Guild Wars 2

There´s nothing wrong with utility though.
Not dealing maximum amount of damage at all times and instead focusing on helping team or just buying time for yourself are good things to do too.

I don´t really see the effect. I feel all the time like i´m simply playing with multible tabs of skills to be used as situation demands.

And it´s not even necessary to swap around for swappings sake.

Example:
Going 30 into fire with certain traits makes your lava font only have ,5 second of downtime.
So if nothing threatens you, there´s no reason to swap attunement.
If however something threatens you there´s possibility to go earth, air or water. Earths conditions are really no joke and it can be played just as offensively as fire. Though if you swap trhough air first, unloading cc and the damage it has to offer, then move to earth you can setup a combo with eruption, return to fire and cast lavafont.

just an example of how switching attunement doesn´t mean you have to assume a different role.

You could also consider water 20 for the vulnerability with arcane/signet skills. Or even the %dmg against vulnerable targets if you can get it from other sources. And also arcane 30 is nice for free combo finishers.

morrolan.9608:

To me that says that the class is inherently underpowered, the fact that a good player can get past that limitation is pretty much irrelevant.

o_O
O_o
O-o
O_O

kitten did i just read

Quick random kinda maybe fact:

Number of UP qq threads on each class forum on a random time:

Ele: 5 (This has gone down a bit, i will henceforth think that it was because of me….shut up)
Mesmer: 4
Necro: 4
Engineer: 2
Ranger: 1
Thief: 0
Guardian: 0
Warrior: -2 (that´s 2 OP qq threads instead)

Kinda funny that during BWEs the forum opinion was that melee/martial professions were weak…now it seems other way around.

Masternewbz.4953:

The thing is staff damage is really really weak …

Damage is enough and you can survive.

Easiest way:
Staff
Dodge, magnetic shield and arcane shield untill you can pull them together, earth glyph of storms, nuke down.

Morthis.3968:

Strang.8170:

…

This often happens when people feel their issues are glaring, but the developers are not taking their time to talk to the community about things. It happens in every MMO forum there is. If the class is mostly fine, you might see the occasional post like this. If many people feel the class is broken, you’ll see lots of posts like this. It won’t end until it’s been addressed or the perception of the class has changed (because the meta game shifted/etc). Even rerolling won’t fix this, because plenty of people will troll their old class forum warning everybody else just how terrible the class is, simply because they are upset that they were “forced” to reroll.

Exactly the reason people need to chill out.
People feel it´s a glaring issue. It´s not and it will get sorted out to be even less of an issue.
Having mass panic and migration will lead to the issue being over exaggerated and in worst case scenario to overexaggerated fix.

Morthis.3968:

…

Exactly because it is a game. If someone has dedicated a large amount of time to their class already, they shouldn’t be told “Oh well you have chosen poorly, better luck next time”. People don’t accept that answer, nor should they have to.

Because it´s a game, if they were enjoying their time, it was time well spent. If they weren´t…well yeah…
If they stopped because it stopped being fun after they got to know how green the grass was on the other side, it´s not like the progress they made has vanished, they can return to it once the greenery on this side is sufficient to their liking.
And not putting up with it works how exactly? Ranting up this and up that here on forums days on end?

Also…it´s again not such a glaring issue. If the opinion was unanimous or even near that, i´d be far more concerned.

Morthis.3968:

…

So spend even more time leveling a new character, gearing it, etc, all to kill time until they fix the one you really want to play? You think this is a reasonable answer? The mass of forum posts you complain about certainly don’t seem to agree with this notion.

If the class you really want to play is this one, then you can play it and enjoy it. If having doubts about efficiency ruins your enjoyment, then certainly you should switch, and every second you enjoy playing another profession is worth it.

however if you don´t enjoy playing the game as another profession, and feel that not being the most efficient profession stops the enjoyment you get from playing the game itself, nothing stops you from not playing untill this gets fixed. Grab a singleplayer game or wait for pandaria to launch or dabble in f2p market or something. It´s not like you pay monthly or anything.

Morthis.3968:

Personally I think Elementalist is a fun class. I do think it has quite a few issues that need to be addressed. The problem is, if this whole thing continues for too long without a reaction from Anet, we will reach a stage where it becomes “common knowledge” that Elementalists are useless, at which point they will struggle to find groups. This happens all the time in other MMO’s, and despite their whole ordeal about not needing the holy trinity, I’m already starting to see a lot of specific class requests for groups (especially guardian).

It´s a fun class. It´s efficient enough class. And again this is exactly the point, chill out, let Anet know about this and do something you enjoy while waiting for them to assess situation.

Simple build for levelling, half and half fire and water.

Nuke with fire and when in need cc with everything else, setup earth finsiher cast combo fields (water if low hp) use utilties to further combo, use heal and return to fire to nuke and everything should fall apart after a bit of frantic attunement dancing and dodging.
After you´re at 80 you can start thinking about efficient builds and stuff.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

I’ve spent the majority of my time playing WoW, back when I did play, as part of the Shaman community in the official forums.

You eventually just get used to it, Strang. Those of us who make it work eventually learn to just stay silent, keeping our knowing smiles between us and the monitor.

But i do so love arguments on the internet over trivial matters

My solution, switch to esdf or even rdfg for movement….plenty of keys around your left hand after that.

Intrigued.7690:

Strang.8170:

Intrigued.7690:

Strang.8170:

…

…

…

The fact that people are rerolling, shows that pve balance is important. People dont want to work harder than other average Joes.

The majority populous shouldn’t suffer overall, for the fickle mindset that the gameplay is fun. That and the few people who want to be special flowers.

People are rolling, and people will always reroll, it´s a fact that human nature has a need to go the most efficient route if it´s possible(most of the time).
That though, doesn´t mean that the balance is as far off as people seem to think, nor that it would be such a crippling gap between other professions and eles.

I don´t question wether the balance might be little off. I do question however, that it would be off to extent the people are raging about, to the extent that it interferes with anybodys ability to have fun playing the game, and to the extent that there´s an absolute need for everyone to reroll just because of the balance.
If it is as bad as the vocal part of the community lets understand (which i don´t buy) or even if it´s slightly off, they will balance it. In time. And if pre-expansion gw1 tought us anything, they balance it pretty darn good.
It´s everyones own decision what´s the line of having fun. Everyone can switch and return to professions as they see fit. You have 5 slots to tinker with, and buy gems/delete button if that isn´t enough.

While we´re taking jabs…
You´re declaring the opinion of majority based on….vocal part of the community? Your social circles? Your server? The internet?
And you´re declaring other peoples mindset, opinions, thoughts fickle based on…..?
Also, you propably should know that there´s quite a few of us special flowers who do want to work harder than average joes.

And while i´m at this, thanks to whoever of the mods changed my topic name….though i have to confess i feel a bit bitter that my troll bait got taken away

Intrigued.7690:

Strang.8170:

If you´re about competitive pve playing, nothing is holding you here. There will be elementalist players voicing their concerns here, having fun playing the game at sub-optimal level. If you feel you´re not having fun playing ele because you don´t have fun because you don´t have enough gold, and like other classes too, switch. It´s that simple.
Not everything is about being the best.

It’s that exact mentality that IS occurring.
People ARE switching.
I’ve already switched to my alt(lvl 80 Ele) to a Guardian.
I still frequent the Ele forums because I do enjoy the Ele play-style, but it needs fixing before I’ll go back to it.

Was I having fun on my Ele? Hell yeah. But not enough to justify the loss in efficiency that -ALL- the other classes have.

So you in total with all things accounted you have more fun with other professions, good for you.

Personaly i´m having more fun as elementalist even with loss of efficiency, good for me.

If things change, and they will if it benefits the game, welcome back.

Meanwhile enjoy playing.

MajorMelchett.6042:

So if we are having fun we shouldn’t talk about balance?, all classes need to be on a similar playng field in tems of balance in PVE (not just PVP). Just because we enjoy the class more than the other classes doesn’t mean we should just put up with it or reroll.

Also, if we don’t post about the issues/balanve then how will Anet know to fix it?.

Quickly counted 7 threads on the first page that are about or have devolved to being about eles being underpowered. That´s my problem, not the fact that there´s A thread about it. (and also to lesser extent the fact that it´s mostly people raging about it rather than discussing).

And just why wouldn´t we put up with it? It´s fun, you play games to have fun, enjoy.
If it really needs balancing, Anet will balance it. People will can and should discuss the balance but i´m trying to say that we don´t need full forum to be dedicated on raging and flaming about it.

Also the playing field is never equal, there´s situations where other people are better, other professions are better. But i understand what you mean, and i´m saying that it´s not that big of an unbalance we´re having here. Ele´s are fun to play, viable to play and certainly aren´t as useless as some people seem to think.

If you´re kinda people who enjoys having the optimal build/profession/grop, you´re free to switch, and maybe come back again once future patch tips the balance in our favor.

<edit>

As far as PvE balance, imo it is a big deal. (PvP balance is a no brainer)

It’s more important to the competitive people out there, that guy next to you killing twice as fast is HUGE.
He gets twice as much loot, he gets money faster. With that money he gets geared faster, gears his Alt chars faster, can control the trading post market easier, can craft easier, etc etc.

Also it’s kind of depressing when everyone around you is killing twice as fast, and die half as much. It makes people start to regret their decision.(Regret shouldn’t happen in a game! At least not with a choice so trivial as job profession.) Usually by that time, you’ve already gone too far to really want to start over.

In those senses you get penalized. Not only do you have a harder time doing the same things, but also have a harder time keeping up with market inflations and also not being included in dungeons. It’s wasted effort, regardless of whether or not it’s fun.

The Ele play-style is fun, but it’s not in a competitive state right now.

If you´re about competitive pve playing, nothing is holding you here. There will be elementalist players voicing their concerns here, having fun playing the game at sub-optimal level. If you feel you´re not having fun playing ele because you don´t have fun because you don´t have enough gold, and like other classes too, switch. It´s that simple.
Not everything is about being the best.

Soothing wind is not doing much, so you could aswell get rid of it to get something better.

Chill out people….

Pvp balance i´m not going to touch. I´ll just state that it´s in Arena nets interest to balance it, since it´s one of the main attractions here. So they will. In time. If it needs balancing.

Pve balance…..what the hell people?

I consider myself average player, no more, no less. And i can solo/duo and do group combat while having fun with elementalist. It´s not impossible. It does require some work learning the kinks of the profession, but for average players it´s completely doable and even fun process.
So we established that average player can have fun playing elementalist.

Now ask yourself, if you are having fun playing an elementalist. If no, switch. Nobody forces you to play it if you enjoy something else more.

If yes, and you´re still moaning about balance here…why?
Does it somehow diminish the amount of fun you´re having knowing that somebody else does the fun things in a shorter timeframe than you? Does it take away from your experience knowing that sombody else has a little bit bigger numbers on their invisible virtual dice? Is your fun playing this profession somehow dependant on how other professions play?
(Well if it really is all the above for you then you should propably reroll…and wait for a patch and reroll again to whatever is “best” again.)

Being shunned by groups is something that does diminish fun and stuff…but in my opinion if people do it, i propably wouldn´t enjoy playing with them in anycase.
It´s most certainly not as widespread as some seem to think, and personaly i haven´t encountered it even once on my server.

If it needs balancing, Anet will balance it. After all it´s their profit that depends on us enjoying the game.

Aiglos.2907:

Some nice advice…

I notice ‘glyph of storms’ keeps being mentioned, and it’s a very good skill! I use it quite often. However I dislike the idea of people of using it as a solution to end all of the world’s problems.

If taking glyph of storms is the only solution to improving the ele, then I think something is a bit bad? I’m not saying that every utility skill should be super incredibly amazing, but noone should be forced to take a single skill just to be effective. However, that seems to be a major suggestion that certain people have. It leads to a very rigid/forced style of gameplay if you know what I mean?

It´s not the only solution, it just happens to be the easiest.

Staff, abosultely.