Guild Wars 2

I’d suggest you use a different recording and/or editing program… the quality was pretty bad :/
Gameplaywise… much room to improve

1. Forcing a retreat is a victory. Not as big as a kill… but since the game is objective based as long as you keep your point you’re fine.

Vs Thief: Shocking Aura.
Vs Ranger: I’ve got 6 ways to remove conditions in my build. Ranger usually plays a condition specc. You see how it works?
Vs Warrior: He’s usually a melee. You’ve got slows and stuff.

Sure you will loose some fights. But you will win some as well. Sounds pretty OK for me.

Razarai

Player skill. Everyone keeps ignoring this.

Though we were discussing about best played x vs best played y?

I said decent players.

Razarei.2809:

Let me simplify things for you, again. If you take the BEST mesmer and the BEST ele, the mesmer will ALWAYS win without a doubt.

If you take the BEST guardian and the BEST elementalist, the guardian will always win, without a doubt.

If you take the BEST <insert class here> and the BEST <insert class here> the <insert class here> will always win, without a doubt? Why? Because the elementalist is lacking. Player skill is irrelevant. Everyone knows this. As I’ve said many times, just because I can easily dominate on my elementalist, I have a much EASIER time doing so on my guardian or warrior, or mesmer. You cannot compare people of different skill while talking about class balance. It doesn’t work.

Sure Mesmer will win. Cause Mesmer will win against every kitten other class, because… thats what a Mesmer does.
Fighing a Guardian… won’t resolve. No one will be able to kill his enemy.
But when coming to “random class”… you win vs warrior. You can win vs ranger, you can win vs nekro, you can win vs thief. Guess you won’t win vs an Engineer.
So lets see… winning vs 50% of the classes? Loosing against the other 50%? Sounds pretty much rock-paper-scissory.

But you’re right about one thing… its easier dominating with other classes.

Actually, you can. You can do this as a guardian easily. You can do this as a mesmer if you play smart, although highly situational. You can also do this as an engineer.

You can survive for a short time and then you die. As Guardian… as Mesmer you just die.

You will never be able to take on 3 decent players with any class… not as elementalist, not as mesmer and not as guardian and not even if Razarai plays them. Don’t know why the ability of killing bad playing enemy’s is relevant to balance.

And both Mesmer and Guardian don’t fullfill the same role for a team as an Elementalist. There are areas where a Mesmer excelles, same about Guardian and same about Elementalist.
The only class thats just better than the Elementalist is Engineer, cause he can do everything an Elementalist does… just better. But the difference isn’t that huge, so the tweaks that Elementalist needs should solve this problem.

Churning Earth is pretty nice to finish downed Thiefs/Mesmers… not much longer casttime than finisher, but the enemy can’t hide from it

Trump.9803:

I wasn’t in the betas. What exactly was changed for Ele after BWE2?

They lowered the dmg of some abilities a little bit, nerfed staff in fire attunemt, but the hugest nerf was increasing Cd of Arcane Wave and Arcane Blast and lowering the dmg.

what role did you have in mind? in a game where apparently every class should be able to take on similar roles in one form or another (with different play styles, etc), what specific role should we the elementalist be playing?

That’s what i was going to say.. But i already figured-out the answer.. Support… Something i will never spec into.. There seems to be a stereotypical role emerging for this profession, which is not right at all…

Imho Elementalist is most effective as support (staff etc) or roamer. I don’t like playing support Elementalist, but roamer is really fun and works pretty good.

The advantages over Elementalist as a roamer compared to other roamers:

Thief:
Elementalist can defend a point longer than a thief if he has to. Also since Thief is a pretty common roamer Elementalist works great as counter, cause he usually wins 1v1’s vs a Thief.

Engineer:
Ye… Engineer is a bit stronger than Elementalist :/ Only advantage of an Elementalist over Engineer is the better speed (rtl)

Mesmer:
Mhh… dunno. Every team should have a Mesmer imo. Mesmer is stronger in 1v1 than any other class + OPortal. But I feel like 1 Mesmer is usually enough for a teamcomp, since other classes do better in teamfights.

(Warrior:)
Warrior isn’t that strong when it comes to 1v1’s. His strengh is teamfighting, thus he should always play with at least one ally. Elementalist is better when it comes to soloing (when capturing points, killing enemy treb etc.). Also Elementalist is faster cause of rtl.
(just listing warrior cause I said, I would take an Elementalist over a Warrior, wouldn’t use a Warrior as Roamer)

So… roamer Ele is cool

Being able to cancel Ride the Lighning would be awesome.

Skolops.2604:

Gelrod, even if I grant you that team play can mitigate CCs, there are a few problems with that. I think the biggest practical one is that, right now, its vastly more efficient for teammates to spend their efforts bursting down the enemy rather than saving you while you’re CCed. A tweak to burst damage, time-to-kill, or something would make a big difference.

That said, I think that you’re correct: the game works much better with very organized team play, and I think this is actually a problem. Now don’t get me wrong: I don’t think its a problem because organized team play is bad – its not, and I’m glad that the game does reward it. At the same time, a game which can only really be enjoyed while at such a high level of team play isn’t going to survive very long. A lot of people play organized tournaments, its true, but the vast majority of people just want to be able to hop into a game either solo or with a friend and be able to have fun. That’s not really possible currently.

A game like StarCraft 2 is balanced around the highest level play, and this is good for the most part, because its those best of the best players who can really do with each race everything that’s possible. At the same time, there is also that huge majority of players who want to play the game and aren’t at that skill level. Now, there was a pretty lengthy period when the Terran race was faring very poorly against the other two at all but the highest levels – where it was doing alright, for the most part. When you’re the among the best in the world with 200 or 300 APM, Terran could be played effectively, but for the average Joe with 50 – 100 APM, it couldn’t be. What we saw, ultimately, was that the number of Terran players below the highest levels dropped dramatically during this period. Nobody wanted to play the race at those lower and middle levels because it was just not fun, even though it was ok at higher levels.

The same is going to be true of the PvP in this game if nothing is done. While I certainly think rewarding high level team play is good, it needs to be (and CAN be) done in such a way that it doesn’t make anyone without a super organized and skilled team have a hard time finding any enjoyment in it. Look, you or someone else may say, “oh the PvP in that game doesn’t take skill like in this one,” but I know for sure that in TOR, very organized high level team play was rewarded greatly and was almost a whole other game, but it was also possible to just jump into a game with a random 7 other people and have fun.

If the PvP in this game is going to survive, then that kind of dynamic really needs to be brought in somehow.

Of course you are right about that. The game should both have a high skill cap but still be playable for a casual player without resulting in frustration.
But I don’t see, that Chain-CC is a huge problem for that: If a “random casual group” fights another “random casual group” both teams will have problem countering chain-cc, thats right… but both teams will have problems setting up chain cc at the same time, as that usually needs some coordination to be effective. That means, the more coordination a team has, the better it uses cc and at the same time counters cc.
That being said I think, the cc-system works pretty good, when it comes to “high skill cap but still playable for casual player without resulting in frustration”.

I only miss one feature:
Showing the selected target on the map. If you could see a dot for your selected target on the map teamfights would be way less chaotic (and it would help out of combat as well^^)

If the enemy team is able to chain stun + kill you in a teamfight they play better as a team than your team. The current system promotes good teamplay… and that is great.
If you get chain stunned someone of your team could cc an enemy, who tries to cc you, and thus help you to get out of the stun. A guardian could help you with a bubble. Etc…
Diminishing returns would result in less importance of teamplay. Thus I don’t want to see that :/

Good Video, good explanations + playstyle… I don’t completly agree with your build, but I guess that doesn’t matter^^

zafery.6784:

Yet a similarly quick warrior can destroy groups of people and change the battle with similarly clever play-style…

Most people here are not saying elementalists are unplayable.. It is playable, and when played optimally it is just as effective as any other average joe playing another profession… But this means: it is subpar…

I don’t agree with this. You can’t really compare Warrior and Elementalist, cause they serve different roles. And if you do: I’d usually take an Elemtalist over a Warrior for my team.

The Problem is:
Asuran tech is magic. Their Golems run on powerstones and are operated by magic.
Engineers do everything they do the non-magic way (it origined from the char and they have a bad attitude towards magic cause of their past).
Imho Asuran Engineer doesn’t fit lorewise, because why would an Asura choose to solve a problem without magic?

Normally you’re either a defensive supporter (30water+30arcane) using staff for teamfights or a roamer with d/d or s/d (direct dmg build… though you shouldn’t build too glassy), that means participating in teamfights/helping out at points/capping enemy points etc.

juki.7539:

Question for D/D players…

How much damage ends up being condition damage? It’s the only weapon set that I haven’t tested extensively as I don’t want to rely heavily on condition damage in sPvP.

I’d estimate, depending on the lenght of the fight, about 6k~10k damage is inflicted by conditions (mostly burning, a bit of bleeding).

Elementalist was a bit too strong in BWE2 imho

murasamune.2756:

nor are people exploiting it.

People are exploiting it pretty much on kylo

Though dropping the repair kit when using a portal would be the better fix for that problem.

When using utility-skills while being in Mistform those utility skills don’t get affected by any traits. When using “Glyph of Elemental Harmony” traited with “Quick Glyphs” it goes on full 25sec cd instead of 20sec cd for example. Same goes for arcane spells with “Arcane Mastery” and/or “Elemental Surge”, Cantrips with “Cantrip Mastery” etc.

A similar problem affects “Ride the Lighning”:
With D/D and “Zephyr’s Boon” traited: When you use “Ride the Lighning” and during the animation of “Ride the Lighning” use “Shocking Aura” you won’t get swifness or fury as you should.

I feel that isn’t the only troll comment by you.

Razarei.2809:

Quote>

Actually it just became a little bit better.
Yes 100-50% got nerfed. But the 50-25% now does the same damage that you would take from 66-33%, and 25%-0% does 33-0%.
Changes? Its starts doing its damage on LOWER hp than it did before. So instead of having say 7k hp before they start hitting 5k each hit, you’re only going to have 5k.
Once you hit 50% hp, its still gunna be HS spam, only you now have lower HP and they are hitting just as hard.

I know, they’re clever aren’t they. :P And by better, I mean better in the bonus of lower HP HS spam.

I don’t see how that isn’t a nerf in any way. You deal less damage. Almost all the time. And the time you deal as much damage as before… well you deal as much damage as before. Meaning some damage was lowered while some remained the same. For no case the damage got increased. So how could the ability be better now…

But I guess I should just start overreading your comments.

Justbob.5897

Personally for PvE

Don’t see how a PvE build could be judged by analizing its effectiveness in PvP.

Ok, now you’re talking bs again Razarai.

“not being a complete scrubs that doesn’t know what he’s doing”.

Finally a not hugely exaggerated and somewhat believable sentence. Wasn’t so hard now, was it?

Yes they are versatile.

And I don’t believe that as well. I’m sure you waste a dodge once in a while? Miss a skill? Get hit by a skill you should’ve dodged? Use a skill you could’ve spared the cd?

But whatever, you’ve lost credibility, who cares exept me.

I guess no one of the well known PvP guilds or streamers would say of himself, that he/she has mastered his/her class, so that wouldn’t help.
Playing pretty good? OK. Making few mistakes? Sure, I believe that. Mastering? Never.

No one will ever play his/her class to perfection. Same as in real life. A kung-fu master who practiced his art for 60 years would never say that he mastered kung-fu.

So, if you tell me you’ve “mastered” elementalist I can assume, that you’re talking bs.

Now you start sounding beyond belief. How can I take you serious if you claim you have mastered the elementalist?

I still don’t think elementalist needs a huge buff… some minor tweaks (mainly for the ultimates) and bugfixes. Some other classes could/should be toned down a little.

How can you say anyone saying “Elementalist OP” or “Elementalist balanced” is trolling and everyone saying “Elementalist UP” is right? Just because they don’t agree with your oppinion?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Balancing-GW2/first#post92064

That means, if you’re right there may be buffs for Elementalist or nerfs to other professions.

I agree, that fire attunement is the reason focus is mostly worse than dagger. But I don’t think Anet wants to completly change skills, so that actually is a problem. Increasing the damage of flame wall and increasing the burning duration of the flame shield could help.

I also agree, that Elementalist Elites are… not as good as other elites and pretty lackluster. Glyph of Elementals should have an active ability once you summoned the elemental like all other summons (I want to control when my water elemental uses its chill-field or when my air elemental stuns). Tornado… dunno. It’s not that bad but it’s really situational. And the greatsword summon… if it only did a bit more damage :/

I imagine Earth Shield and Frost Bow actually to be usable in the correct build… though its very niche.

I’m just waiting for real tournaments… as soon as a successfull team wins with an elementalist in their team threads like “elementalist underestimated?” “Elementalist OP!” or “Team XY didn’t have a warrior in their lineup… warrior not viable anymore?” will pop up.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Everyone who states that the ele is OP needs to start posting their builds so we can judge if they are trolling or not.

Stating that elementalist isn’t UP but perfectly balanced isn’t the same as saying he’s OP

No. No they don’t have to. Elementalist is heaps and heaps of fun to play. If they make it better, it’ll be OP. If they change it it won’t be the same. I love how it plays and I don’t want them to change it.

/this
In the Bwe 1-2 versions elementalist was too strong. They nerfed him and now he is pretty fine. No need to buff him just to nerf him again.

Yes, Ele with certain builds is pretty strong 1v1 vs most classes/builds.

And Ele doesn’t has the lowest survivability, cause he’s got really good defensive skills. I’d say Thief is way easier to kill than an Ele for example.
If you run a full-glass-cannon spec without stunbreaks… sure you will die. But thats your own fault.

If you don’t like long casttimes… try d/d or another class.

And I don’t know why everyone says you’ve gotta get 30 points arcane… you don’t.

The elementalist is a jack of all trades. With certain builds he can literally do everything at the same time. That makes him the perfekt roamer. You need assistance for a teamfight? Ele can do that, by dealing damage and supporting the team at the same time. 1 minute later you need someone to cap a undefended point? Ride the lighning and cap it. The point gets attacked? Good thing the Ele is also good at 1v1’s and node defending!

Sure, another class could be better for the teamfight. And a thief could be at an undefendet point a little bit faster. And sure, other classes defend a node longer or kill the attacker faster. But they can’t to all this with one build.

the elementalist got the lowest survive of all classes, it got a VERY high amount of offfensive abilities and a few support abilities, from that we most assume its suppose to be a class cannon

I see it the other way round. You’ve already got strong offensive ability’s, so why not build a little tankier?

Sounds good, though you might want to change 10points from water or 5 from air and 5 from water into fire to get “Internal Fire”, since you will deal most damage when attuned to fire anyway.
For utilits’s Arcane Blast, Arcane Wave and Mistform with glyph of elemental harmony as heal would be effective. Traiting shorter CD for arcanes and Elemental Surge adds some great utility to the 2 arcane spells.

The usual burst combo would be:
air attunement: 5—> swich to fire —> 3 --> both arcanes —> fire grab --> Ring of fire.
If a Warrior or Thief attacks you in Melee swich to air and use shocking aura, especially if he has quickness up.
If you’ve got all/most skills of the current attunement on cd swich attunement, as usual. I usually swich between fire/air/earth for dealing damage and mainly swich to water when I need conditionremove, but sometimes Frost Aura can be worth swiching to water, even if you don’t need heal/conditionremoval.

Dunno… elementalist combos are very situational and thus hard to explain^^ But I guess you’ve already got some and the rest will come when playing.

Elementalist in GW2 is really different from Elementalist in GW1, thats correct. Maybe you should try another class, that is more your playstyle?

And @Topic:

As I like to say, elementalist is the most balanced/polished class there is in GW2. True, you’ve got to get used to the playstyle and it takes some time… but for me it was completely worth it.
If you feel too squishy don’t run a zerker amulett. If you want to deal as much damage as a thief… play a thief. Elementalist shouldn’t be able to deal that amount of damage. And if you want to be a full-tank… play Guardian or Warrior or sth. Elemetalist is a true hybrid. He doesn’t deal as much damage as other classes, he isn’t as survivable as other classes. But he can be pretty surviavable while still dealing good damage.

1. you have 10k base health and 2. you have the lowest toughness in the game which make melee for elementalist like a free kill for anyone. And NO there is NO amazing defensive skills with this setup. Because every single defensive CD for elementalist is a kitteny one. Only mist form is equal to other professions in term of defensive CD for utilities.

d/d has one of the best defensive skills there is: Shocking Aura. That skill wins so many fights, in many situations it’s way better than mistform of anything. 2 aoe kd’s are pretty defensive as well and on top of that you’ve got amazing mobility.
And you can solve the low life + armor problem pretty easy with a Soldiers Amulett.

Which means you have LESS then ANY other professions even with the best build ever made.

I don’t know of any build that could prove your statement.

Yes staff is a good support but elementalist will still get killed by anyone before you can do any kind of support.

Never. With a support specc you usually have 30points in water and 30points in arcana that alone gives great survivability… add 1-3 stunbreak utility’s, a defensive amulett and you will bekittenhard to kill and offer great support.

Rassilon.2459:

In your opinion, is it possible to make a damage staff build work in sPvP at all?

I don’t think so, since both d/d and s/d fullfill that roll better. Not saying Staff is overall bad, just when it comes to building for max dmg (that only applies for 5v5’s. PvE, WvW and 8v8’s are different)

Because yes they are. Their damage output might be the same in PvE, but in PvP the elementalist get all the slow moving missiles, delayed spells and easily avoidable AoE.
We have far less CC possibilities then other professions.

I’d suggest trying d/d if you’re feeling this way. It’s skills are way more reliable.

Depends on ur playstyle/goals.

Both setups are viable imo, but they have a different style.

I currently run a d/d build, because it serves my role in my team better than s/d would. It’s more reliable than scepter and offers good damage, good utility, good survivability… but I’ve also played with s/d for a few hundred games and it worked.

If you like d/d more than s/d you should use it… don’t worry, it’s a strong setup. For build I can give you some inspiration/hints:

- You should get some survivability, either from traits, utility’s or amulett. Soldiers Amulett with Zerker usually is a solid choice when running offensive utility’s (double arcane for example) and traits. With more defensive traits and utility’s you can run a Zerker Amulett with Zerker/Soldier gem.
- You should at least get 10 points in fire (10% more dmg in fire) and 10 points in arcana (Elemental Attunement).
- If you decide to go double arcane for more burst, getting 30points in arcana for traited arcane spells can help greatly (shorter cd’s + extra effects).
- Zephyr’s Boon (Auras grant fury and swiftness) from the air tree can be great for d/d, in combination with fury from attunement swich you’ve got huge fury uptimes which really helps, since you’ve got a low base crit-chance when running a soldiers amulett.

I’d say, Ele is the most balanced/polished class there is atm. It is strong, yet not too strong. Sure, a few minor tweaks could help a few aspects, but they aren’t that important.
Every weapon (maybe exept focus) is viable. And there is a good build for each trait-tree… thats way more than other professions have.

In terms of strengh… Ele doesn’t deal as much dmg as other classes, an Ele can’t be as survivable as other classes. But you can combine all these aspects way better than other classes.
I love elementalist for this versatility… yes it comes at a cost, but it’s totally worth it.

D/D = Melee on the most squishy class with near to no survivability in close quarter fight.

With a good set of traits + amulett you are really survivable with d/d. There are some amazing defensive skills with this setup.

S/D = DPS is extremely delayed, lack luster, slow and no survivability at all.

I don’t understand how you could say that. You’ve got good survivability from the skills(2 heals, 2 aoe kd’s, earth shield, blind, vigor…) and can improve this survivability even further with traits + amulett, depending on the playstyle.

S/F = DPS is extremely delayed and even worst then S/D but the survivability is what it should be for every ranged weapon.

S/F isn’t good for a power build, I agree… but thats because focus lacks good skills in fire attunement. You can run an OK condition build with good survivability and dps, though it isn’t competetive imo, cause other classes fill that roll way better.

Staff = DPS is absent, spells are extremely slows, extremely delayed and the CC is poor version of other professions CCs due to the near impossibility for it to work unless running away from people in strafe mode (Which will undoubtfully make people catch you as you are slower in strafe mode.)

Yep, Staff got somewhat bad damage for sPvP since the staff nerf… but staff still got the option for a strong support specc. Good heal, good conditionremove, AoE damage that helps killing all the nasty phantasms and pets… overall good support.