Guild Wars 2

Considering every Ele build, save maybe Fresh Air, is a very minor variation of that build? That one exception covers pretty much all current Ele builds.

You only have your own story questline. Hopping over to another zone will just let you do the area “hearts” with enemies relative to your current level.

Actually support builds like the Auramancer build are based entirely around the bonus from traits that allow for the application and spread of boons to nearby allies. The weapon skills themselves offer very little in the way of sustainable support, due to their protracted cooldowns. In that sense, you do need to spec/build your traits to a specific allocation for that role.

What kind of Ranger were you? A Ranger has a lot of mobility and survival based in their weapon skills. An Ele’s survivability is tied mainly to their trait spec.

It is common if you aren’t catching any of the dynamic events along with the area quests. You can always go to the starting area of another race and do the quests there.

Does it track how often the character is deleted? I’ve personally rolled and deleted my Ele about 6 or 7 times.

That’s because then they remembered that they just don’t like us.

Because Anet logic is that we have twice as many skills as another profession, ergo they should only be half as effective to be balanced.

TGSlasher.1458:

The law of MMO power (mainly found in Korean games)
The more powerful an amour set is, the more it reveals.
Totally lore friendly (sarcasm)

I think you can attribute this back to western culture. Cultural icons tend to lose clothing when they “power up”. From Marvel’s Hulk to DC’s Superman, when a hero unleashes their power, off comes their clothes. Targeting their products at this prime demographic of consumers, it is only natural that the developers of other countries adhere to this trend.

:P

Maybe they did read what Fish said and realized they couldn’t nerf heals. But then were still set on nerfing something so did all that other stuff? Thanks Fish. :P

I think there are enough people that agree Eles need to be fixed somehow. The task now is to think of a way that they can do it properly, without backtracking on their standing declaration, as that seems to be taboo with most developers.

Maybe if we started reporting threads for making too much sense, that will get someone’s attention?

I think much of the class’ difficulty is that the class’ implementation opposes the stated design intent of the Devs. Trying to come up with a fix without changing either is near impossible.

The skill mirrors in each attunement, trait lines layout, and starting attunement CD all indicate that attunement specialization was supposed to be viable by investing in specific element trait lines, with attunement “dancing” a variant supported by the Arcane line.

However, with each patch the Devs have “balanced” the skills to “encourage” you into a juggling playstyle that they have now stating is the way the class is meant to be played, forcing everyone into the Arcane traits just to play the class as it was “intended”.

I did not follow the state of the company all through the development of the game, but does anyone know if they swapped directors at some point? It feels like whoever initially made the class is not the same person who’s deciding the direction of the class now.

EchenSketch.9142:

I have come up with a great idea. (Just came to me, don’t judge!)

Why not remove conjured weapons out of utility slots, and put them into your trait tree?

For example, in fire, you put in 10 points, and your fire attunement skills would be switched with the fire axe’s. Put 10 into water, and you’re water would be switched with the Ice Bow’s. (These being optional of course)

Again, there are issues with useless skills/reskins of skills, but that can be worked around.

A D/D ele could now have ranged in water attunement, and a Staff Ele’s could have melee-ranged options, etc. We could take it even further and allow players to choose what attunements are swapped with which weapons, allowing people to “switch attunements” yet specialize in what role they want to play.

Imagine an Ele with D/D Fire attunement skills, and Water + Earth Attunements were swapped with Fire Axe and Fiery Greatsword.

Just an idea, I think it’s great

Are you suggesting it overwrite existing skills? If so, that would be even worse as people could only invest in Arcane traits if they wanted to keep any of the standard skills. 10 in Air and they would loose access to RTL, Swirling Winds, Updraft, etc. That would result in even less variation than currently.

Currently, Eles are dependent almost entirely on their traits for survivability.

Ele is very hard starting out. You can take barely any hits and have no way to keep enemies off you. Much later on you get better once you start unlocking traits that help you stay alive longer, but that won’t be until around level 20. Until then, try to keep fights one on one and feel free to run away if more than 2 enemies start attacking you.

Purchase and use defensive skills like Arcane Shield to keep yourself alive longer. Also focus on condition damage in your attack rotation and then just keep away from the enemy until they drop dead. That has been the safer tactic for me thus far.

pffft… it wouldn’t matter if it hit, just have 5 Ele’s spam that attack and everyone would quit from having to sit through the cut-scenes. :P

Victory through attrition!

None of those seem all that fancy or flashy enough.
Instead of Railgun, how about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8VwaEv3z1M
Or would that fall under fire attunement?

Azunai.5974:

Solkard.5136:

Azunai.5974:

What do you think of rifles, though?

If they hold it by the barrel and shoot fireballs out the stock? Sure, why not.

I’m not sure what to think of that post.

Picture a firing range with Engineers, Warriors, and Rogues all lining up the aim on their firearms. Then pan to your Ele at the end just twirling it around and pointing it in the wrong direction, but still laying waste to all the targets. :P

Azunai.5974:

What do you think of rifles, though?

If they hold it by the barrel and shoot fireballs out the stock? Sure, why not.

How about the option to disable torso armor visuals like you can with the helmet? Nothing says “kitten” like not wearing any armor at all.

And if we can get that option for all armor slots, that would help streamline RP activities.

Agreed. The class’ design does not fit how the Devs have stated we’re “supposed” to play it.

SilverUniverse.7103:

Solkard.5136:

Is this petition directed at female characters? I have not seen any male leg pieces that don’t come with pants.

would you like to have a kilt?

And bicycle shorts please.

So… you’re an Ele if you’ve used Ele skills?

In terms of DnD, Mesmers are illusionists and enchanters. It makes sense that they rely on actual martial weapons in combat, as their magic primarily function as a means of delivery for conditions/enchantments. It is also easier to create a copy of something you have a clear image of, ie. the gun/sword in your hand.

Elementalist magic can be considered conjuration and evocation. They don’t directly use weapons, more or less use the items as a focus and conduit for channeling out magical energy. To that end, they “could” just as easily use a sword or gun in place of a staff or scepter/wand, but it makes little sense that they would actually utilize them as actual weapons, rather just waving them around like a staff or scepter/wand.

That said, they do summon weapons which they use in a certain fashion, but such items can be interpreted as a specific magical items that require use in a specific way to unleash their inherent power, rather than as arbitrary foci to channel the Elementalist’s own powers. If anything I’d be more in favor of having the conjured weapons function more like an Engineer’s kits, giving them a more “static” presence in the Elementalists arsenal.

Is this petition directed at female characters? I have not seen any male leg pieces that don’t come with pants.

I use Focus as an anti-range defense weapon. Chaining Swirling Winds, Magnetic Wave, Obsidian Flesh, and Arcane Shield is the only way I can defeat enemies that fire tracking pojectiles.

Aside from that one defensive niche, Dagger has better off-hand synergy with every other single-hand weapon. But without Focus, there are several fights I would not be able to win, simply because you can’t avoid or tank ranged incoming attacks another way.

Loco.4561:

i just don’t understand how giving mesmers and guardians an out of combat speed boost to be in any way OP, all people are asking is to be brought up to speed with the 6 professions that have out of combat speed options.

It’s because a person doesn’t have to be in combat to matter in a battle. OOC speed affects how fast reinforcements can arrive. It affects how easy it is to conduct hit and run tactics. It can determine how quickly organized squads can move, if they must keep pace with an important member who is slower.

Because Dagger and Staff shoots fire at the enemy. Scepter attack sets them on fire. If it were standarized, the prevalent theme is that attack 1 would not burn.

You should spec into Water and Arcana first to improve your survivability. Investing in Air will not give you that much more DPS early on, but added survivability will let you live through fights, instead of hopeing you can pull off a last second kill while in downed state.

Make a mesmer if you want. You already look like a little bunny/chipmunk. Why not have your magic sprinkle purple butterflies as well?

Well hopefully she isn’t petty. Otherwise if you log in one day and the shared bank stash is empty, you’ll know who probably vendored everything just to spite the others.

He was talking about how he’s played an Ele since 2005, probably in reference to GW1.

Anyone who bothers to complain for the class obviously loves it. Why would anyone bother protesting about something they don’t give a kitten about?

silvermember.8941:

The problem with the elementalist is that, it is the only one where you feel like you are actually playing strategically and intelligently.

All other classes are mindless, press 1 and get big numbers with almost NO risk that is right no risk in any of their big skills. Try pulling off Earthquake without lightning flash, you are probably going to die.

The game currently favors spam X for 10k damage, while elementalist is A+b+d*X/D= 4k damage. WE need the whole game to be able to do A+b+d*X/D and that will make the game better. Also make condition damage the equivalent of critical/conditional. Right now the other 7 classes have EZ dps. We need to make everyone have difficult to acquire dps like the elementalist. while we are at it, fix the elementalist dependence on arcane and blah blah blah.

I would argue Engineer is currently a more tactically versatile class than the Ele. What the Ele is, is as you pointed out, much more complicated in terms of mechanics. I feel that the major problem with the class is also as you pointed out, more complexity with less payout.

That is where I think the Devs are currently most confused. They have mixed up complexity with versatility; thinking that making us juggle between 20 skills, that mostly do the same thing, is equivalent to having just 5 skills that are unique in function. And that the more juggling we are forced to do, the better the class will somehow become.

Unfortunately, the reality is that GMs in any game will rarely just passively stalk through the world observing players. If you want action taken, someone will have to file a complaint. If other people are contacting your wife about it, have her request that they file a report on her behalf, since they will be able to most easily submit a screenshot of it with the report.

Is he doing the majority of this over teamspeak? If so, could you not get him banned from the channel?

Unless he’s texting all this through GW’s ingame chat or mail, I don’t think it’s really Arenanet’s place to punish someone for misbehaving over a 3rd party social network.

If it is through ingame mail and chat, just report him for slander/harassment and the GMs will handle it as such.

Most builds are built around a X/X/X/10/20 base. Without that, you will find general survivability to be an issue in any situation. Getting there will put you half way to 80 and let you decide what direction you want to go from there.

So give him some more food the next day too. If you gave him a life time’s supply of food all at once, it would be a waste since he would have no place to store it, and it would just end up spoiling.

Try asking on the Necro forums. Maybe someone picked it up for use with a Terror build. Just ask them to try it with the Flesh Golem’s charge.

The CDs for the Ele are “balanced” to “encourage” you to constantly swap attunements and use skills in other elements. If you really examine all 20 skills you have with a weapon loadout, you will see the majority of them are mirrors of each other. You could easily bring the skills of the class in line with the skills of other classes, eliminate all the needless filler, end up with just 5 skills, and still be as effective as you are with your current 20.

Sounds like you encountered a visual bug. The class has no self applicable stealth ability. So unless there was someone else there providing either the effect or field setup for them, the Ele should not have been able to stealth.

Decisions give different experiences as you progress. However, there is no “wrong” or “right” decision that will lead to ultimately divergent destination. All they do is change the scenery along the journey.

Could it be a delayed floater messages from auto attacks during their mist form? Are you still damaging them, regardless of the message?

style.6173:

Ele is perfectly fine right now. The issue is that a lot of players came to Ele when it was completely OP. Now that it is more balanced, those people are complaining because it is no longer OP.

I got this game after the patch and the class feels lacking in potency, compared to other classes. All the abilities feel like they are either pointless filler or ineffective due to CD restraints.

The abilities do have a lot of variety in terms of utility effects, but are ineffective due to an inability to sustain any of those effects. At the same time, since each weapon’s skill set are designed around a specific playstyle, not being able to swap weapons effectively locks the class to one playstyle during combat, making it feel more restrictive than other classes that can swap weapon/playstyle on the fly.

Looking at the D/D loadout, I would argue there are only 6 or 7 unique skill types out of the whole set of 20 skills. Everything else is just filler/mirror of the same effect, with a different animation. Add to that their CDs are so long, that the class is “encouraged” to constantly swap attunements to just sustain DPS output, and the result is a pointlessly manic class.

Yes, the weapon’s base damage does affect “spell” damage, but what I’ve noticed is that it only affects the damage of the skills associated with equipping that weapon. For example, the weapon damage of a Dagger in your mainhand will only affect the damage of your first 3 skills. However, any “enchantment” bonuses on the items are applied to your character, and thus affect all skills and attributes.

There is no way to quick switch between weapon loadouts with this class. It is intentionally difficult to emphasize that you should only be swapping weapons out of combat when you are “safe”.

RTL is only 40s if you use it as mobility. The CD is 20s if you damage something with it.

“Fast ground target” disables the circle that shows where YOUR aoe ability with go. If you have that turned on, turn it off for better control of your own aoe skills.

Enemy aoe abilities that target a specific spot on the ground should always show. However, some aoe attacks are just direct attacks that have an aoe component. Those don’t have a ground circles because they typically track and follow you. The only way to avoid those is to watch for the projectile and use the dodge mechanic.

Personally, I would like to know if there is a keybind to toggle Fast Ground Targeting on the fly.

I feel that the point of magic is to shoot stuff out of things that normally do not shoot stuff. To that end, I feel rifles and pistols should be the last weapons the class should ever have added.

That would be like the Warrior getting Scepter and Focus as new weapons. What would they do? Poke you with them?

Kitty!
Make it.

Necro has a high base health, equivalent to Warriors. They are also able to reach the stacking cap for bleed DoTs on their own. Their main weakness is lack of mobility and stability, but otherwise have very high survivability.

Engineer has a lot of versatility and a wide variety of playstyles. They aren’t strictly a DoT class, but could probably pull it off with certain combinations of their gadgets and kits.