Guild Wars 2

Where is fun in that? Experience is the best teacher. :p

Ok, a little pointer. Diversify. Do that and you’re golden. Literally!

There is also option 5 (smartest) – buy low, sell high. For someone who made billions of ISK in Eve Online just by market trading, getting gold is a cakewalk in this game. Once you get past the initial asset hurdle, you can just literally park yourself at the auction house and watch the coins roll in.

Grinding gold… the only gold you need to grind is the first gold piece, then trade your way to fame and fortune.

Stop comparing yourself to other classes. I don’t care that a warrior can do lots of damage with one button and I have to press eight (in a correctly judged sequence). That’s why I frikkin’ rolled an elementalist. I don’t want easy mode, I don’t want a boring repetitive class – in fact if I have a gripe with this game it’s that other classes are not as challenging and interesting to play as the elementalist so I find it extremely difficult to enjoy an occasional alt when I want a little break from my ele.

Every class should have stance/school/whatever skill disambiguation required to master in order to be effective. The main problem with how things are now is not that elementalists are weak as such, they are not, but that they are a complicated class in a relatively simplistic game.

If you want that, if you want things to be complex, to be punished for making mistakes and to get a really awesome feel of accomplishment when you do things right, then this class is for you. But don’t stop to compare your gameplay to other classes because it literally is not the same game they’re playing.

magnafides.8136:

Gaudrath.6725:

They either neglect gear, user the wrong kind of weapon for the job (staff is a long range support weapon, using it to go toe to toe is like a sniper using their rifle as a club) or they sit in a single element / do not switch often enough, or they don’t use their utilities correctly, or they don’t understand what their skills do and so on.

I don’t know, I have my Ele geared fairly well for my level, am constantly switching attunements, know my utilities, etc. and I definitely have had issues dying in PvE, especially in some of the personal story missions. One of the main issues we have is lack of aggro management, but the Thief doesn’t really have that and so far I am finding it much more effective. I can easily take on a Veteran and two regular mobs a level higher than me, something I could never have dreamed of doing with my ele.

And I’m the other way around – I have downed champions + veteran and assorted adds with my elementalist, while I wouldn’t be able to do the same with my thief.
Sure, took me ten minutes, but it can be done. Just pick the right weapons and skills for the job. Can mean the difference between an easy fight and a very hard one… for example I usually run S/D for PvE and those new crab things, well let’s just say that you can get them to do half the job for you just by equipping a focus instead. With an elementalist, you have unparalleled flexibility. Use it. Never stick to the same routine like with other classes. I change weapons, skill rotation, utilities and even traits according to what I want to do. Some would consider that a hassle and get disheartened when they see some warrior doing more damage with just one button, some people like playing on hard mode.

Some people simply don’t know how to play an elementalist. They either neglect gear, user the wrong kind of weapon for the job (staff is a long range support weapon, using it to go toe to toe is like a sniper using their rifle as a club) or they sit in a single element / do not switch often enough, or they don’t use their utilities correctly, or they don’t understand what their skills do and so on. Then they complain about dying to single mobs and other such nonsense.

Yeah, a warrior can just repeat a single skill chain over and over and not worry too much about it while an elementalist has to master a whole range of varied skills and tactics just to do the same job, but if you find it entertaining to push the same sequence of buttons for hundreds and thousands of times, then I guess elementalist is definitely not the class for you anyway.

However, I do find the massive amount of QQing on these forums highly entertaining. Talk about first world problems, oh my.

Err… if all you do is “cast a few spells” from time to time as an ele, evasive arcana or not, then yeah, you’re doing it wrong. Sorry, but I still have tons of fun on my elementalist. I still have a ton of skills to combine and use, as opposed to any other class where I’m reduced to pushing the same three buttons over and over and watching pretty numbers fly. Now… that’s boring.

Reportedly, evasive arcana does not produce any blast finishers at all now.

@Aether, the OP wasn’t asking is the Elementalist the most OP FotM class in the game for competitive PvP, he was asking whether it’s worth rolling one. Lots of answers to that question, eh.

@MiniAchilles, yes, they should. I mean, it was pretty obvious it was a bug, but letting people know the goodies ain’t gonna last forever would have been nice.

Lol man, to each his own, but the moment I stop having fun playing a game, is the moment I stop playing the game. If I want serious stuff, I can get plenty of that in everyday life.

It wasn’t the only viable spec, not unless you play the game for numbers. I don’t. I still have loads of fun with the elementalist, and frankly, as I said… if I wanted easy mode, I’d be playing a warrior or something. But pushing two buttons for months ain’t my cup of tea.

I am not happy that they removed the blast finishers from evasive arcana, they were fun to use and required some skill, but it’s hardly the end of the world.

At least our conjured weapons got a buff!

The only real nerf was the removal of blast finishers on evasive arcana. But, that was a bug that people took for granted and built their playstyles around.

Fact remains that elementalist is still the most fun and challenging class to play. When you play it right, it’s very rewarding, because you know you’re good when you can make a “subpar” class shine. If you want easy mode, then no, this class ain’t for you.

Yeah, try that. Or water for added healing/regeneration stuff. And always remember you can switch your major traits around all the time, so see what works for you. I even change those around based on what I expect to tackle.

But ultimately, elementalist is designed with flexibility in mind… if you want to bring the most out of your character, getting around to switching attunements constantly, as well as getting to very solid grounds with all your weapon options is a must. Try it once you get bored of torching stuff all the time.

Eh, for a staff build you really want to invest in Arcane… blasting staff trait and all (increases the radius of your staff AoE fields).

1. tip – don’t play one attunement all the time. You will suffer greatly. Instead, always switch attunements and utilize all your available skills. Staff has some good crowd control and defensive abilites in water, earth and air, but fire not so much, so by playing always in fire you not only lower your available damage a lot, you expose yourself too much as well, and elementalists are too squishy to just stand there and take the beating.

Power increases your base damage across the board, so it’s always a must. Personally I go for either toughness or vitality for my secondary stat (first one decreases the amount of damage you take, second on increases your health) so I can actually take a few punches before keeling over, and you get a utility skill and traits for increasing critical strike chance anyway.
Condition is ok for staff builds since you get some nice burns and bleeds with it… personally I prefer a power build for straight up damage, but that’s because I switch weapons according to the situation, so it might work differently if you only plan to stick with the staff.

Pretty much what you said. I would also like to see an overall small buff to damage across the board to bring us more in line with other professions. Nothing drastic though because then good elementalists would nuke stuff left and right with impunity and there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the forums.

Not my experience, OP. Actually, I regularly solo champs with my Elementalist. But I did have similar issues with my previous attempt at playing one. That was before I figured out that I always have to move and dodge, switch attunements constantly, keep my gear (ALL of it) up to date and so on. These days I only get killed if my ego gets too big and I try soloing too many veteran mobs in one go.

Using that logic, we should get all skills, gear and trait points handed to us after character creation… is that what you’re saying?

Beside, as you said… several hours into the game, when the majority of players have grasped the concept of their class, they have all their basic skills unlocked. I call that good design, unlike in some other MMO’s where you have to spend a month on a given character to unlock all available skills.

Furthermore, to keep the learning curve nice and level, you want to ease new players in. You don’t want to heap 20 skills / weapon set on them in the first hour and leave them flailing. Sure it may be (very slightly) boring and frustrating for seasoned players, but they’re not the ones who you base your design on when thinking about early character progression.

I find that flaming greatsword is excellent when I want to solo champion mobs. Not only you get excellent damage to speed things up, but the easy and constantly available cripple does wonders for kiting.
Lighting hammer fits in well with the staff when you need to take something down quickly in melee.

Though I would agree that conjured weapons, such as they are now, are not very useful in PvP. Aside from frost bow for taking down objects. It’s #4 damage is, I think, comparable to meteor shower, only it has a tighter area of effect and thus hits more often and delivers more reliably.

It took me about the same amount of time to unlock all skills on my elementalist, only I remember having fun while doing it because I wasn’t grinding mobs in a single area. It’s not like you HAVE to unlock all skills asap. What Serp said, starting area mobs are not that hard. Just play and have fun.

And if this is your first elementalist, believe me you won’t be able to choose your favourite weapon set that early on anyway. With the multitude of skills we get, you really need to put in some time to learn how to play each weapon properly, otherwise you’ll just get stomped later on.

Thieves love stationary targets… so I wouldn’t stand still even if you think you’re safely removed from the melee.

I use them all the time. Need to demolish something quickly? Frost bow. Nothing does that job better. Need to lay down some serious mass damage? Flaming greatsword. Have another player pick the other one up and watch things melt.
And you don’t lose utility skills when wielding a conjured weapon, only your attunement skills. So yeah, they’re not a replacement for your normal skillset, but if you pick the right situation, they make things a lot easier.

Daggers have several gap closers, and staff has several effective CC spells, both of which are kinda designed to cover your range weakness. That said, what would be the point of nerfing conjured weapons since then they would be too weak to use effectively. Sure you could whip them out any time you wanted, but what would be the point, why would you just lock yourself out of your 20 skills for subpar 5 (a common argument even now with the weapons as they are)? Right now, you have to sacrifice a utility slot, but at least you got some damage to work with.

Also, keep yourself blinged up. I mean always, always strive to have the best gear you can afford – it does make a difference, I think with elementalists more than any other class. I think a lot of people neglect half of their gear, forget about amulets and rings etc. and then suffer from subpar performance.

Stance-dance. Always, always and not just with D/D. I have no particular rotations, I just use whatever I feel works best for a given situation. No need to pop a combo on a single mob, never forget to stack might in a difficult fight.

Switch utility skills often. Sometimes you want extra protection. Sometimes you need more firepower. Never get stuck in a routine, elementalists are all about diversity, so use that.

I also think D/D can be effective for PvE soloing, especially if you learn to circle-strafe, the only mob type I had a problem with circle-strafing are the Risen since they’re so fast. Slower mobs… they can barely land a hit on you, it’s not even funny.
Only problem is ranged mobs where you will want to use a more defensive setup since D/D doesn’t really have any protection for that.

As for challenge, that’s part of the fun. I had a period when I was fighting PvE stuff a couple of levels below me and was nuking them left and right… much like warriors do with content a few levels above theirs. Was fun for about an hour or two, then it got really boring since I knew I would never come even close to be challenged. Not a good way to play, at least not for me.

I treat them as just another spell. Ice bow is excellent when soloing PvE and you need to lay out some hurt from range on a single target before you close in with D/D. I also found it is quite good as a demolition tool.
Same with lightning hammer, it is sometimes just a part of my rotation. Just use the most powerful/useful abilities on it, and discard it – I never wait for the cooldowns to finish. So then both the duration and charges are not that important.

Nope. Personally I love the lightning whip, IMO the coolest attack effect in the game. But I use it only when waiting for the heavy hitters to cool off… it’s good against multiple targets if you can aim it well.
Ride the lightning is a great escape tool. And updraft as well. But D/D Air is not about damage and if you want to be effective as an elementalist you want to use all the elements all the time anyway.

Also, circle strafe. I just soloed a champ + a veteran and some assorted trash with my elementalist… took a while, but they just couldn’t hit me, I was circle strafe kiting them the whole time.

Doesn’t work so well with ranged mobs, but you got plenty of defense for that. And don’t forget to switch attunements all the time. Never sit in a single element longer than necessary. Do that and PvE is mostly a breeze.

Gives that Sylvari shout “I am rock and soil” a whole new meaning, eh?

Unless the mesmer is good and is just standing there spamming his basic attack (works wonderfully with staff) until you manage to target them. That’s a nice way to toy with people’s minds.

Clones, however, usually can’t take a lot of punishment and we have a lot of AoE that can deal with them en masse. A good mesmer will, however, shatter their clones when they see you’re about to destroy them, likely stacking confusion on you, so watch out for that, it’s easy to miss in the heat of combat and you then melt yourself.

You got shakes and the elementalist requires concentration to play right. Try EvE Online PvP sometimes, there the penalties are real tough (you basically lose your ship, everything in it, your implants if you had them etc. and sometimes that stuff is real expensive) and the shakes… wooh! At least until you get used to it, of course, then you can begin being kitten again. Until then, you will fumble.

So the cure is to get out there and get yourself slaughtered many, many times until you don’t care anymore.

It makes sense to me. Otherwise we would be able to chain vapor form and reset our health indefinitely. This way you can count on two pops, after which you either get up or go down.
Thieves can teleport, but I believe the cooldown on the teleport is longer so there really is no way they can use it twice, plus it does nothing for their health, as opposed to our escape option which can actually count as a heal under certain circumstances.

Had the same feeling, rolled a warrior, played it for a couple of levels, then realized I would be stuck with 5-10 skills throughout the game.

Promptly returned to my Elementalist. It really is the only class with any long-term variety when you think about it. What this game needs is dozens and dozens of “flavor” skills per class/weapon that you can slot in your 1-5 set, just like with utility. Or every class should have stance-dancing like elementalists have. Hell, with a thief I at least had to keep moving. Warriors just feel so kitten static to me.

Being a RP-er myself, I don’t really understand the concept of your toon being “tarnished by death” – since you don’t actually die in this game. You get defeated. Not quite the same. Basically you get the stuffing beaten out of you and left for dead. That’s the game explanation.

Alternatively, you could play a magical character which is immortal (Planescape: Torment style), or defies death through various magical means (necromancer with a phylactery), or simply is denied death by higher powers due to his/her destiny. That way you can stay true to your character and avoid that whole “yeah, but it DIED, man!” feeling.

If you play permadeath for challenge, you won’t see high level content. MMO’s are designed to frequently wipe the floor with players. Keeps the treadmill going.