Guild Wars 2

Hello there!
I’ve taken some time to make a complete list of ele-traits and state my opinion (which I think is a good reflection of the general opinion) on each of them. I hope it helps devs to identify traits that are bad (I usually added a short description why specific traits are rarely used) and that we’ll see some changes in upcomming patches based on this feedback. Of course opinions vary and therefore I’ll try to edit my list based on player-feedback. I also want to point out that this shouldn’t be a discussion-thread on specific ideas for new traits or how to change existing ones (though I postet some suggestions) – this thread is about currently existing traits and why they’re good or bad.
Since it’s a wall of text I made a formating-code to make it easier to identify bad/rarely used traits and you don’t have to read it all (bold and underlined are worst, bold alone are mediocre/bad). Colors would have been better for this but they seem not to work in this forum.
Anyways, here’s my list:

Fire:
Fire-Traits are imho fine for PvE since there are many simple traits that directly increase damage – which suits PvE perfectly. For PvP there aren’t many viable choices though since there are no traits (except burning fire which was added last patch) that boost survivability which is something we usually always have to build for in PvP.

• 5-Flame Barrier: Worst adept minor trait. Usually we have to avoid being hit at all costs (especially when we build into fire and are glassy). Even when hit the procc is extremely weak.
• 15-Sunspot: not that bad but the radius should be increased in addition to the damage it deals. Compared to the equivalent in air this is underwhelming.
• 25-Burning Rage: Good trait. Makes it worth speccing 25P into fire in PvE and also harmonizes with the condi-duration you get from the Fire-Traitline.

• I-Lava Tomb: Ironically this is one of the best PvP-Traits in fire but who seriously makes a build assuming that he will die a lot to benefit from this trait? Maybe it should boost the damage from Lava Font even when it’s casted normally with staff to make it a better choice for PvP.
• II-Conjurer: Useless for PvP, fine for LH-Build in PvE. Overall ok for an adept-trait since it has its niche.
• III-Ember’s Might: Since burning stacks only in duration this trait is bad for PvE and since conditions aren’t a viable option for eles in PvP it’s also useless in PvP.
• IV-Spell Slinger: Actually pretty good for might-stacking builds especially with staff. Maybe add some fury but imho it’s not that bad.
• V-Burning Precision: Bad trait. Nothing more to say. Either boost the burning duration or completely rework it.
• VI-Internal Fire: Solid PvE-trait (only for staff though) but not really usefull for PvP since you constantly have to rotate through attunements and therefore you won’t benefit much from it. May be worth the points if it worked with Lingering Elements.
• VII-Pyromancer’s Alacrity: Good PvE-Trait for Staff-Zerkers to increase damage. Worthless in PvP. Boring design though.
• VIII-Burning Fire: Needs to be fixed so that cantrip-related proccs work with it. Otherwise a pretty solid trait for PvP but nobody speccs 20 into fire because of the lack of defense. Lower CD and I might consider using it.
• IX-Fire’s Embrace: Signets are bad so this trait is pretty worthless. In theory it’s good for Aura-Share but that build isn’t viable in PvP and for PvE there are better support-options. Additionally fire-shield isn’t really strong. Maybe this should give you a shield based on attunement you’re currently in.
• X-One with Fire: Flame Barrier is bad, so is this trait.
• XI-Persisting Flames: Very good trait for PvE. May be usefull for PvP but speccing 30 into fire is not viable in PvP.
• XII-Pyromancer’s Puissance: Useless for PvP and also PvE (due to constant attunement-rotation) and in PvE it’s worse than Persisting Flames even on staff. Needs rework or buff.

[…]

observer z.6725:

Every ele runs arcana because it is OP. If everyone is using it, it must be overpowered so it deserves nerfs. Same reason why warriors run only heal signet.

Your logic is flawed. Just because everyone uses it doesn’t mean that the trait is OP. It’s just one of our stronger traits that makes eles at least somewhat playable in PvP. Nerf this trait and even the small fraction of eles that are left will vanish from the battlefields. In addition our build that people most complain about (fresh-air burst) doesn’t even use this.

Tom.8029:

This may be overpowered, but one thing I thought would be really cool for Meteor Shower is if each meteor was a blast finisher. I mean, it makes sense and the meteor shower field is bigger than most fields anyway, so not all of them would hit.

every meteor being a blast finisher would be too OP. But at least a 30% chance or something like that would be a cool thing.

This weapon needs a mobility spell. Maybe Fire #4 could be replaced with that Fiery GS-charge? Still provides a firefield bould could then also deal decent damage and provide mobility.

stale.9785:

One you overlooked – reduce base recharge rate to 10 seconds – have it hit a minimum rate of 7 seconds with a 30 point investment.

I even think that most of the traited swap-proccs won’t be that OP since ele is lacking a decent class-mechanic anyway. Currently attunement-swap is more of a restriction than a benefit.

you’re the only person I know that says cleansing wave is weak ^^

btw: updraft can be used as a simple dodge aswell and earthquake can be combined with lightning flash so it’s usually way easier to land and still quicker than comet.

Not only considering survivability I’d still say that dagger is the better offhand. Focus lacks mobility and also good damage-spells (fire-spells are laughable on focus).

I love your changes for Shatter-Stone and Arcane-Spells. I’ve always wanted Arcane-Utilities to be tools for better sustained damage or real utility (blast-finisher) instead of ridiculous burst-spells. Lower CD (and lower damage to balance them) would perfectly fit this.

[…]

Glyphs:
Like Signets those are extremely weak. Every glyph has an alternative utility that does a similar thing but is better than the glyph. Need a revamp. Traits boosting them are also kinda weak.

• Glyph of Elemental Power: Too low Procc-Chance to be worth a pick. Useless as a stun-breaker … it should be activated pre-combat and not in the middle of combat when you maybe don’t even need it anymore…
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Elementals don’t do much in PvE and die way too fast in PvP so this one’s also a no-go. Make the elemental permanent and reduce the recharge to something like 30s then I may consider taking it. When you want damage arcane-utilites are better here.
• Glyph of Renewal: Way too long cast-time (enemies can either finish downed allies or interrupt you easily while you’re casting it). Also too long CD. I’d rather pick armor of earth/mist-form to manually rezz a player. Also useless underwater since the ground-targeting-change.
• Glyph of Storms: This utility can be either used for damage or for AoE-Blind in earth. While the earth-aoe-blind is something unique on ele and not that bad the AoE-Damage variants in other attunements are underwhelming – even more when you consider the high CD. You’ll get a by far larger amount of damage with conjure-frostbow – and this one even comes with a very strong CC – so why should I every prefer Glyph of Storms over Frostbow?

Conjures:
Old topic. The problems with conjures have been discussed several times. In PvP most of them aren’t worth trading 20 spells for 5 weak ones. Same goes for PvE. Traits are meh. Only the additional charges are good for Lightning-Hammer build in PvE, useless elsewhere.

• Conjure Earth Shield: AA weak, #2 meh, #3 nice in PvP, #4 too long cast, #5 bad because of the self-root and other skills being locked out. Overall useless in PvE and also unviable in PvP. Not a single spell on it is worth trading 20 spells and an utility-slot for this.
• Conjure Flame Axe: In PvE Lightning Hammer is the Way to go so nobody will ever use Flame Axe instead. Maybe not that bad as an escape-tool in WvW but nothing I’d really use in any area of the game.
• Conjure Frost Bow: #1-3 are weak but #4 is ridiculously strong. Very good in PvE for clearing stuff like AC and also quite good in team-fights in PvP. #5 is the best CC in the game – it’s easy to avoid but when it lands it hits like a truck -> high risk, high reward; that’s how it should be
• Conjure Lightning Hammer: Not much to say. Genious tool for PvE (though I dislike that our best DPS as an Elementalist comes from a Melee-Conjure). Useless in PvP though – due to our squishiness we can’t just run around spamming autohits like warriors do.

Cantrips:
Our best utilities. Could use a reduction of their CDs but they’re fine overall. Very nice synergy with traits – that’s why they’re often picked.

• Cleansing Fire: Remove the Burning – nobody will ever pick it for this. Instead add something like Vigor or bring back the Stunbreak and/or lower CD. As it is now it’s underwhelming. I’d only pick it when I’ve fully specced cantrips just because of the low CD which means more boons for me from the according traits. Useless in PvE
• Lightning Flash: I’d say this is our best Utility-Spell. Blink is always great regardless in which area of the game. Additionally it can deal a decent amount of damge. I’d like to see the CD lowered a little bit though to match it with similar spells (like the one from mesmer).
• Mist Form: Used to be our #1 tool to escape difficult situations. But since the nerf it’s only good for finishing or rezzing players – not worth a 75s CD.
• Armor of Earth: Solid spell. Lower the CD to about 60s and it’s perfect.

Elites:
Overall Elites are quite bad on the ele. For PvP there isn’t really a strong one that can be game-changing and also for PvE there’s only Fiery Greatsword (which is pretty good for PvE though). I’d like to see a completely new elite on eles additionally to a buff for Elementals and Tornado.

• Tornado: It has some uses like decapping points or abusing it with Meteor-Shower but that’s not something I’d like to waste a 150s CD for. It’s nothing like Litch-Form on Necro where you think “oh kitten better run or we all gonna die a painfull death” … it’s more like “look ele in tornado-form … freekill yay”. Needs a serious buff.
• Glyph of Elementals: Wouldn’t be that bad if you could actually control the spells the elementals cast. Nice in PvE for soloing. Due to it’s randomness not really usefull in PvP mostly. Lower CD pls!
• Conjure Fiery Greatsword: First choice for PvE. Good DPS and mobility so it’s also nice in WvW as an escape tool. Useless in PvP though because it adds nothing but damage and a bit mobility – again this is not worth locking yourself out of 20 spells.

Here’s my breakdown of all Utility-Spells:

Heals:
I’d say ele-heals aren’t that bad but some are obviously better than others. Something has to be done to make every heal a viable pick.

• Signet of Restoration: Quite useless in PvE since you’ll usually get hard hits in PvE that have to be healed via burst-heal. Conditions and smaller portions of damage are rare so you’d either produce overheal or don’t heal fast enough. In PvP it’s unviable since the nerf – it lacks utility (like condi-remove, boon-creation, blast finisher) and doesn’t compensate this with superior heal.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony: Decent Burst-Heal but I’d say the CD is too long for the amount it heals when it’s compared with heal-spells of other classes.
• Ether-Renewal: Best Heal for PvP because of the condition-cleanse. High Risk because of the long chanel but also quite good reward -> well balanced skill. I’d love to see something like a damage-reduction while chaneling though. When playing zerker it usually just removes conditions and doesn’t heal anything because you’ll eat a huge load of damage while you chanel.
• Arcane Brilliance: Bad design. Unnecessary complicated spell. The additional damage is only usefull for zerker-eles but at the same time it profits from many enemies standing around you (something you should avoid as zerker-ele). The range is way too small and both the damage and healing are too low to ever pick this spell (additionally damage can be dodged/blocked/blinded/etc). It has it’s niche for staff-eles but even with a water-field and 2 targets around you it will heal less than the Glyph for example.

Signets:
Signets are just plain bad. They don’t add much to your play, have unreasonable long CDs and also traits for signets are underwhelming. Those urgently need a rework.

• Signet of Air: Since it’s a stun-breaker it’s the best signet for PvP we have. The passive is not that bad and it’s the same boost as other classes’ run-speed-signets – I’m fine with that. It also has quite a low CD for a stun-breaker. The blind is good for finishing enemies. Maybe some damage could be added.
• Signet of Earth: 100% useless for PvE. Passive is not that bad in PvP but nothing I’d prefer over Cantrips. Active should be insta-cast and have lower CD to be viable.
• Signet of Fire: Good for soloing in PvE to keep burning up for the 25P fire trait – useless in groups though because burning only stacks in duration. Useless in PvP (passive is the same as signet of earth and active is to weak because it gets cleansed easily and conditions are crap in general on eles)
• Signet of Water: Worst Signet. Passive is random and underwhelming. Why pick 1 condition removed every 10 seconds when I can remove 8 every 15 seconds with ether renewal? Active is also weak – doesn’t justify the high CD.

Arcane Spells:
Not that bad, obviously for burst-eles. Still some are lacklusters and basically most of them don’t do much but increasing your damage a little bit – which is not worth the long CDs and a whole utility-slot in general. Traits for them are good in theory but still too weak to be worth taking them instead of some obviously better traits.

• Arcane Blast: Needed for burst-builds because we generally lack strong spells that are directed at players (bad autoattacks) so it compensates our weak autoattacks a little bit. Still does too low damage for it’s rather high CD (Lightning Flash does the same damage but is also a blink which is huge). Something additional should be added to this utility (maybe include Elemental Surge into this Utility so that it applies conditions based on attunement)
• Arcane Wave: Seems fine to me. Usefull both in PvP and PvE with it’s blast-finisher.
• Arcane Power: Underwhelming. In theory you can do some nasty stuff in combination with Elemental Surge but in practice it either doesn’t work the way you expected it or it is just weak.
• Arcane Shield: Good spell-design. CD should be lowered though. I’d also like to see the damage increased – people should be punished when they keep hitting you.

[…]

I’d also say that the lack of a real F-Ability gives Eles a huge disadvantage compared to other classes. Our “class-mechanic” is nothing but a simple weapon-swap – and this even has a higher CD than on other classes and gives us no option to swap combat-style (range-melee or offensive-defensive). Our class-mechanic doesn’t improve our combat-experience but is restricting.
All classes have those (mostly low-CD) “oh-kitten-buttons” like steal, all warrior F1s, Death-Shroud, Shatter, etc.

People keep arguing that Eles have their 20 spells but they don’t see that in fact this isn’t even true. Autohits are lacklusters so you can remove 4 of those 20 spells. Some spells are so useless, nobody ever useses them (Scepter Water-2, Dagger Air-2, etc.) – remove 2 further spells per weaponset. So we’re at 14 spells. Now consider that other classes have F-Abilities (about 2-3 on average). So Other classes have 12-13 spells and eles have 14. Not much difference I’d say. The real difference are the huge CDs eles have – on both spells and “weapon-swap”. I’d say this is nothing but unfair. Since we lack real F-Spells we should get and advantage via shorter CDs on other spells and at least same CD on our swap.

good ideas here. One option to make support more important (not viable though ^^) would be to tone down #6 heal-spells of all classes and increase (scaling of) AoE-Heals on weapons/utilities.

reikken.4961:

I don’t feel that dagger off hand supports glassy builds in their efforts to stay alive

RTL, Updraft, Earthquake, Cleansing Wave, Frost Aura?

Frost Aura > Freezing Gust
Earthquake > Comet
Updraft > Gale

Obsidian Flesh and Magnetic Wave are nice though. Swirling Winds only usefull against projectiles.
I’d say against melee dagger offhand is better, against ranged fokus is ahead.

I already posted it in another thread but I think it fits this thread quite good so I’ll repost it:

Gorni.1764:

I’ve come to the conclusion that without regen and protection (from elemental attunement or earth/water-traitline) defensive gear doesn’t really improve your survivability in sPvP. More HP/Toughness on the contrary is only usefull when you also have ways to regenerate a decent amount of HP and/or slow down the rate of loosing HP by defensive mechanisms (like boons and cantrips).
So I’d either go defensive or full GC. For example it’s no use to run fresh-air/arcane-burst with soldier amulett -> you won’t deal enough damage to burst someone down and at the same time you don’t have enough active sustain-mechanisms to live longer.
At the same time it’s not a good idea to run something like 0/0/20/20/30 with berserker amulett. Offensive stats won’t add that much damage because you lack sustained damage and can’t burst but at the same time you loose your HP/Toughness-“buffer” that your defenses (regen/protection) need to be effective.

I’ve come to the conclusion that without regen and protection (from elemental attunement or earth/water-traitline) defensive gear doesn’t really improve your survival in sPvP. More HP/Toughness is only usefull when you also have ways to regenerate a decent amount of HP and/or slow down the rate of loosing HP by defensive mechanisms (like boons and cantrips).
So I’d either go defensive or full GC. For example it’s no use to run fresh-air/arcane-burst with soldier amulett → you won’t deal enough damage to burst someone down and at the same time you don’t have enough active sustain-mechanisms to live longer.
At the same time it’s not a good idea to run something like 0/0/20/20/30 with berserker amulett. Offensive stats won’t add that much damage because you lack sustained damage and can’t burst but at the same time you loose your HP/Toughness-“buffer” that your defenses (regen/protection) need to be effective.

Dee Jay.2460:

That deals something like 20.000 DPS and can kill any Thief in a second.

yes, given that they’re afk or braindead

I was ~150 last week as staff-ele ^^ haven’t played since then so I dropped to 500 lol

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Class: Elementalist

Worst Enemy:
1. All other classes

came here for this

Fade.1743:

The lowest tier should have its HP raised to the current medium tier. And the medium tier somewhere around the 16-17k border. It would cause a lot of chaos for a few weeks as builds rise and fall, but it would be easier to balance in the long run.

I wrote something like this in another thread a few months ago. My idea was to reduce these huge differences and fine-tune all stats based on current performance of classes and their major role in the game. So for example Elementalists should keep their lowest base-HP and -toughness (because it makes sense) but they could get some healing-power and/or power as compensation. So they have lower defense but better support/offensive capabilities which makes sense in terms of game-design and is also fair in terms of balancing.

It’s no miracle that a class that has 1000P worth of attributes more than another class is superior in comparison. Especially when spell-scalings are approximately equal and CDs of comparable spells are significantly lower.

In fact, easiest way to balance an MMO is to give all classes approximately the same base-stats (differences only about 1-5%) and balance the classes through CDs, Scaling-Coefficients, Resource-Management and type of damage done (magic/physical or like in GW condition/direct damage). This is how you can fine-tune balancing.
When you look at GW2 we have classes that have twice the HP of other classes, no resoucres like mana and no resonable CDs on certain spells. Every class has access to direct damage and condition damage-builds so this can’t be used to balance specific classes either.

It looks like Anet was kinda lazy when it comes to balancing. They just give every class everything and randomly distributing attributes – there’s no DPS-meter so nobody really cares about PvE; and PvP seems to have always been just a small side-aspect of the game.

It would help a bit, but I don’t think that solely raising base-HP will fix ele …

all movement-skills can get you out of that root (also burning retreat or burning speed and RTL/Updraft)

you’re kittened with S/F though ^^

Maybe you reflected something with magnetic aura? Or you didn’t realize that you were actually playing WoW ^^

I have three accounts lol.3859:

Gorni.1764:

there are many tactical fails in PvP ^^

favorite thing to be read at the beginning of a match is “PUSHING FAR!!1 ALONE! DON’T HELP!!!111”

pushing far with a single tanky spec like war is totally legit as long as you can deny a fullcap and can disengage(or know when not to engage) and not die 1v3 like an idiot

yeah I know, but usually people saying this are either thieves, mesmers or at best engis. Sometimes it works but in most cases it doesn’t and people don’t even try to disengage when they fail. I think it’s best to play safe and send 4 to mid because usually the team that takes mid at the beginning wins the game.

there are many tactical fails in PvP ^^

favorite thing to be read at the beginning of a match is “PUSHING FAR!!1 ALONE! DON’T HELP!!!111”
usually those poeple nearly instantly die (because good teams will immediately send a second person to close at the beginning) leading to far and mid being lost – which nearly always leads to a loose of the match.

2nd most popular fail is like OP said people pushing far though the team could easily hold 2 points and keep them to win.

3rd on my list is people not pushing far when the team can’t win midfight and there’s a guard standing on it (or people trying to assault the point alone against a bunker-guard).

4th most popular fail: people trying to desperately get 8:30 buff in Temple of the Silent Storm with 3-4 people while holding no points and enemy team has a bunker down there.

5th are people that keep defending close while there’s nobody that would ever assault it over the whole game and it’s the only point the team is holding.

Other mentionable fails:

• trying to play without hammer in Skyhammer
• using orb for points only and not to decap when enemy team holds (and defends) 2 points
• not going lord on Legacy of the Foefire with whole team when the game would be a loose otherwise (seriously even with 3-4 people lord is a freekill … the enemy team can’t do anything to stop you killing the mob)

Juba.8406:

basically people want warrior nerfed because of just “one” build while the majority of other builds are trash

just like the old D/D ele ^^ though I’d say that D/D ele was never as OP or easy-mode as warrior is now. Warrior would just need a slight nerf to healing-signet, they shouldn’t overdo it like they’ve done with ele. Ele had literally each single utility and trait that was used in the popular build nerfed (even minor traits and runes lol) .

yeah I actually play only Solo-Q and your parameters are pretty much the reason why I mostly play defensive (there seems to always be a thief and/or a minion-necro in the enemy team and skyhammer pops up way too often). Sometimes I switch to D/D (usually on spirit-watch when we don’t have an orb-carrier).

so basically this is my build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kZ;3BJVU0-5NN-Z0;9;6JJT;427-28-47A5;5sV2DsV2D6Ro
Berserker-Amulett is only equipped when my team consists of something like 2 guards and 2 warriors. Against teams without much CC I choose Arcane Wave instead of armor of earth and against teams without much stability I always pick tornado, etc. When there’s no thief or petting-zoo I sometimes pick vital striking in water for more damage.
I’d love to have 10 more points for Internal Fire or Bolt to the Heart – But Rock Solid and Healing Ripple are just too good to give up on them.

I still don’t know which runes are best though. I don’ really benefit from the crit-damage from divinity but you’ll still get the best stats out of them. I tried ogre and scholar but ogre is kinda contra-productive since you should avoid beeing hit at all costs and scholar seems to not be active very long (even with a defensive spec). Boon-Duration might be a good idea but these seem too defensive.

I have the same problem with the weapon-sigill. I think battle, bloodlust or force are best. I can’t really decide though. Thanks to soothing disruption I always have enough endurance for dodges so I don’t really need sigill of energy (would be my first pick otherwise).

Btw: Have you ever tried frost-bow? At first I was sceptical but it really kicks in, especially when your mates know how to use it. Bunker-Guards can basically be oneshotted with it (just time 4 and 5 with a team-mate and the guard can’t do anything about it). The CC is also nice to interrupt rezz or stomps (there’s nothing more satisfying than an enemy beeing frozen mid-air while trying to stomp your team-mate).

I don’t get how a thief can loose to an ele. When the tide turns to the ele’s favour the thief can basically always stealth away and decide to run away or to re-engage combat (with eles abilities on CD in shouldn’t be that hard then).

I’d also say that D/D bunker is the only weapon-set/build that can effectively kill thieves because it has enough sustain to survive this game of leaving combat and re-engaging. S/D on the contrary can be outplayed easily and for thieves GC-eles are a piece of cake in general.

edit: pulupulu was faster ^^

I don’t want to argue for or against CDs for thieves but usually RPGs have both a resource like mana/energy/etc. and CDs on spells for all classes.
Thieves lack the CD, other classes lack the resource so basically all classes can more or less mindlessly spam their abilities. Thieves can spam 4x heartseeker, necro can spam 4 marks, spirit-ranger spams autohit. Not much difference if you ask me.
Only thing that has to be balanced well is the initiative-regeneration (and of course the CDs of spells on other classes) because it’s the only limiting factor in this game.
Overall I’d like to see some kind of resource for all classes for more interesting combat but since that’s never going to happen I think thief should stay as it is.

edit: old thread is old

I tried alot of builds and amuletts lately and I think that a defensive spec (I run 0/0/20/20/30 now) brings the most benefit for the team. Due to the high amount of power (~3000) Your AoEs will still do very good damage (even with soldiers amulett) and force dodges from opponents, Frostbow can still oneshot squishy thieves and overall I think that the role of a staff-ele shouldn’t be pure damage anyways because of the enourmous support-potential it has. You won’t get oneshotted when focused in team-fights and you can even tank thieves for some time. Additional to your healing, with stability on earth-attunement you can stomp any enemy (or ensure that your mates get the stomp) and rezz your mates. You can engage in group-fights without fearing to instantly die in AoE. You can kite better and defend points 1v1 without larger problems against most classes. You can also do objectives like carrying orb in spirit watch. Since you can’t win 1v1 with staff anyways you’re always kinda dependent on your team-mates so I think a more support-orientated build fits staff better. Best thing above all: you won’t melt against AI-builds like minion-necro or spirit-ranger like GC-eles do.

I’d say it’s a matter of taste but overall I’ve won more games with a defensive build than with a pure GC-build.

Columbo.5924:

Did you happen to run the air minor grandmaster trait (25 points) that gives you vulnerability on crit or the arcana granmaster minor that also given you a chance to get vulnerablity on crit but on a much lower chance? Note that vapor blade can hit the enemy twice so you trigger those traits two times.

you’d need some condition-duration to achieve that. The proc from the air-trait gives 5s vulnerability (60% chance), arcana trait 10s (10% chance) and vaporblade 6s (2 stacks per second).

You have 1 attack per second that hits twice. Without Condi-duration vapor-blade alone can stack up to 12 stacks. With 100% crit-chance the air grandmaster minor will add about 6 stacks. Arcane trait will add 2 stacks on average. This is 20 stacks in total. Some condi-duration or procc-luck and you have your 25 stacks.

edit: there’s also a sigill that applies vulnerability on crit

Prysin.8542:

Gorni.1764:

I think there is no need to point out the obvious even more. When Anet hasn’t realized it yet that eles are seriously struggling then they never will.

In b4 PvP-heroes claiming that ele is ok because it has imba burst …

No knockbacks? You got Updraft as far as i can remember.

wat? wrong quote?

join skyhammer as an ele and watch the kittenstorm before the game starts

maybe it’s “falling-damage” because you blink-rushed down a hill?

Meglobob.8620:

chungiee.8764:

Have you ever played against Rizadon? He’s Rank 1 SoloQ and an Elementalist that melts down multiple people before you can say hi.

While i agree Ele’s in general are quiet week, the best Eles with their burst are definitely not to be dismissed.

The thing is thou what is Rizadon like with other classes?

I suspect if he is very good with a Ele, he would be utterly awesome with other classes.

Why because there are a few very, very skilful Ele players does everyone else after be excluded from playing Ele?

I wouldn’t call realeasing some instant-burst-rotation and then being useless for the next 30-40s (or dead) an effective or good playstyle. I don’t want to judge anybody (he sure may be a good player) but instant-burst has nothing to do with skill. Basically dealing with such eles is very easy. All the enemy team has to do is focus the ele and strg+T alone seems to kill him.

Josh Davis.6015:

There are a lot of valid concerns with the elementalist right now and we’re going to be working on addressing those points. Once everyone gets back from holiday vacation we’ll be posting up our proposed balance changes and we’ll go from there.

this may let us hope and I think that they know that something is wrong with the profession. The problem however is that their attempts to make eles viable tend to change nothing or even make it worse.

Another quote before some larger patch was “once we tone down conditions and fix CC-sigill, I think that eles will be in quite a good spot”. Well they were wrong ^^ Fun fact: This was said after eles’ condi-remove was nerfed and its stunbrakers were removed from cantrips. I seriously think that they know there’s a problem, but they either don’t really know how to fix it (best proof is diamond skin) or just ignore it and soothe players with statements like above to make them hope for the next patch.
Fixing ele is for sure a difficult task because eles have a lot of potential. However the problem is that they can’t unfold this potential because of many restrictions (low defense, clumsy spells, no build-variety, etc. … we all know about that)

In my opinion the biggest mistake they made was nerfing ele and at the same time buffing other classes. Over the last 6 months there wasn’t a patch with a serious ele-buff that actually changed builds and had a larger impact on playstyle (only exception is fresh-air, which in my mind was a genious idea because it eredicates both the problem of high attunement-CD and low sustained damage). But besides that there were only nerfs. They kept nerfing defensive traits and utilties, not realizing that we don’t use them because they’re OP. We use them because they let us survive and make us viable in the first place.

Another thing is that there are tons of good ideas out there and argumentations that point out the core problems of the class. They range from increasing base stats to detailed changes of spells and mechanics. And they’re totally ignored (at least this is what the patch-notes reflect). I know that big changes have to be done carefully, Anet keeps saying that … but then hower I’d like to know who came up with the idea of diamond skin and what was the argumentation to implement something like that into the game.
It seems to me that the developing-process is like “wow that sounds really really cool, we totally have to do this and completely ignore the impact of these changes on the game” and then we get things like dhumfire, old S/D-thief and healing signet… spells that were changed over the last year and have created some of the most annoying and overpowered builds.

Another ridiculous fail is the reduction of attunement-CD. They argue that with this change they want to lower the need for arcana (and water) and AT THE SAME TIME they put the most essential traits into master-tier and nerf the CD-reduction you get from points in arcana. It seems like they’re making fun of us.

meh … I could continue complaining forever. However, I started to accept or let’s say ignore patchnotes and deal with it … it’s just a game after all. Sad thing is that ele is so much fun to play. Why do they bring so much unbalance upon the best designed class? What a pity.

Is it possible that earth-2 on staff has the same problem?

edit: thanks for the info Josh … that might explain it

I think there is no need to point out the obvious even more. When Anet hasn’t realized it yet that eles are seriously struggling then they never will.

In b4 PvP-heroes claiming that ele is ok because it has imba burst …

redslion.9675:

And there’s a different between fighting capability and the ability to make the right decision during a match.

Finally someone with brains in this forum. I always tell people that judge me for playing staff ele before the match starts that PvP isn’t all about the class you play – that’d be the case in a simple deathmatch – but we have conquest, and therefore it’s also about general understanding und the decisions you make.

It doesn’t make sense to match players based on their W/L-ratio. A good player should always be matched with other good players (in both teams) … nobody cares about W/L-ratios. It’s about fairness und fun in each game – that’s what mmr should ensure by matching only players with similar mmr.
I know that there aren’t always enough players within an appropriate mmr-range available, but in some games it’s pretty obvious that the teams are extremely unbalanced and players could’ve been distributed in a fairer way – and this seems to happen quite often after a win-series.

I actually was wondering the same today. Yesterday I hit something between r200-250 and today I have ~8 looses out of 10 games and fell back to r700

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

[Edit] For theorycrafting: If that’s true… Do you suppose this might work with it:

Start in Earth.
Drop Ice Bow.
Arcane wave (for initial immobilize)
Arcane Power
Ice Storm (still earth attuned).

Each bolt falling (first 5) will cause AoE immobilize with the already-ludacrous damage and guaranteed crit…
That would be pretty lol.

[Edit Edit] If this becomes a ‘thing’ i’m going to dub it the ‘Go-go gadget Icebow’. You all witnessed it. It’s official.

3 Utilities and a Grandmaster-Trait only to pull off one combo that’s propably not killing anybody? … not really worth it

Creslin.1758:

I really have no problem with Ele being more difficult to play than other classes. In large part, that is why I picked Ele. I wanted a class that is challenging but rewarding to play and, for the most part, Ele fits the bill. I did not want to pick a class that I could faceroll to win with…if I did, there were plenty other options.

I 100% agree with you, but even a well played ele is at most as efficient as any button-spamming warrior. I want to be rewarded for good play … and that’s not the case.

I’d say it depends on your build. Defensive builds with points in water, arcane and earth profit most of it because of longer vigor, protection, stability and regen.
I wouldn’t pick it for offensive builds though. As already mentioned 25 stacks of might is not that difficult to obtain in a 5man group. Same goes for fury and that’s all you need for offense.

Any other class is designed to be effective even when in the hands of mediocre players. So why is it wrong to demand the same effectiveness for eles? Just because SOME players are kinda successfull in certain situations doesn’t mean that the class is ok. A class is ok when it’s on par with other classes and that’s simply not the case. Everyone that’s denying this fact has either never played other classes or is trolling.
I congrulate you if you seriously think ele is ok, but 99% of the rest of the pvp-community thinks otherwise. Numbers speak for themselves. Ele is unpopular and that’s for a reason.

Wintel.4873:

katniss.6735:

My perspective is all solo queue/hotjoin. I’ve never had a full 5-man tpvp team where I could actually rely on/vocalize with.

It only gets worse because any smart team will coordinate to blow-up the Ele first.

yep ^^ set focus-mark on squishy S/D-ele and he’s dead within 2s…

Liewec.2896:

and by best i mean the best results without requiring skill,
they are by no means the most fun!

yeah sadly this is pretty accurate. I don’t really understand why people tend to play OP classes in a game without any real rewards only to win more often. There’s no logic behind that

b2t: I think most lists here are pretty much the same.

• H/LB-Warriors, AI-Builds (MM-Necros, Spirit-Rangers) and certain Engi-Builds on top
• Guards, Condi-Necros and other Engi-Builds pretty much balanced
• Thief and Mesmer good to play and superior in their niche
• Ele lowest tier, excells at nothing, inferior in any aspect of PvP

better blame the ele… oh wait

I’d say when they rework the reward-system and remove glory.

Only thing a thief has to do to down a glassy (staff)-ele is to stealth → steal → 2-3 random spammable spells and the ele is dead within 3s without the chance to even react. When you’re lucky you can dodge two times and pop Vapor-Form but without these you’re down faster than a critter and even if you survive the initial burst it’s a peace of cake for the thief to avoid your damage spells with his teleports and stealth and just reangage with full initiative and your spells on CD.

The only thing that makes staff viable in sPvP is the conquest-mode. People tend to always stay on point (sometimes even when there’s no enemy standing in it ^^) With blasting staff you can cover small points entirely and will blow up squishy enemies that are engaged in group-fights. You will need clever positioning though (places where you can easily disengage from but are not that easily to reach for enemies) and something tanky that keeps enemies standing on the point. Otherwise you’ll be dead pretty fast when focused by more than one player.

Playing GC in Solo-Q I recently gained the impression that staff might even be the most effective weapon. You can’t 1v1, this for sure hasn’t changed. But you’ll win your team many team-fights.

Benefits of staff are:

• 1200 range (easy to disengage from fight and you tend to not be the main focus when standing outside the nodes)
• best mobility with burning retreat and on demand-swiftness (even better than D/D with it’s 40s RTL CD)
• best kiting-ability (with 5 abilities in total that let you slow/root or CC your enemies)
• many combo-fields (2! water-fields – not so reliant on water for defense) → good support
• stupid longbow-warriors killing themselves because of magnetic aura
• once you learn the combos and how to use CCs staff is easier to play than other weapon-sets because of less high-CD-skillshots (most staff-spells actually have significant lower CDs than comparable spells on other weapons)
• in general good build-variety; only thing you really need is evasive arcana
• funny gameplay

cheshirefox.7026:

Gorni.1764:

you guys even say it yourself: “having EA would help a hell of a lot more”. So why would I take DS?

i could Just as Easily argue why even use an elementalist because i can die a hell of a lot less playing a different profession

You’re right about that though I’d say that most eles are just bored by other classes. But why would anybody choose inferior traits in addition to playing a weak class?