Guild Wars 2

Zale.9645:

Oniyui.8279:

Zale.9645:

Oniyui.8279:

Zale.9645:

But forcing PVP into a PVE achievement, or vise versa, is always, I repeat, always bad. There is no arguing that.

It’s not a PvE achievement.

You’ll find it in the General tab, under the Hero section.

It’s, quite literally, 95% PVE.

Not exactly. 95% of the achievement’s required explorable locations exist in zones where there is only PvE.

Yet, it doesn’t even include all the PvE, as it disregards Southsun Cove.

Exploring the mists isn’t WvW at all, either. It’s PvE in a WvW zone.

So you’re saying we should consider it 93% PVE?

This is just nitpicking.

You’re the one nitpicking. The point is, map completion isn’t a PVE achievement. It’s a Gw2 Hero achievement — something you achieve by being proficient in all apsects of the game. It’s NOT a PVE achievement. Dungeons and fractals, for instance, are PvE but don’t count towards Been There, Done That.

If you want to split straws, then youre being nitpicky about map completion itself. 95% of the game is PVE, WvW and PVP are very small locales in the game. But that extra 5% is part of the prestige of Been There, Done That. It’s a title you get only by conquering these portions of the game. If you can’t do that, you don’t deserve the title and the star by your name.

Besides, Been There, Done That doesn’t functionally give you anything but Legendary Mats. You can get everything else from it completing the 95% of the map. It’s not a big deal except from a pride standpoint. You get rewards for completing every map, and you get achievements points for it as well. You can live without the 5%.

Wreave.2138:

BTW, I’ve seen this discussion on multiple MMO, so I’ve seen all of the standard counterarguments.

XXX is supposed to be hard.
Answer: Well mapping really isn’t hard. It’s just thorough. But it’s inherently a PvE achievement, not a PvP one. If that’s not clear enough, Colin makes it clear in his quote that its there specifically to get PvE’ers into PvP.

XXX is supposed represent the whole game:
Well, no its not. If it were thorough, then it would include all of the other PvP maps. And again, see Colin’s quote.

XXX is not that hard! I managed it with a little luck.
Good for you, but, 1) its still coercion, and 2) its harder for other folks who are on servers that are weak in PvP.

XXX we all have to do something we don’t like. PvPers have to run dungeons, etc.
No matter what similarities there are between PvP and PvE mechanics, they are very different both in play and in psychology. There are people who play both, and there are people who do not want to touch the other with a 10’ pole. MMOs should respect that and quit trying to coerce one type of player to be the other type of player.

Sheesh, you talk coercion and all.

Guess what? Nobody’s coercing you to do map completion.

Suck it up dude. I finished my 100% map completion recently. Getting a legendary is matter of going through all game modes, I actually wish making one needed a pvp goal as well, but you can’t bring legendaries to pvp.

Wvw isn’t hard man I was there during peak of the season on Eredon Terrace, we are the absolute bottom server in wvw, but I still got my map completion easy.

Besides, I started enjoying wvw. It’s an awesome game mode. Try it out.

I hate that we have so few weapon choices with no weapon swap, that’s another limiting factor. Every other class has like eight weapons to choose from, we have four.

I still think that Anet made a mistake with the overall design philosophy of GW2. Tying all skills so a weapon is what makes the builds more limited, and having traits doesn’t really offset it. I much prefer being able to mix and match skills to my toolbar as I see fit, so I can really build a specialized build to do something specific that I want to do.

I know why Anet did it, to make the game easier to pick up and play especially for the non hardcore gaming crowd, but very often I find myself wishing Anet had gone back to even just the GW1 system. It would really open up builds.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Mochann.5298:

As for Ele…. There is a skill ceiling, I passed it a month or so back while immersing myself in WvW. But once you get past it, you WILL play well, and often dominate. Those who are whining about the prevalent, “class is fine, you just lack skills” thought on the Ele forums need to wakeup to this reality: there IS a high skill requirement because of the added complexities in Ele play due to the defining class mechanic (attunements) coupled with low health and low armor.

This is what I hate the most. WvW players that don’t even play for long thinking because they can AOE while hiding in a zerg the class is fine. It is anything but fine, it’s the complete opposite.

WvW zerging doesn’t require any skill. At all. Roaming does, because it’s mostly 1v1 and 1v2 but ele completely sucks at roaming since the RTL nerf and is simply a free kill for the other roaming classes.

I won’t say the class is “fine” — I’d love a buff to be honest, though I’d like it to be a damage buff and not a life buff. Let me do more damage! That’s what I live for. I’m really only good at killing and breaking things with my play style.

I will say though, as a staff ele, I rock in all the game formats — open world pve, dungeons, fractals, sPVP, WVW : but I can’t go it alone. I simply cannot go solo or 1v1, except in open world pve.

But team me up with at least one good person to tank for me or front line for me, and I am a walking nuke.

Again, you don’t “rock” at PVP, especially not with a staff ele. You are simply a free kill for any thief, mesmer or warrior. And again, you don’t “rock” at wvw, you’re simply hiding behind your zerg using your AOE. That is neither fun (at least to me) nor does it require any amount of skill. A bot could do that with a few scripts.

“tank for you” “front line for you”… what? There are no tanks in gw2 and peeling is extremely limited and all glasscannons have gap closers galore. Even if you have someone running with you with a staff in pvp, you’re a victim. Plain and simple.

I’ve been playing ele exclusively in pvp for 1 1/2 years like a lot of other pvpers. Do you really think you know more about skillful play than these people? Kitten, please.

You see, the problem with your brain is that you’ve been brainwashed by Anet into the “All classes can do everything there is no trinity” mindset. And as long as you buy into that hogwash (because that’s what it is — utter kitten wash) you will never be happy with this game, because you are thinking you are supposed to be able to do everything on your own.

That’s stupid in an MMORPG, here the mere definition of the game genre is “massively multiplayer” — i.e. players playing with players, not players going 1v1 on everything.

While you are getting crapped on roaming by yourself I am having fun, killing swaths of enemies and rolling with my community.

Fact is, even though Anet is profusely saying “there is no trinity” their flawed game system still allows for roles to be played. I play the role of glass cannon. Others play the role of tank support boon. When we fight together, we are far stronger than when we were alone. Anet is stupid for completely trying to deny the basic point of MMOs and RPGs in general — which is to create a niche role for yourself by specializing. That’s why we have traits to pick from, so we can specialize and do one take better than others.

Since Anet ALSO screwed people who want to be “solo gods” by making high end gear so easily available, you can’t get an appreciable advantage that way either, so no, no man can be an uberman by himself, anyone who thinks they can is deluding themselves. You can beat others in 1v1 consistently, and yes that means you’re a skilled player, but that is not all that this game is about, and your insistence that this is the only measure to use when evaluating the game is silly.

For that traditional Mage feel, the only way IMO is Glass Staff. Full zerker with glass lets you rain fire like no tomorrow on swaths of enemies, leaving you feeling very satisfied indeed.

Scepter Dagger is close to but more focused on mid range combat, if that’s your idea of Mageing around. D/d is strong but doesn’t feel like a Mage, feels more like Batman with fire and lightning gadgets running around.

If you want a build that “clicks” in Ele, my advice is to stop trying out various builds. It’ll take you at least a month to get good enough with any Ele build until it “clicks.”

The new build to maximize this isn’t 30/20/0/0/20 it’s 30/10/10/10/10. Your base power will be around 3,500 full ascended glass zerker, crit rate is about 40% and base crit something like 80%.

Then you buff up with Spicy butternut squash soup and the superior maintenance oil for extra power and crit Dmg,getting your crit to around 110%.

Take full scholar runes, have two staves, one bloodlust, one force. Gt up to 25 stacks, then switch to force staff.

Take Internal, The GM trait for fire fields, Bolt to the Heart, Stone Splinters, Vital Striking and Arcane 20% cooldown. Forgot the trait. Then keep arcane Power in your util slot (you also usually use arcane wave blast your lava font for fury).

At this point, with all the right conditions, you Nado and you can easily meteo for 10k or more. If you have additional support, like warrior banners and guardians Gather Might you can even hitn20k.

Sadly With Eles, the build and gear are not as important as your playing skill. I think your build is already good for what you are trying to do, there’s no real way to “have your cake and eat it too” with Eles and have that good damage and good survivability other classes enjoy.

At this point, my advice is to keep practicing with your build until it “clicks.” Once it does, you’ll be taking names.

Build diversity is good. The problem is that our builds aren’t “pick up and play.” Due to the complexity of our core mechanics (attunement swaps, long cooldowns, 4 skill sets) and low hp/armor, you need at least a week to learn your build before you can become effective with it. Many players, especially newbies to the Ele class, will need a month or more to learn a build, and long before then they would have died so many times as to write off the build (or class as a whole) as broken.

Take me, I’ve been playing Ele for 4 months and I can go Glass Staff anywhere in game (pvp, wvw, living world, dungeons, fractals) and I take names wherever I go, but give me D/D and I die every other encounter.

Soccergirl.5734:

Can’t really buff an entire class based on it’s performance in tPvP. You’d simply be asking for a PvP only buff. The problem with buffing classes across the board for it’s underperformance in one area of the game isn’t good balance.

Elementalist does well in both roaming/dueling and zerg play in WvW and does fine in PvE as well so buffing the class entirely on tPvP could make them overpowered in the areas they’re already doing alright on. Is the d/d elementalist a hard build to play? Yes. But due to it’s incredible skill ceiling once it is mastered you will not only have alot of fun with the class but you’ll be dominating as well. Also, most elementalists on the forums purely talk from a 1on1/roaming stand point. Let’s get this onto the table right here and right now, there is going to be classes that will have builds that are going to be extremely good and almost unstoppable in 1on1 / roaming situations like condition thief / condition mesmer and some classes have builds that will completely counter the elementalist gameplay style (terrormancer necros, etc). That’s just the way it is.

I actually have no problems with terrormancers. The only class that really gives me fits is Backstabbing stealth thieves.

As for Ele…. There is a skill ceiling, I passed it a month or so back while immersing myself in WvW. But once you get past it, you WILL play well, and often dominate. Those who are whining about the prevalent, “class is fine, you just lack skills” thought on the Ele forums need to wakeup to this reality: there IS a high skill requirement because of the added complexities in Ele play due to the defining class mechanic (attunements) coupled with low health and low armor.

I won’t say the class is “fine” — I’d love a buff to be honest, though I’d like it to be a damage buff and not a life buff. Let me do more damage! That’s what I live for. I’m really only good at killing and breaking things with my play style.

I will say though, as a staff ele, I rock in all the game formats — open world pve, dungeons, fractals, sPVP, WVW : but I can’t go it alone. I simply cannot go solo or 1v1, except in open world pve.

But team me up with at least one good person to tank for me or front line for me, and I am a walking nuke.

D/D Ele seems to be hurting bad. I started playing about 4 months ago and I didn’t get to see the glory days of d/d.

But I’m all staff and I’m taking names everywhere. It’s great. All the QQing here seems to be from people who miss “the good old days” when they were walking gods.

Sounds like you just don’t like losing. Or are not a good player. Most likely both.

I just started PvP today. I have done 12 matches as a staff Ele, the class they say is worst for PvP. I’ve won 9 of those 12 matches, had 33 top stats awarded, and currently have 108 kills.

There’s nothing wrong with PvP, it’s a blast to play.

You obviously have a learn to play issue, all I see is someone whining because he gets killed by better players.

SoLeciTO.3490:

ensoriki.5789:

I think I’ve seen this same thread for Rangers, Necros and Elementalists…

There is a lol of threads complaining about necros and rangers . . .* i agree that Ele is in a very bad position right now . . .*

Three days ago i fought a ele staff, i could not even get close to kill him, and he killed me hard.

The best ele and player i ever seen.

This is not true. Well maybe D/D Eles are in a bad position (I just stomped a few earlier) but Staff Eles are overflowing with awesome.

I consistently get top ranked as a staff Ele in pvp.. 2nd place overall in points, and typically get three awards per tourney (usually top kills, top caps and top skirmisher).

Eles turn the tide of the match. But we don’t do it alone, we do it as a team.

SWR.4687:

Is a solo staff with an ele viable at all? I mean I can kill lot’s of stuff, but I die a lot too. I don’t know if dual daggers would be more effective for solo play?

Solo staff works in open world pve. Not in dungeons or fractals. But only madmen solo dungeons and fractals.
Des not work anywhere else actually, especially not wvw or pvp.

The fire staff build works great for pve and wvw, and even pvp but only while you’re with a group. It doesn’t work solo.

Droshi.2730:

This bug, general skill lag and just general low hp (thief fodder) is what keeps me off my ele in WvW. I also feel like my damage is very low compared to other classes I play, but that could just be because I die so easily with hybrid gear.

I guess a staff ele probably is the intended build for WvW, so IDK if it will be that big of a priority to change.

You guys aren’t playing the Ele properly. Ele does the most damage in wvw out of any class, in Zerg situations. I rack up fifty kills every two hours of wvw play as a staff Ele, on the crappiest server in existence. Eles do massive damage under the right conditions, and its easy to learn how to look for those conditions.

1. Join with your Zerg.
2. Wait too your commander attacks the enemy Zerg.
3. Drop lava font and fire fireballs
4. Wait for that lull where the enemy wave stops moving, then drop meteor swarm

Insta kills!

Focus Flame Burst on opponents getting killed to tag them, finish of downed enemies with fireballs and lava fonts. NEVER STOMP. That’s not your job and is a waste of time she you could be tagging and finishing off other stragglers.

Manu.1478:

I hope you don’t wonder why so many players left the game not even a month after release. That the endgame of GW isn’t really there is another discussion but there are some more reason that at most the hardcore pvper left your game.
I startet GW2 with many of my pvp friends from other games and we were all hyped from this game at most because of the great gameplay and other stuff that made pvp really great. I’m the last one from all these guys that is still playing your game and I can tell you why all my friends left, because they told me.
They were all great pvpers but they left because they dindn’t feel supportet by you.
There is still no reason to solo roam in this game even not as a mesmer or a thief.
And I have the feeling that the biggest part of the community likes zerging and isn’t interessted in having some good fights. But that is just because they don’t know that great feeling you can have while having a exciting fight against another player and the feeling of winning is even better.
But you don’t give these players any reason to discover this feeling beacuse you don’t support something like this. And in some parts I really can understand them… When you make WvW in a zerg than you can make around 4 or 5 levels per hour and many gold and loot without any effort but when you roam solo you can only make 2 or 3 levelups a day but of curse not by killing players. As a solo roamer you can make the most expirience just by capturing some camps or killing dolyaks.

I don’t really see that you are about to bring some changes and I saw your new WvW map. The first thing that I saw after one player left his keep was a zerg running over the map and I really had some hope in this new map.

I just wish that you would care a bit more for that what makes the single player fun.

Any solutions?

The solution is to play pvp, and not wvw. Duh.

Counter Zergs with Zergs or ACs. Don’t whine about bombing the parapets, that’s good tactics. Counter it with ballistas and ACs if you are having such a hard time. You can build ACs behind the wall and still hit people, and build ballistas further up away from the wall.

Lowest is likely blue, since I’ve been blue for god knows how long and my server is always bottom.

I have a related question… How are colors determined? I’ve been playing wvw for months and have never been green.

Sin.4130:

Night capping is the most annoying thing in GW2, I don’t believe there are many ppl from one time zone who whish to play all night, so few ppl from other continentals just putting fun from game in wrong direction.

MY solution:
ANet do not allow for intercontinental transfers!, it will revival game fun in great way

Your solution fails, because Australians and Asians also play on American and EU servers.

Look, Warriors are strong. Especially in WvW, and this is the WvW forum. If you don’t get that, stop playing GW2 because obviously the mechanics of this game don’t make sense to you.

I have had no trouble dealing with Hammer Trains. I just run behind a tower and drop meteors on them. Simple.

Maybe I can try organizing a Meteo Train and have a bunch of Eles drop thousands of meteors on them, should fry everyone in a jiffy.

I did not go through the entire thread, but asking for a set of Ascended Armor is kitten.

Ascended Armor is something you get after grinding your kitten dry to 500 Armorsmith or Tailer or what not and farming like crazy.

I am okay for unique skins, that would be awesome, but any rewards should not be a direct stat boost that would normally be grinded for elsewhere like Ascended Armor.

IMO , if Anet wants to incentivize WvW, they need to put daily reward chests with gold rewards. WvW is the one game mode where you need to spend a ton of resources and time, and you get no gold for it. I spend more gold going into WvW than coming out of it, what with buying Siege Plans.

Brando.1374:

Mochann.5298:

Oozo.7856:

Straegen.2938:

I know this is somewhat worn out but rock meet paper.

I prefer the “skilled player on one class has a chance against a skilled player on another class, no matter what the builds are” system. There should be inherent advantages in different build matchups but not passive hard counters.

Get rid of thieves then. Stealth Zerker backstabber Thieves are a hard counter to Elementalist Full Glass Zerker builds.

glass vs glass is a battle of who get their bust off first. not a counter

Glass Thieves are STEALTHED. You can’t get your burst off first on them. It’s a hard counter, because Ele is too soft to survive that initial backstab.

Brando.1374:

yes any necro can deal 1.5k dmg to an ele, but every 9 or so seconds they can go back into water and heal back up and by that time we might as well give up since it will be a loosing battle.

If you can’t kill an Ele in 9 seconds with your condi spam, you are a horrible Necro player.

Oozo.7856:

Straegen.2938:

I know this is somewhat worn out but rock meet paper.

I prefer the “skilled player on one class has a chance against a skilled player on another class, no matter what the builds are” system. There should be inherent advantages in different build matchups but not passive hard counters.

Get rid of thieves then. Stealth Zerker backstabber Thieves are a hard counter to Elementalist Full Glass Zerker builds.

gwfanboy.2496:

Mochann.5298:

Warhawk.7095:

I’ll actually respond to this, becuase i am also a thief, running full travelers runes, shadowstep, signet of agility, and the shortbow shadowshot, and there is NOTHING you can do you catch/kill some of these warriors. Either you literally cannot keep up with them, or you barely manage to and they just shrug off the few hits you manage to land while fighting at a full out sprint. What happened to the core notion that a thief was supposed to have some actual mobility?

Thieves do have mobility. Just because Warriors have the same mobility doesn’t mean you’re slow.

Gotta love thief players..the handicap isn’t enough so they resort to asking nerfs for other classes and resorting to hacks if they aren’t busy running away when losing.

Thief Shortbow teleport initiative cost needs to be increased. There is no reason for them to teleport all the way from one end of the map to the other.

Warrior GS mobility needs a nerf -usually thief/war players are the one running whenever they are about to lose-.

Engy rocket boots+eternal swiftness+ 2 blocks need a nerf

Ele Fiery sword mobility needs a nerf

The mobility has to be brought down to the slow classes like Necros and guardians.

This is pvp..not a hide and seek or running away game. Sheesh. Never seen anything as bad as in this game’s class balance.

You’re wrong, this isn’t PvP. This is WvW.

Samhayn.2385:

Furiousbeard.7602:

This thread XD

Sounds like there are some really good warriors out on the field. So good that they escape enemies. And these other classes are mad because they can’t run after them

My goodness. This sounds like a l2p/suckitup problem.

what does knowing how to play have anything to do with the fact that if any class besides a warrior your chance of catching a warrior is next to nothing? If anything the people here has learned that they class they play doesn’t have the button to press to close the gap with the warrior.

here is the thing, its not that warriors are fast that is the problem its the fact that most people can’t point out a draw back to warrior.

Eh, Warriors have crappy AOE damage, don’t have Mistform, can’t move fast without holding a melee weapon and just don’t do as much damage as my Ele. I can’t collect lootbags with them in WvW the way I do with an Ele.

You people just whine and whine, try to get better instead of whining all day.

If it really bothers you, roll a warrior. You’d be surprised at how much you suck at playing your warrior, expecting to steam roll everything.

Warhawk.7095:

I’ll actually respond to this, becuase i am also a thief, running full travelers runes, shadowstep, signet of agility, and the shortbow shadowshot, and there is NOTHING you can do you catch/kill some of these warriors. Either you literally cannot keep up with them, or you barely manage to and they just shrug off the few hits you manage to land while fighting at a full out sprint. What happened to the core notion that a thief was supposed to have some actual mobility?

Thieves do have mobility. Just because Warriors have the same mobility doesn’t mean you’re slow.

Engi I think is best for solo roaming. Thief for sneaking around. Ranger for… dunno. Not good with rangers.

More QQing from BG. Why am I never surprised at the big bunch of QQers on BG?

WvW is all about zerging and big fights. If you dont like it, learn to hide or run from the zerg, or better yet play PvP instead, where the big bad zerg can’t find you.

That’s just plain wrong.

The Staff Ele is doing great. I have already done pretty well in WvW, both as Commander going full zerk glass cannon and general roaming around. I have also started PvP and am racking up the kills — aiming for that Champion Slayer title now, it’s pretty easy to achieve surprisingly!

I still can’t really go solo, though I have managed to kill some people in PvP one on one (mostly warriors who apparently are not very good) but usually I get run over when I go solo. but if I am with at least 1 other teammate my survivability goes through the roof and I can really make a difference in the encounters.

I’ve also been running fractals for a while and am doing great even up to diff 19. haven’t spent enough time to go beyond that just yet.

Currently focusing on Map Completion to get Been There, Done That. I am so happy with playng Staff Ele that I have chosen to main this and am crafting a BitFrost for my Ele. I look forward to seeing that gold star beside my Ele’s name as a badge of pride and honor for completing the map and maining an Ele — with my Commander Tag up hahhaah!

Dungeons are pretty easy regardless of build. I play “hardmode” with zerk gear and what’s important isn’t really your gear but rather how much you know the paths for speed running. If you know what to do you can dungeon run evem with crappy gear.

Of course some dungeons are harder like Arah ones, but all the other ones are easy add long as you are properly prepared with the right utility skills. The most important thing is to be prepared for trash runs, so know when to do in armor of earth and vapor form, and know when you need those frost bows.

I’m just sloughing on to the best of my ability. I’m even trying to make a BiFrost — and that 800gp Precursor is giving me a heart attack when I see GS Precursors for Warriors going for like half the price.

I’m sticking it out and hoping we see a light at the end of the tunnel. The hardmode we face has made me really good at avoiding damage, though I still get insults from Warriors who tell me to stack with the rest of them in dungeons or fractals…. sorry bro I die if I stack you do your thing I’ll do mine.

Right now PVE staff is all about staying in Fire attunement and going max dps with trait setups that look something like 30/10/10/10/10.

I’m experimenting with using Diamond Skin in PVE, it works really great in some places like Twilight Arbor and is kinda good in other places, but it doens’t work for everything. Build looks something like 20/0/30/10/10. Slightly less damage, about 20% less than what I’m used to, not sure if the extra condi protection is worth it yet.

Massive re-design, but one that should have been in the original game IMO. Or something similar to it.

Too bad it’s never gonna happen.

Legion.1569:

I’ve tried most possible builds with 30 earth for diamond skin as the only constant since the patch in both pvp and wvw, and while its incredibly overpowered 1v1 against a condi class (you can basically go afk against a condi mesmer), it quickly loses its relevance in 1vX or group fights due to the low hp pool for ele. I’ve since pretty much given up on it and switched back to my usual 0/10/0/30/30 with the new soothing wave trait which has been very good so far.

The way I see it, Diamond Skin is going to be useless to most people running Dagger builds. Diamond Skin is the kind of trait that doesn’t work for melee classes.

On the other hand I think Staff Eles are going to love it. As a Full Zerk Staff Ele, I am used to running away, kiting, and basically avoiding damage altogether, because usually I die the moment I get hit by anything. This should help a bit.

Though I should note that Staff Eles still suck in PVP 1v1s (or at least, I do) so this is probably not gonna help any in that regard. It will probably work wonders in WvW where I sometimes have trouble running away because I get chilled, immobilized or crippled to hell and back.

Draehl.2681:

Haven’t had a chance to fight an Ele yet. What worries me most isn’t the condition damage. I run a tanky power dagger build on my Necro and in order to deliver any meaningful damage I need to initiate with Immobilize/Fears/Chills. I’m happy that the devs are designing more interesting and meaningful traits, but its frustrating when everyone else gets new toys and we can’t say we’re best at anything.

Did you just complain that Necro isn’t best at anything!?

L.Flash really needs a buff, but I’ll take what I can get. I tend to use MistForm for the stunbreak, yeah it locks me out, but we work with what we have.

I am gonna experiment with builds over the weekend using Diamond Skin, should be interesting to see what happens.

So you’re a D/D player too right, with that RTL comment? I rest my case.

I’m feeling fine as well. I actually think I’ve been buffed with this latest patch.

It’s still Hard Mode but I wouldn’t be maining and Ele if I really thought it was a problem.

Personally if you guys think DS is overpowered, that’s great! Ele needs to have an overpowered trait or two for a change. I’m sick of being on Hard Mode all the time.

The real problem with Ele is that our Class Mechanic (Elemental Attunement) screws us rather than works for us. That’s because of a little something called Attunement Cooldown.

Mesmers have a great class mechanic — one of the best class mechanic (clones and shatters) that really ups their survivability and confuses enemies
Warriors have burst — which is great for dealing more damage
Thieves have stealth — which is great for a whole crapload of things
Guardians have virtues — which are great for buffs and supports
Rangers have a pet, which can tank for them and deal damage and even revive them
Necros have pets and they can do tons of things for them like be an army, heal,etc.

And finally we have Engineers with tool belt skills and Kits — which are strictly speaking is a better version of the Ele’s attunements — because they offer the same diversity of multiple skill sets — without the pesky attunement cooldown problem.

I don’t really agree that Elemental Attunement is a class-defining skill, but the Ele’s core class mechanic needs some work. Either get rid of that cooldown (or make it 1 second like Engineer kits) or the idea of building in Elemental Attunement into the core class mechanic is another idea.

That said, I think the real problem is what DiogoSilva said: people are just stuck in the Arcana Water rut and don’t want to get out and try new things. Get out of your bunker builds and learn to play differently. I played for the longest time with no points in Water and I do PVE just fine without being a liability to my team, at least no more than anyone else is. I don’t play PVP yet but WVW I’ve also been doing just fine, finding my niche.

You CAN survive as an Elementalist without Water or Arcane. In PVE or WVW, Fractals or Dungeons, taking Stonemist or what not. I guarantee it. Just get out of your comfort zone.

RighteousOne.4613:

Put it this way. Ele’s are a broken class and I cannot play them until the fix them. Sucks to say because I love playing as a D/D ele.

You D/D Eles keep crying rivers. The problem is you want to relive the “good old days” and can’t adapt to change and try something new. And I don’t mean changing your D/D weapon set, just try a different load out with a different strategy or play style.

Already tried and it didn’t work? Maybe you just need to practice more. Remember how long it took you to get good with the old D/D playstyle? Ele is that kind of class. It’s something you don’t get good at until you play it over and over and over.

Bah, don’t know what your doing wrong, but I definitely feel buffed after the last patch.

I think the problem is Eles who are doing D/D S/D bunker builds that look like 0/0/10/30/30. You guys probably feel you got hit by a nerf bat, because you evolved your builds into things that just dip into Arcane and Water, and now you can’t do that and need to put all points into Arcane and Water again.

I’m running a 30 Fire build and I feel stronger, because I never used those Arcane and Water traits that you feel are compulsory.

Regarding the issues with healing — hasn’t ANet made it clear over and over athat they don’t want healers and tanks in this game, they only want DPS? (which incidentally I believe to be stupid game design, but whatever that’s another discussion) So it’s useless to expect buffs to healing.

Regarding other classes getting Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement for free, not sure what that’s about. What class exactly has Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement for free? How? I does not compute.

The most sensible thing I read in this post is Lord Byron’s — I agree D/D ele (as it was before) is totally not getting any love. ANet has clearly been hating on D/D, don’t you know a D/D Ele kitten d the developer’s mom? Other than that, tough, I’m not seeing much else that needs to be commented on. Though maybe everyone in this thread is playing D/D, that’s why everyone’s complaining?

I started playing GW2 a little late (only September this year) so I never got ingrained into the 30/30 D/D builds that were all the rage. I’ve always been squishy, I’ve played all my Ele life as squishy, and instead I’ve been focusing on damage. The changes in this patch have made me feel stronger and I feel I have more options. I already have a lot of ideas on what to build my ele into next. Am gonna try over the weekend. I’m excited and can’t wait.

I am maining an Ele. Many times I kick myself in the head whenever I am lying on the ground dead after being one shot by a boss or by a backstabbing thief, while my friend playing a Guardian is effortlessly stacking might with 2 button presses, regenerating to full health from the brink of death in an instant, cleaving through foes with his great sword, and otherwise just going through the game in easy mode. Or the Warrior who shrugs off all those attacks that one hit me, passively gaining all the health back without even pressing any buttons, and generally face rolling everything,. Or the Mesmer who stealths, never gets hit, leaves clones and phantasms all over the place, all while dealing crazy damage either directly in zerk gear or with conditions. Or the Necros who just melt everything in a few seconds with a few button presses.

Or…

You get the idea. When I think of how much effort I have to put in to stack might, how I get attunement locked out of a skill I really need, how my cooldowns are ridiculously long, how I am locked into one weapon set (and we only have three), how it seems everything that isn’t a trash mob one or two shots me, how I have to frantically dodge and heal just to stay alive when others just stand there tanking things, sometimes I just think I am just a masochist.

But in the end, I can’t leave my Ele and I still relish all the times I drop a meteor or a dragon tooth on someone or something. It’s a pain to play, you could say I chose unwisely, but it’s all good.

I take a sick pleasure when my friend, who mains a Guardian, tells me that when he hit fractal level 30 he was getting one shot by bosses and it was horrible, and I’m just playing business as usual because, you know what, that’s how I’ve been playing since I was a level 1 scrub. It’s not even a big deal for me. I’ve been running dungeons forever with the mentality that I can’t get hit at all, because if I do I’m dead, so when I got to the higher level areas where difficulty suddenly outramps any classes’ ability to tank, I’m right at home and already kicking kitten and taking names without any disruption. Because that’s how I’ve always played. And then I say with a smug sense of superiority, “Welcome to my world.”

Ele is the the class the devs hit with the Ugly Stick. Except they used the “kitten so Hard their Grandkids are deformed fetuses Stick” instead.

The Ele is supposed to be the “Jack of All Trades” according to the Devs — which means they are below par in all aspects. In a game where the “Trinity” is not intact and everyone is by default a kitten version of DPS, Eles are even below that kitten level.

That said, the resourceful Eles do their and come up with ways to make trash usable.

As Staff Ele, I’m a ranged Nuker. Staff Ele is so much fun to play in WvW. Sure, we die when someone so much as looks at us, but we clean house like nothing else.