Guild Wars 2

DS builds are getting an indirect buff with resto signet buff, it’ll be slightly easier for the Ele to keep themselves above 90% against pure-condi classes. Not sure if I like the sound of that though…really not a fan of DS.

CC Danicia.1394:

The negative threads tend to devolve into name-calling, personal attacks, and trolling. That is why they get closed. Which is the reason this one might, so let’s help bring this back on-topic to the original post.

It turned into a sarcasm thread in the 2nd post : /

Ah, the classic staff kamikaze build. I played this build for a while in SPvP, but a slightly different variation: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWhMMqe2zwlBrEBApAKRGEwgkhFQUKsDA-TkAg0CnI4SxljLDXSuscNsA

It only takes 1 thief (or really 1 ANYTHING) to realize what you are up to and at that point it’s GG. This build really revolves on the enemy team’s ignorance and your own team having bunkers/balanced builds to keep the enemy engaged while you rain death from far away. A lot of people only die to this build because they have never faced meteor + tornado….Ele’s are rare in PvP and most of them run S/D.

You have absolutely zero 1v1 capability. It’s very frustrating to attempt to cap a point on your own….then 1 enemy shows up and it’s over because in a 1v1 all your AoE’s are useless.

It’s my favorite hotjoin build, but I wouldn’t dare take it into solo/team queue because you are more likely to cause harm to your team (being a free kill) than being a help. Positioning definitely helps and a lot of effort is spent purely on AVOIDING drawing any kind of attention, but that only goes so far.

In ranked PvP zerker builds have no place unless you’re a Thief, the only class equipped with multiple tools to avoid/escape getting blown up (stealth + evasion + mobility) and destroy other zerkers. Mesmer to a lesser extent (stealth/evasion + clones).

If you’re not enjoying the Ele now then you will never like it. At 80 in full zerker gear damage goes up a LOT, but survivability doesn’t change (gets even worse actually) because in dungeons you will get basically 1-shotted by elites/bosses. Ele’s have no built-in survival mechanics like thieves or mesmers and the lowest health + the lowest armor.

I started GW2 with an Ele before any other class. Found myself dying soooo much against multiple mobs, I just assumed the game was really hard and everyone else was having similar experiences. But then I started leveling an engineer (followed by mesmer) and thought to myself “wait…did I just get WAY better at the game? Everything is a joke to kill!”, later realizing that Ele survivability is just really REALLY bad in all aspects of the game, both PvE and PvP.

In any case, with staff you shouldn’t be dying too much simply because you should be hanging back at max range and throwing spells from far away. The moment you start getting closer to the actual fight (or let the fight come closer to you), that’s when you’ll start seeing the 1-2 shot deaths because it’s impossible to dodge everything and your health pool is tiny. Once you get used to the fact that you have to play super-carefully and avoid damage at all costs, you should die less.

1) Ele
2) Everything else

pdemo.8312:

L2p noon if anything it needs a buff. Mesmer is very popular and they use zerker.

Only due to the same reasons that Thieves use zerker (stealth) with the addition of AI.

I came to a sad realization today that thief is basically the only reason nobody plays a zerker build in PvP anymore. Thieves absolutely DESTROY anyone running a glass build 1v1 while maintaining great survivability. They can have too many things in one build….damage, stealth, evasion and mobility. Stealth is the biggest one really, that’s the main reason why WoW Rogues have enjoyed always being at the top (or near the top) of PvP for 8 years.

Blind field + stealth stomp + shadow refuge makes them the undisputed kings of finishing people off. It’s all too much.

Can something about them please be toned down? Just maybe one aspect.

Spooko.5436:

Condi’s are no longer an issue.

Yeah, that might have something to do with warriors being EVERYWHERE.
On average I see at least 3 warriors across both teams, sometimes 4-5.

An average player playing ANY class vs an average player playing Ele = the Ele will lose.

It’s not even discussion-worthy lol. Ele’s have to play on a whole other level to compete with players of any class.

> Skyhammer is still in the game
> Spirit Watch is still in the game
> Still no proper ready check button, tons of 4v5’s still happen
> Ele’s are still terrible
> Warriors are still ridiculous

> And regarding everything else:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Hey guys, just wanted to pop in here and state that come the release of the feature build players will no longer be able to carry the orb while in a transform. For those unfamiliar with what a transform is in PvP, it is a skill that changes your skill bar. I.E Rampage, Elixir U, Tornado, etc. We’ve also trimmed off some hard edges on the map to make travel more smooth and functional.

Thanks and I hope this makes the map more enjoyable for those whom have issues with it.

Will leaps, teleports and invulns still be treated inconsistently between classes?

First one was taken a while back in PvP, next one is more recent.

@ xXx haha 9/10, that is solid gold.

As for me…

lLobo.7960:

Asura are small and hard to read animations, but also you cant see your armor and cloths much. So if your own visual is something important for you, its a bad choice.

Human female if you like boobs.

Actually Norn females have the best boobs.

Wraziel.1854:

I haven’t had the honor of trying out pvp so far. My elementalist is level 68, but I’m not so interested in the pvp-world just yet.

There you go.

Killing a veteran in PvE is one thing.
Facing a thief, warrior or mesmer in PvP (or really any class using a top build) is another thing. Only then will you find out the true weaknesses with Ele’s.

For now keep leveling and playing what you find fun. In PvE I’m still enjoying the heck out of it.
But for PvP I have completely given up on my Ele…not worth the frustration, I do vastly better as Engineer.

calavel.6249:

Please stop pretending Attunement is “just weapon swap for eles”. No other class can weapon swap between 20 different skills. No other class besides warrior can trigger any sort of effect on weapon swap. It’s F1-F4 skills and those skills are affected by chill. Should Engineer toolbelt skills also be immune to chill? No. And only necro has easy, reliable access to chill.

Engineer offense/defense doesn’t RELY on their toolbelt. Kit-swapping cooldowns (their equivalent of Ele attunements) are are only 1 sec to which chill does nothing. Understand now?

Ele’s 20 skills are balanced around the fact that there ARE that many skills, therefore the skills themselves are either extremely weak/uselesss or have extremely long cooldowns. Try playing the class, maybe you’ll understand that Ele players would rather have 5-10 useful skills instead of 20+ junk ones with ridiculous cooldowns.

I hardly care if I’m hit by chill while playing on any other class, but on Ele it’s almost a death sentence.

“Is ele really that terrible?”

Several Ele buffs are on their way in the next patch. There have been multiple ANet posts agreeing that Ele needs help.

Why are people still asking this dumb question?

Ostricheggs.3742:

Yes and no.

The spot eles took previously was the spot that warriors currently take up. D/D was a hell of a spec and in need of a good nerf, but it was sadly over nerfed (the change to their heal sig proccing multiple times was the last nail in the coffin). Currently, as far as DPS/roaming specs go, fresh air s/f is underrated. A good fresh air ele can destroy people and keep himself alive to a decent extent given how squishy he is. People won’t even try it though, nor will they be good enough at it to actually make it work in team queues.

More than likely the most “viable” spec would be a bunkerish support ele. This is especially the case given how tanky the meta has become.

Until heal sig gets an actual nerf really don’t see eles coming around without being boring support/bunkers. People aren’t man enough to try to get good at fresh air and will stick to their warriors and rangers.

Also, engis are harder than eles. JUST SAYIN

With Fresh Air the risk is NOT worth the reward. Maybe 0.001% of the playerbase (like you) can pull it off in high-level play, but I am absolutely sure if you applied your level of performance to any OTHER class like Thief/Engi/Guardian you would be more effective.

It’s like using an underpowered gun in a first person shooter and doing well with it. That only means you’ll do much better with a properly balanced gun.

Dalanor.5387:

^
Don’t run with pugs, problems solved. Get 4 other people who are at least half decent and you won’t struggle.
And still nobody cares about hundred blades. Damage =/= dps.

Don’t roll an Ele, no problems to begin with.

Ta-da!

Phi Is Sly.1857:

Sin pretty much Eva

wat

ArenaNet already admitted to Skyhammer being terrible when they didn’t allow it in Team Queue rotation. They knew it was an unfinished map full of bad ideas.

Why is Skyhammer not in Team Queue?
Why was it kept in Solo Queue??
ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS ARENANET. Your own logic is inconsistent.

As an Engineer who has easy access to Rifle + Toolkit + Battering Ram + Bomb, I feel like I’m basically hacking/cheating on this map. Cheating other less equipped classes out of gameplay, cheating them out of winning.
Please take this godawful concept of a map out of Rated PvP. Hotjoin and custom only!

zaced.7948:

and now please formulate that “easy fix” in whatever code gw2 is written and i becomes a lot less easy.

Considering they programmed Escape From Lion’s Arch, I think they can do this at the very least.
This is mainly an issue of priorities and PvP stuff takes very low priority.

Ephixa.6053:

Also, where is this statistic of “x % of players want to keep the map” Coming from? I don’t remember a survey going around.

Allie (community dev) said “half the players I have personally talked to”. I.e. she has talked to extremely few players, and a lot of those players happened to be either PvP newbies or idiots/trolls.
Or maybe they had replied in a sarcastic manner like “yes Allie we LOOOVE skyhammer, best idea ever!” and the sarcasm flew over her head. Who knows.

Yasha.5963:

“I’ve talked to a lot of people personally, and the feelings are mixed. I’d say it’s actually close to 50/50.”
Apparently this is “an example to prove that it is not a majority request to have the map removed from Solo Arena”

She clarified that in another thread, specifically saying that statement was not supposed to mean anything and “of course it wasn’t representative of a proper sample size” etc.
Then ANet quickly deleted that thread before it made them look even worse. I wish I was making this stuff up.

The whole series of official responses to Skyhammer were so badly mishandled lol.

PvE content comes first buddy.

Releasing Escape From Lion’s Arch was far more important than making a functional readycheck button to fix an issue that has plagued GW2 PvP since RELEASE.

Darko.5873:

Tavastia.6527:

The area on the other side of your front door is vast and wonderful. Don’t let their sub-par PvP game ruin your life man.

The temperature on the other side of my front door is -20 °C. Also, I wake up at 5:15 AM, go to work, come home at 4:45 PM and all I want is to play a few matches and have some fun but their sub-par PvP game, as you put it, is making it very difficult.

I think what he meant was that there are much better PvP-oriented games than GW2. Play those instead.

You’re taking GW2 PvP more seriously than the devs take it.

As an Ele for whom Moa = death, I’m still OK with that ability due to 180 sec cooldown. That’s a very long cooldown considering it can be blinded, dodged, blocked or invuln’d. Mesmer is going to be banging their head into their keyboard whenever their elite gets completely wasted like that, it’s a high-risk high-reward ability.

style.6173:

Prediction: after ele buffs, this type of class is going to become insane.

Alright, lets see upcoming Ele buffs:

- Resto Signet buff – most eles will still use Ether Renewal
- Armor of Earth CD reduction to 75s – slot skill, not specific to staff ele
- Water Trident giving 3s regen to allies – not a staff ability
- Burning Speed evade frames – not a staff ability
- Frozen Burst blast finisher – not a staff ability

Define “going to become insane”.
ANet’s goal with this patch seems to be all about buffing D/D and leaving everything else as it is. That godawful RTL cd, stupidly long attumenet cds and unchanged base health / armor.

You’re not going to kill a defensive warrior with any Ele build assuming they have half a brain.

Mystogan.4157:

Plus the elementalist is like a mage… Mages in alot of games have skills or passives that regen health while the warrior has skills that heal on attack… Like being blood thirs and shizz itd fit the classes better and itd make them not op

Actually mages in other games have absorption shields, burst/nuke damage and escape/mobility tools all tied to mana pools. To compensate they have low health, low armor and bad healing.

But you should’ve realized by now that GW2 doesn’t have an actual mage class. Elementalist is something else entirely.

phaeris.7604:

Hope it means my ele can last more than 5 seconds against good thieves.

It’s getting a bit tiring tbh.

I don’t see how it’s gonna change. Ele health and armor is staying the same.

With leveling your weapon choice comes down to preference, can’t really go wrong.

Staff is the “safest” and the most reliable sustained damage so I used it all the way through to lvl 80. You get the best spammable Ele nuke (fireball), best fire field (lava font), best water field (geyser + healing rain)….staff basically does everything.
Drop 10 points into Arcana for Blasting Staff, 10 points into Water for Vital Striking, all remaining points into Fire+Air….enjoy huge AoE’s that will destroy everything! You can also circle-kite mobs with fireball you’re low on health.

Never found any real reason to use S/D. Dragon’s tooth + phoenix + fire grab and might stacking is nice if you want to quickly explode 1 mob, but the cooldowns become too much when constantly dealing with incoming foes. Scepter autoattacks are terrible and Dragon’s Tooth can’t hit moving targets. Use it if it you want but I find it unreliable.

Ele is “bad” in the sense that they are absolutely terrible for PvP right now. I can’t speak much more on Ele PvP because I gave up a long time ago, it just was not fun getting repeatedly wrecked. Switched to Engineer for PvP and never looked back.

In PvE you will die the most out of all classes due to having the least room for error. Lowest health, lowest armor and no awesome survival tools like stealth or clones. But it’s somewhat compensated by the ability to do some INCREDIBLE damage, especially AoE – kill your enemy before they kill you, that’s the Ele life

The problem isn’t chill, it’s how absurdly long attument cooldowns are.

It used to be 16 seconds baseline, ANet brought it down to 13 seconds but I believe it should be more along the lines of 6-7 seconds in order for Ele core mechanic to start feeling USEFUL instead of a frustrating hindrance.

Standardize particle effects in SPvP.

Done and done.

Was playing on my guardian yesterday. Out of nowhere this Ele comes and arcane power + PoM + pyroblast me for 15k, instantly downs me from full health. While I’m down a thief attacks him and he just frost nova + blinks away, sheeps the thief and then explodes him with arcane blast + barrage + kiting. Mana shield absorbs all damage.
Then he opened a portal to karka queen and killed her solo.

Doesn’t need any skill to play, just way too OP and needs nerf.

hihey.1075:

Inb4 some warrior fan says “working as intended”

Don’t need a warrior fan to say that, ArenaNet themselves have said it.

Character-bound dyes are really the main reason I’m not making any more than 2 characters. Yes I care about looks! No way in hell I’m going through the gold cost of buying white/black/etc dyes on any more characters, doing it twice was crazy enough.

Thunderbrew.7034:

^^ God I hope that’s a joke. Ill leave it at that. Engineers have the most abilities
at their fingertips, so take away their stealth blast and rocket boots, right?

No he’s totally serious, 4 attunements is overpowered and Mist Form needs to be deleted. Ele’s are breaking the game right now.

Once I faced a D/D ele on my warrior (bunker), went AFK, made a sandwich, came back and the guy had almost got me down to 70% health. What the hell are ANet thinking allowing Ele’s to do such crazy damage?

Gesamtkunstwerk.6590:

For this reason, let me propose a simple solution immediately: Double the number of sigil slots for single wielding professions. An elementalist’s staff should slot 4 unique sigils; an engineer’s pistol should slot 2 unique sigils; and so on.

4-sigil Engineers are going to be unstoppable. Just sayin’.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I still run staff with no cantrips, because kitten the system.
Don’t let the Man tell you what to do.

No cantrips? What blasphemy is this, crucify this heathen.

At this rate it’s looking like Staff or D/D support (energy sigil + might/force sigil) + triple cantrips + water+arcana build will become even more common.

Staff Ele…scary strong…condi meta…what?? Staff has 1 condi cleanse on a 45 sec cooldown (healing rain). That’s it. It also has a 1.5sec cast time so can be interrupted.
Please don’t tell me he’s counting condi cleanses from Ether Renewal and traits…

BlackBeard.2873:

To be fair, Lys was playing an all-in build (25/30/10/0/5 I believe, with zerker amulet).

[Aside: I believe we either call this a “jihad” ele, or perhaps a “yolo” ele build]

What kind of a build is that…I can see he’s going for extra damage on burning targets and fury on attunement swap, but why on earth would he not go 20/30/10/0/10 instead. Burning is never going to be reliably up on a target…and 10 points in Arcana = renewing stamina, blasting staff, etc.

style.6173:

entropy.9613:

Always good to see eles.

On the other team.

You just haven’t played with good eles.

You just haven’t played with good <insert any other class here>.

Assuming equally skilled players (i.e. average), an Ele is going to lose to most classes/builds and get blown-up in group fights.

Ele is actually in worse shape than it seems at first glance, because people don’t realize that most long-time Ele players are always playing one step ahead of everyone else. The only way Ele’s stand a vague chance of winning fights is by vastly out-playing the opponent (or burst them down when they are busy with someone else).

BlackBeard.2873:

smartidiot.2695:

Wait a second…Burning Retreat is 1200 range? I know they increased the distance, but 1200? Last time i checked, the distance is still shorter than what Lighting Flash can teleport and i am pretty sure that’s not 1200 range!!

I actually think its 1100 range, up from 900 previously (change happened on October 15th). However, with swiftness, it is a little further than 1200 range. Staff ele should always have 100% swiftness uptime.

We’re talking some kind of 30 Arcana build + shorter air cooldowns right? Windborne Speed is 10s swiftness for 30sec cooldown untraited. Or are we talking static field blast finishers (too much setup).

Ele’s at least have a role in PvE, e.g. doing ultra-awesome AoE with Staff/Frostbow, crazy damage with FGS into walls, etc.
But in PvP they are lacking a role…they specialize at absolutely nothing. Some might say “burst” but Fresh Air is a one-trick-pony that gets exploded in literally 0.5 seconds flat.

The squishyness issue is something shared in all aspects in the game, at this point getting killed 5x more often than other classes is just PART of being an Ele.

I don’t know what ArenaNet were thinking giving a class the lowest health + lowest armor + no built-in defensive mechanics like stealth/clones/aegis.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Yea full zerk thief damage is insane but they die just as easily as they can kill you if only you counter or avoid the follow up hit. When fighting these type of thieves players it is all about how fast your reaction is after you get hit once. If your reaction is a bit too slow you will suffer defeat but if your reflexes are fast enough you will gain an easy victory. Of course you need to burst just as fast as well.

Thing is though, Thieves typically open the fight so in order to survive you end up blowing cooldowns – the moment you attack back, they’ll either spam evades or stealth + re-open withstun.
Any thief that knows what they are doing should never lose to a glass/zerk Ele.

The there’s the issue of class difficulty…the skill and timing required to play Ele effectively is just on another level. A thief doesn’t need anywhere near that much skill and has plenty of room for mistakes.

KarsaiB.9475:

Ele burst is already controversial as it is that powerful despite the class being that easy to kill. Add survivability to it and think about what’s coming next, for mesmers, engis, even thieves and such.

I dunno, what’s coming next? Mesmers, Engis and Thieves can already do 95% of Ele burst while having significantly more survivability. Also their abilities aren’t locked-away behind insanely long cooldowns, so they can do it far more frequently. Not to mention if a Thief or Mesmer decide to run away from a fight, there is no stopping them.

I don’t get some people.

Ele’s used to be able to use Ride The Lightning to as a getaway tool because they were so incredibly fragile, , but ArenaNet decided that was overpowered and nerfed it to oblivion….ON TOP of nerfing all our healing coefficients and blast finishers. It’s like there was a gas leak at ANet offices during that time or everyone started taking crazy pills.

FGS gives you a small glimpse into daily life of a warrior, heh. Now if only FGS gave us 18k base health + the best sustained heal in the game

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I don’t want it, having to spend multiple trait slots, up to four even, for the entire effect would be horrible.

You don’t need that many trait slots, an EA ele should almost always be dodging in water or earth attunement.

Blink should’ve been an Elementalist ability….I miss it sooo much back from WoW!
20 yard teleport in whichever direction you’re facing, 15 second cooldown, breaks stuns/immob. Heavenly.

Anyway back on topic, all they need to do is give RTL the 20sec cooldown back, that will fix mobility concerns because D/D and S/D are really the only sets that NEED that mobility.
As for survivability, I believe ANet just need to give Ele’s 15k base health and call it a day. I mean why the hell do Mesmers get 15k health + incredible survivability via clones/stealt/invuln + better mobility? What the hell were ANet thinking?

Resto Signet buff is a minor survivability increase, but only if you are actively engaging in a fight and constantly mashing spells. It’s really not going to stop Ele’s from getting insta-gibbed during a CC or if they try to run away.

The rest of the buffs are purely for D/D, and really I didn’t pick an Ele to play a half-baked melee build with pathetic survivability and sub-par mobility.

Not much will change.

Norn female Ele representing

KarsaiB.9475:

You currently can’t balance ele properly without causing casualties to other classes.

That…makes no sense.