire or earth, than using the pointless attack. Just an example.

Suggestion for that example: Have the whip inflict 1s weakness per hit, while skill #2 do something else equally defensive but more damaging. This way, spending a few seconds stacking weakness with an auto-attack is fairly nice, more relaxed, and comes at the cost that you’re doing nothing else in the meantime, so it wouldn’t overshadow other options nor other attunements, nor be too strong by itself.

It has become a widespread opinion in this forum that elementalists require too much effort to play, and this becomes clear when we experiment with other professions. May we be newbies or pros, it is clear that we must master this profession to do anything meaningful. And the pro players will tell you right after, of course, if you don’t master the profession, you shouldn’t get any results. But because some of us have experimented with other professions, we’ll quickly notice that even other hard-to-master classes have an easier time in general PvE. Why is that? Oh, in a hard battle, both that Mesmer player and that Elementalist player must “l2p” (learn to play) and make the best use of everything they have to win, surely! But, against normal PvE foes, like that generic wolf outside of your city, why must a Mesmer, which is equally hard to play with, can finish it off with little effort, while an Elementalist player must still fight it as if it was the final boss of the game?

For a moment, I was under the idea that it was all because of the attunement system, and the fact that we have to press more buttons to do anything, coupled with our lack of passive defense. But after analyzing myself playing with a Mesmer and a Guardian, I actually believe we Elementalists are in this stressful situation because of our auto-attacks are not meaningful enough. Think about it:

The general playstyle of a profession in this game has a healthy balance between auto-attacks and other skills. Generally, you try to use other skills at the best moment you could use them, while auto-attacking in between.

A greatsword Mesmer will set up their illusions somewhere around the fight, and then try to keep distance and auto-attack while waiting for the best moment to use their push-back skill, before changing to another weapon. A Staff Mesmer will rely on condition stacking through auto-attacks after they set their combo, a Scepter Mesmer will generate clones with skill #1, and a Sword Mesmer will apply vulnerability with normal attacks and clones before setting up a big burst with blurred frenzy + shatter. Likewise, a Staff Guardian will auto-attack (and use skill #2) while waiting for the best moments to support the party, or a Hammer Guardian will set their symbol of protection by auto-attacking to make better use of it right after. I could go on.

The reason why Elementalists require so much effort, even for easy fights, is because their auto-attacks are not meaningful, exceptions aside. Elementalists die so easily, require attunement swapping so much, must use a lot of skills to burst and a lot of skills to survive, that you are left with little to no time to auto-attack, and when you do, they are just filler, and have little to offer. Maybe a Staff elementalist can throw fireballs while skill #2 is recharging, or even better, keep the foe weakened while waiting for the best moments to set up their earth CC skills. But those are more the exceptions than the rules. To kill your average enemy, you must dance through attunements to survive, and then to set up a spike, and then to spike, and then to survive again, and blow all your cooldowns, even when the enemy is… easy.

It’s perfectly logical that against a hard enemy, an Elementalist player must use everything they have to use, just like a Mesmer or any other must also do their best. But when you go against that generic wolf, and then against the generic wolf right after, and then battle yet another generic wolf 15 seconds later, it’s stressful when every single of those unimportant moments requires a lot of effort for the sake of a normal mob, for the elementalist. While a mesmer, or any other profession, can just slack off a bit and rely a little bit more on auto-attacking, even if they must play well and time other skills right, and this healthier balance between strategic skills and auto-attacking make all non-elementalist professions more fluid to play with in general PvE, give you more time to breath, help break the pace, and simply keep you more relaxed.

The main healing is so weak, that outside of trait builds, the signet of resto is only worth if you can make good use of the passive healing, which is not very impressive either.

With the Glyph, you’ll get better burst healing, you’ll get great passive healing on water, and you still have the flexibility for other effects.

I’d suggest a cooldown decrease for the signet, maybe 5s less. Healing slightly more often and getting access to the passive healing slightly more often should make it more fairly balanced against the glyph, at least in the long term, which seems to be the purpose of the signet. Also, by decreasing the cooldown, you wouldn’t make strong traits like Written in Stone indirectly stronger, so it would be a “safe” change, I think.

Elementalists don’t need drastic changes, but they clearly need something.

1. Bug fixes.
This will help some key skills/ traits that are widely used.

2. Stronger traits.
This should put the elementalists more on par with other professions late-game.

3. More meaningful auto-attacks.
This should make elementalists less stressful to play against normal enemies. Why must we treat every single wolf as the most decisive battle of our lives, while other professions can get off by simply auto-attacking and using a few other skills every once and then?

Weapon swapping for an elementalist would be a mess to play with, a mess to play against, and a mess to balance for, in my opinion.

Elementalists don’t need drastic changes, but they clearly need something.

1. Bug fixes.
This will help some key skills/ traits that are widely used.

2. Stronger traits.
This should put the elementalists more on par with other professions late-game.

3. More meaningful auto-attacks.
This should make elementalists less stressful to play against normal enemies. Why must we treat every single wolf as the most decisive battle of our lives, while other professions can get off by simply auto-attacking and using a few other skills every once and then?

When I’m back to back with an opponent (for example, after a Burning Speed) and use Fire Grab, my character will face the enemy and hit them if I’m stationary, but if I’m moving, they’ll aim the skill to the middle of the screen. It’s annoying, because an elementalist must be always on the move.

A really good player can go through pve with some ease, but a lot of effort is required to kill even the simpler filler mobs out there, regardless of how good you are. No matter how easy an enemy might be, the solution is always “play the best way possible, or die”.

The elementalist is underpowered. Some people who stick to the elementalist don’t realize this, because they have learned how to master their profession, they have learned how to beat PvE, and they’re going to suggest everyone who finds it weak that they should “learn to play”. Although PvE sure is beatable when you know how to play an Elementalist, those people are under the illusion that the effort for their pro skills is a natural requirement to beat PvE in general. But it is not with other professions.

People start to realize how lacking eles are when they start experimenting with other professions, and realize how everything is easier, even with other hard-to-master professions like the Mesmer. Everything requires less effort, for the same amount of skillful play and strategy/ decision-making. Everything can be done with half the skills, for the same results, if not better. The traits from other professions are better, the elites have bigger consequences. And killing simple PvE mobs becomes as easy as killing simple PvE mobs. And then people get disheartened.

Now, due to the nature of the profession, the elementalist is always going to require more effort than other professions. We do not have that elegant playstyle of other professions, which have a healthy balance between auto-attacking and using other skills when they need to. Elementalists rely little on auto-attacks (they are just a bonus that get activated inbetween our attacks every once and a while – they are even weaker than the auto-attacks of other professions, but maybe that’s one of the problems?), and must instead use double the skills to achieve the same effects. It’s a busy playstyle, where we play piano with the keyboard, and this will probably never change (unless our auto-attacks become strong enough to give us some seconds to relax?). But matters get worse when, in addition to this extra effort to play an elementalist, we have lacking traits, the worst passive defense of the game (and no amount of defensive skills is going to save a one-hit kill out of nowhere), and our damaging skills require too much effort for not enough reward (high recharges, easy to dodge, locked when in other attunements, not enough damage by themselves and must be chained with other skills, no means to defend ourselves without sacrificing our burst damage, etc). There’s almost no room for error to achieve anything.

What could help us:
- Better auto-attacks. Would give us more time to relax during easy battles (general PvE), and would give us something better to do when all our skills are under recharge for long battles (in fact, it would even make us not want to waste some of those recharges unless absolute necessary, unlike now). This would allow Elemenetalists’ playstyle to get a bit more relaxed compared to other professions: you would still have to play it the best you can for the hard fights, but for the easier one inbetween, you would be able to take a breath. If that would make PvE too easy for some of you, the solution is to make PvE harder in such a case, so that other professions could also suffer as we have, working hard to survive against every single bunny.
- Better traits. Nothing to say here, everyone seems to agree.
- Some buffs to elites. But they’re not even that bad, really. They’re decent when you know how to use them, even though they’re not win buttons like a few others.
- Some buffs to udnerused weapon skills. With only 5 skills per weapon for other professions, those skills are tight, and every one of them matters. With 20 skills per weapon for the Elementalist, as it is the norm with any other game, when there’s too many skills, some of them are just filler, and it’s harder to make sure all of them are equally good. Fire’s staff can’t support like the rest of the weapon nor burst like other weapons’ fire skills; Fire’s focus is underwhelming; MH dagger’s air, OH dagger’s water and Scepter’s water/ air/ earth have some questionable skills.
- Bug fixes. It’s annoying everytime my Fire Grab misses or my Ride the Lightning stuns me.

BobbyStein.2315:

Raf.1078:

Its a video game geared to serve as many people as possible. What seems neutral and unimaginative to you may seem heroic to some other percentage of the other estimated 1,999,999 people that purchased the game.

But we all have to make the best of the personal storyline. Because there is no way for Anet to customize the dialogue to fit “everyones” expectations.

It’s true we built a game that we hope appeals to a wide audience, but it does help to understand the tastes of our more vocal players. There’s always room for improvement with what we do, so we’ll be taking this and other feedback into consideration as we continue to evolve GW2 over the years.

I think in an attempt to appeal to young teens, you’ve made it harder for older people to enjoy the dialogue (although voice acting and unnatural dialogue are equally problematic issues). I’ve said somewhere in this thread already, that a good children’s story can be enjoyed by adults. Hey, even the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is excellent at appealing to all ages: any 12-years old teen can love their charm, magic, clear and appealing character archetypes, etc; but characters talk naturally, and are filled with subtle details that tells more about them than what they’re willing to tell, including a lot of grey morality (beneath the white vs black surface, LoTR is filled with more complex issues).

For GW2, the archetypes are clear, the main plot points are clear, there’s overall a clear attempt at appealing to a wide audience. But then I see characters arguing like little kids, characters that have little to offer outside of their archetypes/ templates, characters telling the most obvious things to make sure the player can understand it (“We are the Priory. We love knowledge. Don’t listem to them because knowledge is important. Now we’re going to do this, because of knowledge. Also, go get that: it gives us knowledge. Oh, adventures! isn’t it soooo exciting? Let’s make sooo exciting adventures! For knowledge.”), or there’s too much focus on buffing the player’s ego (“Wow, you are a hero! Now, do this. Well done, hero, you really are a hero, doing so much heroic stuff!”). This cheapens everything a bit.

I know it’s appealing to inflate the player’s ego a bit, I understand what was your purpose. But if expressions like “you’re a hero!” were only left for the strongest of the moments, any that would require self-sacrifice, a nearly-impossible task, etc; moments that would involve human lives and a deal of desperation; and especially if those moments were built up through the story, and not suddenly available every 5 levels; those expressions would have a bigger impact on the player (because they were more meaningful, and less overused), and I doubt they would appeal any less to the 12-years old audience. The moment I felt the story was closer to this, was on the assault at claw island, but then, when everything is over… Trahearne gets all the credits. That was the best moment to call the player a hero, and it was really unsatisfying.

But regardless of this last part, what I’m trying to say is, those expressions by themselves excite the 12-years old teens, but how and when they are used will determine how the odler audience will react to it.

A few of the things the elementalist is lacking at are more mathematical facts than opinions. I’m talking about traits. You can’t tell me that +20% recharges for 1 of your 4 attunements is better than +20% recharges and something else for 1 of your 2 weapon sets.

Yeah, other professions’ traits not only feel stronger, but they’re also less conditional. It’s so interesting when you pick a (minor) trait, and get to see its consequences/ results regardless of the weapon you are using. Elementalists’ traits are highly unsatisfying because we only see their effects 1/4th of the time, and they’re usually lacking.

I suggested stuff like “fire fields do X” in my post above, but I would go as far as say that fire traits should offensively affect spells across all attunements, much like how earth traits should defensively affect spells across all attunements, etc. After all, that already happens with their stat boosts. When you’re speccing in the fire traitline, you’re not really speccing into better fire magic, but instead you’re improving the overall power of all four elements – with fire making better use of it generally, of course. Under this logic, I wouldn’t mind seeing something like “all your fields apply might” or “your channeling spells apply burning” in fire, or “your channeling spells apply bleeding” and “all your self-casting weapon spells grant you 3s protection”.

I like traits that are immediatly satisfying, even more so when they are visually shown (through animations) or add something to your playstyle. Thus why my suggestions included stuff like “phoenix when you’re being spiked” or “flame burst whenever you create fields”. Both of them create animations, and thus feel like “extra skills”. And they respectively a) improve your kamikaze spike and/ or allow you to survive a spike, and b) add an interesting playstyle where burning/ condition builds involve field spells.

I agree the conjure trait should be for arcana, and I would change it to this:
- Conjure Weapons have 10 more charges and their weapon skills recharge 20% faster.
This would still have to be a tier 2 trait, I think. An alternative version would be:
- One additional Conjure Weapon is created on the battlefield that only you can pick. (This would effectively mean +15 recharges, though).
I would then add for tier 1 arcana something like:
- The casting time of Conjure Weapons is instant and break stun.
Break stun, so the elementalists can have alternatives to their cantrips. Instant cast, for easier self-combos.

I would fuse most of the one-attunement-only traits into one, something like this:
- Spells recharge 20% faster in X attunement. The longer you stay in this attunement, Y happens.
And then would add for each elemental traitline:
- When you swap to this attunement, X happens for Y seconds.
- When you swap to this attunement, create a combo field and/ or it counts as a combo finisher. (Improving tier 2’s minor traits, and an interesting way for self-made combos.)

For tier 2 arcana weapon traits:
- Your field attacks with Staff are larger and whenever you cast a field spell, you gain retaliation for 2 seconds. (Why? Because this would make Staff fare better in 1vs1, without making it stronger for larger battles.)
- While wielding a Dagger in combat, you move 15% faster and your endurance regenerates 15% faster. (Same suggestion as the OP’s, those two simply compliment each other, and Dagger needs that dodging more than Scepter).
Not sure about the Scepter’s trait.

I also think some meaningful skill-changing traits would be really interesting:
- Meteor Shower and Fire Storm cause cripple for 2 seconds when they hit. (Fire Storm comes from one glyph and one conjure).
- Skill X now creates a combo field or counts as a combo finisher.
- Fire’s Focus skills apply retaliation and/ or regeneration.

Also more cross-elemental synergy:

Air: Arcane’s 1st and 3rd minor traits here:
- Grant yourself fury for 2 seconds on attunement. (Tier 2)
- Skills have chance to apply a condition on critical hits. (Tier 3)

Earth:
- X% chance to gain Y boon on critical hits. (Tier 1)
- Grant yourself retaliation for 2 seconds on attunement. (Tier 2)
or
- Apply blind on target/ nearby foes for 2 seconds on attunement. (Tier 2)
or
- Apply blind on target/ nearby foes for 6 seconds on attunement. This effect can only be activated once each X seconds. (Tier 2)
- You have a chance to apply a condition whenever you are hit. (Tier 3) <— Synergies well with the inherent condition damage boost in this traitline.

Water:
- You are healed for X/ gain X boon whenever you critical. (Tier 1)
- Grant yourself vigor for 2 seconds on attunement. (Tier 2)

Fire (because it’s the most lacking traitline, I’ll try to be more creative here):
- If you lose more than half of your health in 2-3 seconds, a Phoenix is cast on your attacker. (Tier 2?)
- If you are being attacked by more than one enemy in 2-3 seconds, cast a weak Flame Burst on the area around you. (Tier 1?)
- Fire Fields add 1 stack of might to any ally that crosses them. (Tier 1)
- Whenever you create a Fire Field, a Flame Burst is activated on that area (X seconds recharge). (Tier 2-3)
- Whenever you gain might, you apply 1 second of burning to foes around you. (Tier 1?)
- Whenever you take more than half of your opponent’s HP in 2-3 seconds, you gain vigor (X seconds recharge). (Any tier)

Some of those fire suggestions could also be modified for other elements, and I could go on… :P

Elementalists need some work, but nothing that’ll change them drastically. Several of their skills are bugged, their traits are generally ineffective, their elites are average at best (when you know how to use them), and they don’t deal enough damage to compensate for being the profession with the worst passive defense of the game (although they have fairly good defensive skills).

For all those reasons, playing with an Elementalist might be underwhelming for many players. They require too much effort to kill (you pretty much have to master the profession to survive later on, while for other professions, you can kill easy enemies by only using half of your skills available), and they don’t get significantly better with their traits, outside of a few exceptions (unlike, say, Mesmers or Thieves, which get some massive upgrades there).

However, if you’re really interested, I recommend you to try it. It IS a very fun profession to use, it IS unique, it IS strong enough for you to go through PvE (as long as you’re willing to learn it) and GW2 is a game that will constantly get updated with profession changes and bug fixes, so many of the issues players have with the profession now might not exist in the near future.

MS is indeed one of our most hard-hitting skills, without taking into account its random nature. We can also include Fire Grab, Churning Earth, etc.

Regardless, all of those skills do not define the Elementalist as a profession that “can inflict massive damage in a single attack”, because all those skills are weaker than the burst skills from other professions, on purpose, as they are meant to be chained together.

A better definition of the elementalist would have been: “the ability to chain attacks to inflict massive damage.”

Blasting Staff weakens Meteor Shower and Static Field, doesn’t it? I like that trait, but I have my doubts about how useful it is.

As a dual dagger ele, I wouldn’t have gone this far (I’m currently level 77) without crazy attunement dancing, but I admit that I have margin to get lazy and stick to fire during group events, and get better results.

We already are slightly underpowered, if we get stuck at one element, we’re laughably bad.

Vayra.3290:

I have no issues finding groups for anything I feel like as an elementalist, be it tournaments, dungeons or wvw. Maybe my server just doesn’t listen to the general crybabies saying that eles are useless.

Underpowered =/= useless.

It’s true, because elementalists rely on chaining 3-7 skills at once to deal almost as much damage as other professions do with 1-3.

I agree with Flavius. I love the elementalist, but sometimes I even avoid battles because I get exhausted at doing so much work to kill weak, filler enemies.

The simplicity and the elegance from other professions is refreshing. Their playstyle is more fluid and less stressful, where the strategy behind each skill’s usage comes from waiting for the best opportunity to use them (while auto-attacking inbetween), instead of playing keyboard piano so you can hit 2-3 keys at the right time each second.

With other professions, I feel strategical but relaxed at the same time. And I usually get better results this way, over playing elementalist like a crazy pro. :P

Voltric.6920:

Am i the only one who sees the ability to dance between attunements to be an advantage? We have twice the number of skills other classes do, even with their weapon swapping. We have so much utility with our weapon skills. Where’s the problem?

All other professions are designed to be self-sufficient with their 10 weapon skills + everything else, and the game is balanced around that. This means that elementalists’ skills are simpler and more restrict than normal to compensate for the fact that they have two times more. All other professions are also designed to especialize at specific roles, while elementalists by default must be weaker at specialized tasks to compensate for their “diversity”. And in a MMORPG, especially in spvp, professions are judged based on how specialized at doing something well they are.

Attunements are hard to balance. Seems like the best route for the developers to go, is that of dual daggers or staff, where each of those two weapon sets are specialized at something (damage and support respectively) at the expense of everything else, regardless of attunement. So Staff’s earth, air and water attunement are all crappy at damage but excel at CC, while even water’s and earth’s daggers are offensive in nature, while giving healing and disruption as a side bonus. Even so, they’re not perfect at that. Fire’s staff could get some extra support/ cc while still dealing damage (maybe if MS caused KD, or something?), and dagger’s air could get some extra damage with its first skills, imo.

Expansive.3716:

I didn’t get a chance to play beta but did watch some vids. But was the elementalist “that much” OP during beta? I just find it hard to believe honestly.

Who was complaining that the elementalist had too much power? I think the elementalist needs a touch more power and/or health

Elementalists were strong in the betas because they could kill very fast. Their skills are easily avoidable, but when all of them connected, the target would die, kinda like a HB warrior. When they’re not enough to kill, the elementalist’s burst skills are put under a high recharge, and the elementalist player must rely on their active defenses and dodging, milking every little bit of damage they can in the meantime, until they are ready to attempt another deadly burst.

The playstyle is kind of like a timed bomb. You must place a lot of effort to kill fast, or else you’ll have to place a lot of effort to even survive.

However, the devs didn’t like how the elementalist could kill in 2-3 seconds. It’s easy to understand why such a thing would be unhealthy to the game, I guess because it wouldn’t give enough reaction time, and any decent elementalist player would decimate a newbie that was yet to learn how to dodge and etc for casual play. Anyways, our damage was nerfed, and now when we work hard to burst, we will connect less damage on average than any other profession at spamming 2-3 easy skills.

Because that explosive damage was our bread and butter, and because that explosive damage is unlikely to come back, we have to be compensated somewhere else. Maybe future buffs should give us better defense? More versatility/ meaningful options? Maybe more sustained damage, so that we can still be efficient at killing, just at a slower speed?

To note that those nerfs were specifically targetted at Scepter and OH Dagger burst skills. MH Dagger used to be pretty poor back then, has gotten a few small buffs, and is fairly “decent” now, compared to Scepter, but neither of them is efficient enough at killing to compensate for the extreme lack of defense we have, nor for how much time we spend switching attunements for the sake of our defense, while the opponent is there at full HP, waiting for our defenses to end and be put at high recharge, to kill us again in 2-3 hits.

Shockwave.1230:

I think this.

While it is true highly skilled players have an advantage over less skilled players that does not mean buffing the ele so that the average player using an ele is on par with the average player using a warrior wouldn’t give skilled players using elementalists and even greater advantage than skill players not using an elementalist.

What the average player is seeking from the elementalist is simplification (so it’s more on par with other professions), but its class mechanics are not simple. Buffing does allow players to use the ele in a more simplified manner, because they don’t have to swap attunements as much to be effective. That is a solution, but that alone is not the right solution because of the imbalance it would likely create at higher degrees of skilled play. The other solution would be to change the profession mechanic and simplify it, but I don’t want to see that.

There’s another option, and that’s for players to use the class as designed and frequently swap attunements. A slight buff in some cases would be nice, but more importantly I feel it’s necessary to educate players on how to play the profession, which is a big reason I’m posting so much in the Ele sub-forum.

But you’re saying this under the assumption that at high level gameplay (spvp especially), pro elementalist players see a lot of play. If that was true, then the solution shouldn’t be buffs, for sure. But it isn’t true. Elementalists are scarce everywhere, and they’re the only profession that is starting to get rejected in dungeons and spvp teams. I must remind that they are not the only profession that is hard to master in this game.

Mesmer is possibly as hard to master as the Elementalist, it’s harder to start playing with for newbies (due to it being more indirect and abstract, while a newbie can spam their 20+ elemental skills and win low-level content), there’s clearly a lot less people seen experimenting with it in PvE, yet it’s a profession that is being proven time and again how highly dangerous it is at the hands of a good player. I’m talking about simply good player, not “oh so awesome godlike elementalist player that no one has seen it yet” myth.

If Mesmers, Necromancers, Engineers (which do have their own form of attunement system), and even non-heartseeker thieves are really strong at the hands of good players, and are getting good results everywhere, then the excuse that “no one is good enough for the elementalist” feels completely like a myth.

There ARE a lot of people that have 60+ levels worth of experience to grasp the concept of attunement changing, of timing your own defensive skills and of making the correct burst chains. The idea that we all suck and spend our whole lives stuck in the fire attunement is ridiculous, too.

Elementalists are harder to master, but even a new player can learn how to master it if they know where to start from. Tell them the importance of attunement dancing, bursts and reliance on active defenses, and by level 60-70, I’m sure they’ll have a good grasp of it, even if not perfect. A lot of us went to play GW2 already expecting the difficulty behind the elementalist. A lot of us made the conscious decision to learn a hard profession, much like our Mesmer or Necromancer buddies. But while they’re starting to get results, we aren’t.

Our damage is lower than other professions for double the effort. Our passive-defense is non-existant, and we rely on countless active defensive skills. Out traits offer little synergy or are highly conditional or redudant due to the nature of the attunement system. Our elites go from crap to average when well-used. Elementalists used to be stronger pre-release, because we used to deal more damage. We were glass cannons by then, where we dealt more damage in exhange of less defense. But the devs didn’t like how we could kill people in 2-3 seconds, and nerfed our damage, and now we can’t do anything at all outside of staff support. After we have gotten our damage nerf, we’ve been crippled, and need to be compensated somewhere else. If dealing more damage than other professions = killing so fast it’s unhealthy for the game, and if our profession was designed around that, then by not having it, we’ll have to be compensated somewhere else. Maybe more sustained damage, or stronger defenses or more meaningul diversity.

It already kinda works like that. For example, for MH dagger, both the fire leap and the earth leap are number 3.

RTL is number 4 because it’s part of OH dagger. If it was number 3, Scepter eles wouldn’t have access to it.

Pinkerton.5643:

That’s nowhere close to the truth with any attunements but fire. And it’s hardly true with fire because drake’s claw does almost as much damage as lightning whip. Vapor Blade inflicts vulnerability stacks very quickly (super useful, especially in group setting), impale inflicts bleed, and lightning whip is the brunt of d/d air attunement damage. You might be surprised how spamming that with the right build can tear through an enemy’s health.

Honestly, I never have time to spam auto-attacks, because there’s always stronger skills available for me to use.

As a DD ele, I almost always have Drake’s Breath available for fire, and I’m always bursting with the known air+ fire/ earth bursts. This kills almost anything, either immediatly or over time. I then quickly move to water or air for their defensive skills (auras, air’s 2nd that causes weakness, water’s 2nd that heals while damaging, etc) to survive in the meantime, before I quickly dance back to fire/ earth and start bursting again.

Usually, auto-attacks are accidental. Something that happens automatically while I’m kiting, observing the field, etc. They are not “bad” for that, but I don’t think they’re worth spending time on.

The exceptions would probably be Staff’s earth. While you’re controlling your opponent’s movement, keeping them weakened with your auto is effective. Or Scepter’s air, because it was built around it, or something. And maybe a few autos for condition builds.

The elementalist’s traits and elites are lacking. Their damage isn’t as high as other professions, or when it is, it comes at a much greater sacrifice. Attunement dancing makes elementalists hard to play, but it doesn’t offers them any inherit advantage over other professions. Yes, it’s a requirement for you to not suck, but that’s it. It’s even hard to argue that elementalists are more versatile, because elementalist’s skills have high recharges, are simpler than other professions’ skills, and the profession is stuck into one range.

There’s a reason for why the elementalists with the most success are all Staff support. A lot of CC and combo fields there, enough distance, no need to rely on their lacking damage.

I don’t think elementalists need drastic changes, but they’re clearly lacking in many aspects. When you create the profession with the worst passive defense in the game, giving it skills so you can be as defensive as any other profession won’t be enough. Elementalists are currently jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

Pinkerton.5643:

Dude, pay closer attention. lightning whip is THE hardest hitting 1 ability of any dagger attunements. And going heavy air doesn’t mean that you get to sit in air attunement for the entire fight. The stats there also help your fire, water, and earth attunement abilities. Find a way to make your elements synergize in a way that works for your playstyle.

Who uses the ele’s auto-attack skills, anyway? They are clearly underpowered, and their only purpose is to be auto-casted inbetween other spells, when you’re not being fast enough.

Air is a control or burst support element in this game. Outside of fire, earth is usually the second attunement in choice for damage.

Probably because they are working on the game, while the betas used to be at weekends. Let’s wait a few days.

I, too, think, that a Guardian is the Better Elementalist. Sure, Guardians are bad at long-range, but they don’t even need it for PvE. Generally, you can do everything with a Guardian you could do with an Elementalist, for half the skills, with better passive defense, with better traits, and much smaller skill recharges.

Pinkerton.5643:

IT’S NOT UNDERPOWERED! You’re either building it or playing it wrong. My D/D ele kills all kinds of things very fast. Especially when they surround me!
It’s not a matter of mastering an underpowered profession, it’s a matter of mastering a profession that takes more than the intellect of an ape to master. If we get a buff, I won’t just feel like a god…I will BE a god. As cool as that would be, I don’t want that to happen because more people would figure out the class over time, people would start complaining that Eles are overpowered, as they absolutely would be, and then we risk being nerfed into oblivion and ACTUALLY being underpowered, as opposed to just intricate.

“No! Someday someone will master this profession and prove you’re all wrong!!!1” kind of post again.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the elementalist is not the only profession that is hard to master. Let’s not forget that there’s more than warriors, guardians and elementalists in this game.

Also,
Most of the time, PvE is easy. It has its challenging moments, but general questing/ exploration is fairly easy. It just happens that an Elementalist player has the idea that PvE requires a lot of effort. For that reason, when a few pro players come here claiming how a well played elementalist can kill fast enough and survive well enough by pressing 237140845 buttons at the same time and with the right timing, they’re unaware that an average player from other professions can achieve the same results for less effort, and without being half the pros they are.

The advantage of trying to master an underpowered profession, is that once they get a buff, you’ll feel like a god.

If you really like the elementalist, keep learning how to play it best. They have some pretty strong tricks and combos that make PvE much easier, even if those combos require more effort and are less rewarding than spamming a few skills from other professions.

theonewhoknocks.8641:

Large hp pool is worthless. Spec into healing and toughness and a pool of 10k will be full constantly.

And then someone bursts you down for 13k+ damage, and toughness won’t make much of a difference here. :P I hear toughness is more effective against many small hits, than slow, big hits. Also, condition damage is dangerous with low health.

Nonetheless, yes, toughness + healing power is a good combo. :P

Erebus.7568:

well i reached lvl 80 and got maxed gear both tank and dps and i can tell you… its not getting better… i rerolled a worriar (its VERY strong) and now i am rerolling a necro becouse i cant stand playing the game without magic
its not the same but well, the ele is so useless that yer… if i wanna play gw2 and want magic its either suckkitten becouse of class or go mes or necro. so necro for me.. butkitteni am throwing HATE on anets dev team for sucking so much at making the ele

The devs have done a great job at designing the ele, it just needs the right balance, which is hard to achieve with this profession. Elementalists were very strong during beta because they could kill really fast, and their burst damage was nerfed. This, unfortunately, was harsher than we wished it to be, and now we need to be compensated with some buffs somewhere.

parrk.4690:

The same people who don’t want elementalists are the ones who won’t go into a dungeon without a Guardian.

The ability to run anything with any class combination is enabled and supported in this game.

The problem you are writing about is one caused by players and their beliefs concerning how MMO should be played.

That can’t be correct, or else everyone would want the “traditional” dps mage, and only a handful few would want professions like the Mesmer. Anti-elementalist behaviour is the opposite of what you would see in traditional MMOs, and is clearly related with the current state of the profession.

I’m not sure if it’s a reaction for the class being underpowered, if it’s a reaction for the class being too hard to play (it’s not the only one, after all), or a conscious idea that the chances of finding a really good elementalist for the sake of decent results is not worth it, when an half-good warrior or guardian can achieve the same or almost the same results, especially better results when they are good players.

When you’re back to back to your opponent (after burning speed or RTL, for example), some skills, like Fire Grab, will automatically target your opponent if you’re stationary, but will aim to the middle of your screen if you’re moving.

Very annoying with dual daggers, where you must be moving constantly.

pmnt.4067:

I love the focus – even in fire attunement. It has a fire field for stacking might and an aura which grants fury, swiftness and protection (with air and earth 10 traits). What else do you want?

That the aura was good by itself, and that the firefield was stronger.

Suggestions:

Flame Wall – Make it work similarly to Mesmer’s focus wall skill: crossing it gives a negative effect to enemies and positive effect to allies. This effect is strong by itself, and can’t be stacked, so the players/ foes do not need to spend the whole time in it to fully capitalize on the effect.
- Crossing it gives 6-8 seconds of burning to opponents and removes 1-2 conditions to allies.
(Nerf Magnetic Wave, so it only removes 1-2 conditions as well, or even none. Magnetic Wave already does three things at the same time, and elementalists’ skills usually work better by being simpler anyway, due to attunements.)

Fire Shield – It’s the weakest elementalist aura for an extremely high recharge, why?
- Half the recharge (40s -> 20s), double the burning duration (1s -> 2s).
(This skill is inherently stronger in PvP, where opponents can attack fast, than in PvE, where they hit hard and slow. 2s burning two times more frequently would be slightly better for PvE, but I wouldn’t still want to be hit at all. If anything, this skill should be completely revamped into a non-aura, and the aura effect would only exist in traits.)
- No longer an aura. For 3 seconds, block all/ 3 attacks. The attacker gets 2s-3s burning for each attack blocked. Keep the 40s recharge.
(Not too strong: Guardians get better than this for smaller recharges, afterall).
Or for a more kamikaze, exciting playstyle:
- For 5+ seconds, your attackers get burning. The lower your health, the higher the burning duration (50-100% – 2s, 25%-50% – 3s, < 25% – 5s).

Honestly, the fast casting of Earthquake and Updraft are far more useful at disrupting opponents than Gale and Comet, but the later two skills are still good enough, for sure. Water dagger is decent and something you’d expect from Focus skills.

Yes, Focus has better condition removal, a strong invulnerability, and great anti-projectile, to off-set the great damage and mobility from OH daggers. But ultimately, all attunements from daggers are great at something, while fire focus can’t kill nor defend you at all. This is bigger than it seems, because it also affects the fun factor to many people.

I do suspect, though, that if someday fire focus gets stronger, it will need to get one or two small nerfs elsewhere (maybe in earth). I feel that earth focus is so strong, that it compensates for the lacking fire skills.

Anyone agrees? Most of them are boring, mathematical +5%/ +10% damage traits, or highly conditional tiny-effect-when-you-’re-in-this-attunement-only effects.

I mean, if I want to make a condition duration build, I specc into the fire traitline for the stat that increases condition duration. Do I really need filler like “burn/ bleed lasts even longer”? It feels redudant. Isn’t that the point of the stat boosts in each trait in the first place? Although this is an issue with most professions, elementalists’ seem to be some of the worst offenders.

I personally love traits that are visceral (with visual representation), creative (create unexpected effects that might be fun to try out) and/ or contribute to skill diversity (that change skills or profession mechanics in meaningful ways).

Elementalists do have interesting options, for example:
- Persisting Flames, Blasting Staff (the extra sense of power is visually represented with longer or larger animations);
- Written in Stone, Vigorous Scepter (changes the strategy behind signet/ scepter usage; in the last case, it’s visually represented with more dodging animations);
- Evasive Arcana (it’s visually represented, it’s a creative take on dodging and adds an extra layer of strategy to dodging); <—- One of the best examples.

Sometimes, even mathematical traits can be interesting when they’re numbers are meaningful enough, and can challenge you to build around them:
- Bolt to the Heart ;

But the elementalist is filled with really boring, really general traits like “you deal 5% more damage if you’re stuck applying this condition or stuck in this attunement!” traits, or effects that are redudant when taken into account the stat boosts of traitlines, or even traits that are way too conditional generally.

It also seems that traits from other professions have been getting fused into more interesting versions. Many +20% recharge traits now also do something else for other professions. But worse of this, is that +20% recharge traits are inherently stronger for other professions, because it usually affects half of their weapon skills, than for the elementalist, which usually only affects 1/4th of their skills.

Opinions?

I actually wouldn’t want a Greatsword, because they already have one conjure for that.

I would love a MH Sword. Some kind of more traditional melee/ mid-range Battlemage playstyle would be very popular, I think, and high-fantasy players love sword-wielding heroes (even when they’re spellcasters). That, or give them something crazy, like a rifle, for single target, long-range elemental powder bursts. :O But I see a Mesmer having higher priority at receiving unexpected weapons.

I think many of us can agree that Tybalt is one of the most well written characters in this game.

Not overly serious, but serious when he must be so. Natural, spontaneous dialogue with a nice attention to detail (from the writers). No perfect personality, with a healthy amount of strong points and weak points. And a proper character arch that takes them all into account. When everything’s over, I felt like he was my buddy, something that no other character made me feel yet.

My main problem with most of the characters in this game is that, although there’s a lot of effort by the writers to follow certain archetypes and to appeal to several audiences, they are not given by the writers the proper attention to further flesh them out of those templates.

Going back to Tybalt Leftpaw, he is everything the starting human NPC characters wanted to be, at once, and even more. The light, humorous dialogue of Lord Farren, humble and spontaneous like commoner Petra, with weaknesses and problematic pasts like Quinn. More attention to detail than all of them, and most of all, truly a buddy, like all of them tried to be but failed at, because the other three did not have enough personal interaction with the player’s avatar, nor even enough depth to stretch that interaction without making it repetitive, and were discarded by the plot the moment they were not needed.

When I had that key option about Quinn, I kinda couldn’t care at all. But how I would love to have such a choice for my charr buddy!

I haven’t tried PvP much yet, but the popular opinion seems to be that elementalists are slightly underpowered. The general argument is that they require too much effort for too little reward, especially to damage their foes. But Staff support build seem to be strong enough.

It’s even worse for PvE. Vapor Form basically does nothing, as the enemies’ AI chases you down, and then the immobilize is pretty much pointless. In fact, immobilize seems to be pointless in any situation for PvE: if an elementalist dies, it’s mostly because it was within the melee range of a mob, or against ranged foes. There’s no one that must get close to you, to stomp you out.

I agree that Guardian’s underwater is more fun. It’s simpler and more effective. Elementalists’ underwater seem to be too busy with too many skills that do too little. It requires more effort for less reward.

Magnetic Grasp, outside of its buggy behaviour, seems underpowered compared to Burning Speed. I would suggest this skill to add Protection to the elementalist during its duration, and maybe for 1-2 seconds more. Why? For two reasons: for a more effective churning earth (when OH daggers is equipped), and because that skills puts you right in the middle of a mob. Burning Speed works because its part of a chain combo, and a good offense is sometimes the best defense. Magnetic Grasp is in a different situation: it’s slower, it’s more dangerous, and earth attunement does not kills quickly enough like fire. Thus why I suggested protection. Projectile reflection and invulnerability could also work, but then it would overlap with the focus skills. A KD, a stun or the like at the end would overlap with Earthquake, but could work. So yeah, 3s protection?

Arcane’s trait Arcane Energy does not seems to work with the healing signet. :/

It’s exactly because the fire skills are mediocre, that I don’t usually use the focus. Yes, earth is really strong (maybe too much), and water and air are conditionally strong. But I can’t stand fire. Flamewall is like an harder to use and less rewarding fire ring, and fire shield is so poor that I only use it because it’s instant cast. Even if it only had 1/4 of its recharge, I wouldn’t want to be hit for the sake of 1s burning.

Dagger is extremely fun because of the mobility and burst chains. RDL + Updraft + Fire Ring (for arcane wave’s might) + Fire Grab. It’s highly satisfying.

I know Focus is supposed to be more defensive, but I just wish its fire skills were any funnier to play with. Earth’s skills are strong, but simple and instant-cast. Air’s and Water’s rupts are interesting, but hard to time them out (well, ya, I know we’re not Mesmers). It is overall an interesting OH option, but I feel there’s something lacking, and I’m sure that’s because of what fire has (not) to offer.

I feel like ALL OH dagger skills are both useful and very interesting. I also have to bow to its earth’s earthquake + churning earth beauty. Only water’s dagger is more “focus-ish”. Even without taking fire into account, several focus skills feel a bit too conditional. At certain situations some are dead-weight. Also, sometimes what makes skills fun is their drawbacks. Earthquake + Churning Earth are strong, but require skill. Stone Skin and the Magnetic Wave are strong, but in the kind of “cast it when you need it, and then forget about it” kind of way. Not that I mind it, but a revamp to fire’s skills to make them strong and with drawbacks could come a long way to make focus more viable AND fun.

Maybe if the fire shield was truly a crazy kamikaze-ish option?