Guild Wars 2

LightningBlaze.4913:

Only time and experience will teach you how to play the elementalist. Also keep in mind if you don’t have previous experience playing as a mage profession type on previous mmos, elementalist will be even harder for you to master in a more competitive environment like wvw and spvp.

I rolled an Ele thinking I would feel right at home with a supposedly “mage” class but it turned out to be something else entirely. Elementalist is nothing like Mage/Sorcerer professions in any other MMO.

Take WoW Mage for example….that class revolves around long-range nukes, lots of kiting abilities, CC, damage absorption (shields) to compensate for low health and complete lack of healing. Through-and-through a pure damage class.

Meanwhile Ele plays like a mage with zero kiting/CC potential, no absorption, just high damage through area-placed abilities and everything separated by eternally-long cooldowns that don’t make any sense.
You are given lots of group support abilities, healing and rely on boons. ArenaNet themselves have said that Ele is a jack-of-all-trades class, and by that definition it’s nothing like a Mage/Sorcerer, it’s just “support”.

Engineer or Mesmer is what I would recommend for fans of the Mage class.

Columbo.5924:

Elementalist (together with engineer) is the hardest to play class in guild wars 2

Claryfying this: Engineer has a high skillcap, but performs just fine even in the hands of a mediocre/average player because of how much breathing room you have with survivability and build diversity.
Ele also has a high skillcap, but will NOT be anywhere near as effective as Engi in the hands of a player who doesn’t know what they’re doing. The player has to spend a lot of time and effort with the class and have near-perfect execution on everything (abilities, dodges, etc). Also there’s no reward for being a good Ele player, you will simply be on-par with average players of other classes.

So @ OP, you can either deal with the fact that Ele is a very difficult class to learn/play with no reward for all that work…or you can reroll another class (literally any other class will do) and have a far smoother learning curve, a lot more room for error, far easier to learn, etc.

Well we do get the occasional crazy who thinks Ele’s are a top-tier class in SPvP, no community is complete without it’s share of crazies -_-

Rezz.8019:

There are some good ele and mesmer builds that would be very strong if meta was changed. They are not viable right now but if warriors get nerfed they might be. Have to be aware of that.

Dunno about Mesmer builds but Warriors are far from the only thing that can steamroll Ele’s.

katniss.6735:

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

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

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Everybody hates eles

All this proves is that Ele’s badly need help :P

But this time ANet need to actually THINK what they want to do with Ele’s. No insult to ANet but the Dec 10 changes made me seriously question if they have any idea what they want to do with this class. Especially that Diamond Skin change and moving Elemental Attunement deeper, good lord.

The class feels so fragile regardless of build, so slow and cumbersome with abilities (huge telegraphs + slow cast times), such few viable options with builds and slot skills, so much hard work only to get facerolled by passive/AI nonsense, no role in SPvP that can’t be done vastly better by another class/build.

Static Field > Lava font + Meteor shower, hope the Mesmer stands still in all that. If he does, he should go down. If he doesn’t, try again.

Phew, I avoided telling you to reroll or change weapons

Kontrolle.3514:

I mostly play WvW-smallscae so i cant speak for dungeon-stuff or spvp.

I main engi since beta and i also have geared up D/D Ele and cant belive what you guys are writing here. Engi is actual in his worst state since release, last patch killed again a couple of builds, this happens in almost every second patch.

Ele is far superior in sustain, healing, support, condicleanses, mobility and damage it isnt even funny. The traits are awesome and close to be op. The only thing where engis are better is condition builds and killing a half decent ele with a condition engineer takes ages if he doesnt run away.

Engineer has by far the most horrible stability Skill in gw2, the worst downstate ever they suffer like no ones else from retalliaton and confusion, this class doesnt forgive a mistake. You have to sacrifize utility slots for mobility and for weapon-swap.

But hey reroll engi, its an awesome class but sadly it became unviable for the game i play, you just cant have stability, cond-remove, mobility and damage in one build.
Jes you could run elixirs+rocket boots but then you would just have an ele without attunements.

Hahaha this is solid gold, especially the last paragraph.

Nomin.5901:

With 5k meteor shower and a 3k lava font ticking at everyone’s feet.

1) Focus the Ele, they will die in 1 second. Sometimes 0.5 seconds.
2) Alternatively you can assign someone on your team to simply camp the Ele as a free kill, Thieves are especially good but any class/build can destroy a Staff Ele 1v1. I’m not kidding.
3) If you somehow didn’t do the above 2 things, don’t stand in Meteor Showers and Lava Fonts. You only need 1 person on the point to hold cap and Meteor lasts 7 seconds, do the math.

Sigh, people getting funny ideas that Ele’s became viable in SPvP after Dec 10…nothing has changed. If anything, some builds got nerfed.

WvW zergs, that’s where a Staff Ele can accomplish something.

silvershadez.8421:

Still I don’t want to see this class becoming the next warriors. There is a reason I play elementalist: it’s the competition. The feeling of joy when you showed those ignorant people what a well played ele still can do.

I’m all in for some small buffs, but please ANet, don’t overdo it. I would instantly leave this game when ele would get to the same absurd level warriors are right now.

Did you make your Ele at the start of the game or recently?
Because for the first several months Ele’s were VERY strong, basically a top-tier PvP class. A well-played D/D Ele was almost unstoppable due to crazy sustain/healing, high mobility and decent damage output.

Dark Soldier.5107:

I know that it’s not as simple as just removing a map from the rotation for various political and software related reasons

Actually it is. ANet took it out of Team Queue easily enough.

werock.8715:

I love Skyhammer being an ELE,,,it’s the only map we have a chance lol

I’m assuming you’re running rock solid + tornado? Because even with those things Ele’s can’t even get REMOTELY close to Guardians, Engineers and Necros when it comes to making enemies fall to death.

Graendall.4765:

If you sit idle its tremendous.If the dragon tooth/phoenix/fire grab/air burst hits you are most probably dead.

Awesome, so all everyone needs to do is stop moving and go AFK, then Ele’s will be totally viable!
The solution is here folks!

Dunno why you had to make Part 2, could’ve just edited your post in the first one :P

Gonna copy my response:

1) In all those builds I think it’s a huge mistake not to take Rock Solid. With 20 points in Earth it’s silly to take anything other than Rock Solid. I can see you’re going for condi damage but it just doesn’t make sense to sacrifice such awesome traits for minor condi traits.
2) Renewing Stamina = best Arcana adept trait. After the latest patch Ele is the only class that can maintain perma-vigor now, without it D/D has no source of vigor. Vigor = lots of dodges, dodges = lots of Evasive Arcana, you live longer, etc.

It’s nice to see people trying out different things, but I think it’s just a fact that Ele’s are hard-locked into their absolute best traits in order to stand a chance against other classes/builds. There’s almost no room to experiment with Arcana traits, and especially no room to attempt condi builds with a class that is absolutely horrible at applying conditions.

Stick with Thief. Currently playing Ele is like playing the game on ultra-hardmode with no reward, just a lot of frustration.

It’s totally possible to play an Ele quite well after lots of practice & reading/watching, but if you apply the same amount of dedication to your Thief you will have a better experience, especially at lvl 80.

Have fun

ThiBash.5634:

It’s still a matter of opinion, because while those issues have merit, they can be played around.

The very fact you said that the issues have merit and need to “be played around” proves it’s NOT a matter of opinion.

People could find ways to make even a naked trait-less class work through creativity/skill. It wouldn’t change the fact that applying the same level of creativity/skill to any OTHER class = always better results than Elementalist. Balance is about comparing to other classes and currently Elementalist is at the bottom of the bucket, it’s been like that for over 6 months now.
Those “Class Tier” threads really rub it in, almost everyone ranks Ele’s dead last. Like…dead, dead, dead last.

PierPiero.9142:

My main was an elementalist. I rolled an engeneer. For pve i prefer elementalist but in pvp there is no way. Engeneer is hard as elementalist as skills , even in pvp for healing you have to use a combo but Engeneer is much more viable. You can play dps, condi or bunker as you prefer and eng can fit many roles quite well. On the other side i feel that engeneer is really good for pvp only , for pve (for me) it is not funny. It is viable but not funny in pve ( too long on grenades for ranging boss)

I think you mean “fun”, not “funny” :P

WvW Zergs = Ele, kind of
Everything else = Engi

Saying this as someone who mainly plays those 2 classes.
Engineer is hands-down better in almost every aspect of the game with huge build diversity, lots of room for skill and lots of survivability mechanics + better base stats.
It’s also borderline overpowered in SPvP with certain builds, but flying under the radar due to requiring a lot of skill. Oh and also due to Guardians, Warriors, Necros and Mesmers ruling the meta-game :P

Ele can be crazy strong in specific circumstances with specific setups, e.g. when you have a group that can support the Ele, or bosses that have been backed-up into walls/corners (godlike damage with Fiery Greatsword). Or the aforementioned WvW zergs where Staff can pull insane AoE, but relies 100% on teammates to avoid getting focused/targeted.

With Engi you’ll always be extremely versatile, self-supporting, lots of build options, lots of roles, lots of breathing room, etc. For PvP there’s just no comparison, a skilled Engi can win 2v1’s or even 3v1’s depending on classes/builds. A skilled Ele will usually struggle to win a 1v1 against any meta class/build, having to dance around and mash keys like a lunatic while their enemy kills them with autoattack (or 2 buttons).

Comparing purely abilities, mechanics and numbers…Engineer is the better class.

Talyn Sneider.1825:

Hi guys, to check the first iteration of all your feedback please see:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-to-an-Overpowered-D-D-Elem-part-2/first#post3436582

1) In all those builds I think it’s a huge mistake not to take Rock Solid. With 20 points in Earth it’s silly to take anything other than Rock Solid. I can see you’re going for some kind of condi build but it just doesn’t make sense to sacrifice such awesome traits for minor condi traits.
2) Renewing Stamina = best Arcana adept trait. After the latest patch Ele is the only class that can maintain perma-vigor now, without it D/D has no source of vigor. Vigor = lots of dodges, dodges = lots of Evasive Arcana, live longer, you get the idea.

It’s nice to see people trying out different things, but I think it’s just a fact that Ele’s are hard-locked into their absolute best traits in order to stand a chance against other classes/builds. There’s almost no room to experiment with Arcana traits, and especially no room to attempt condi builds with a class that is absolutely horrible at applying conditions.

Is there some kind of inside joke going on with this “+2% damage to burning and bleeding” o_O

1) Mesmer should never lose to an Ele 1v1, you are the best 1v1 class and Ele is one of the worst.

2) Just because an Ele outplayed you doesn’t mean they are “viable”.

3) Ele’s are pretty much absent in most tournament teams, if not entire tournaments.

4) Try actually PLAYING as an elementalist, come back and let us know how “viable” you were (not hotjoins pls).

5) L2P.

ThiBash.5634:

Like you said, the grass is greener on the other side…but that goes for the other side as well.

I wish this was a matter opinion, but it’s not. There’s just no way anyone an sugar-coat the huge list of issues Ele has right now.

Engineer really is an extremely well-rounded class with many viable builds and a high skillcap. I heartily recommend it to anyone who is sick of their Ele, but still wants a class that takes some thought to play and pushing lots of buttons to be effective.

Don’t let the description of engineer mislead you into thinking the class is “gimmicky” or something (I thought the same till I played it). It’s an extremely well-designed class with solid mechanics, all of which flow smoothly in combat. You won’t be waiting for dumb attunements to come off cooldown, your entire pool of abilities (kits) are always ready. You have LOTS of survivability, excellent condition builds, excellent bunker builds, decent power builds, etc.

The grass is truly greener.

30 Water + 30 Arcana + Triple cantrips? That’s about as old-school as D/D builds get.

Sorry but the damage capability of this build is just PATHETIC now that I’ve experienced what a real PvP class like Mesmer, Engineer, Guardian, etc can accomplish.
They’ve got builds with defense on-par with that D/D ele build + double the damage output and pressure, AND significantly easier to play with more breathing room.

But I’m glad that such threads keep coming up, it’s good to see people trying to make something work out of this sorry excuse of a class in SPvP.

These days I’m just running hotjoins as staff zerker, way more fun.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Roflmao diamond skin says hi. Instead of rework the whole condition system its easier to add hardcounter. Lazy lazy lazy.

Not even 5% of Ele’s bother using that trait. It’s so bad and putting 30 points in such a terrible trait-line really hurts Ele builds. It hard-counters maybe 2 carrion builds in the entire game and loses to everything else, oh and it’s useless in group fights. Almost every Ele is still sticking to old builds because the core problems with the class remain, Diamond Skin is really not worth taking.

Umm yeah, shortly after World Of Warcraft released (8 YEARS AGO) it became obvious that balancing complicated build systems and hundreds of class abilities is impossible.
That game still hasn’t achieved anything even remotely close to balance, despite having huge dev teams and endless budget.

GW2 is riding a similar rollercoaster.

Not sure what makes people think any MMO will have balanced PvP when trying to boast crazy customization at the same time.

Ascended/Legendary skins perhaps? Who knows…

Bsgapollo.5364:

Keira Ferland.5619:

Don’t play tPvP until you’re at least rank 15, please.

That’s why we have a MMS.. If you’re as good as you claim you are then you won’t even come close to being with him in tpvp.

That only works when there are TONS of players actively PvP’ing, so that you’ll end up with low-ranked players being put alongside other low-ranked players.

Unfortunately the reality is that low-ranked players end up in higher-ranked matches just to fill up vacant slots.

It could be avoided if TPvP simply didn’t allow anyone below rank 10-15 to queue.

Well staff zerker never gets old in hotjoin, I think 420 is the highest I’ve ever scored…didn’t run a single orb either.
Followed by a rage message from a WARRIOR (of all classes) because he tried so hard to chase me down but I kept running away while my teammates dogpiled him.
I guess he didn’t know what happens when a staff ele goes 1v1 against any class/build :P

TNoD.8143:

1v1 MM necro is very strong but in competitive play they are very weak.

This is the SPvP forum right? In 5v5 matches a LOT of encounters are 1v1’s.

Any mage/caster from any other game will look better compared to GW2 Elementalist.
Attunement cooldowns is the most flow-breaking thing I’ve ever experienced, the class is just a botched experience from lvl 1.

I’m saying this as someone who exclusively plays mage/caster classes in any MMO I try.

With great sadness I decided to level up an Engineer, which to my surprise turned out to be very similar to Elementalist…except twice as good in every aspect.

@ Skyhammer fans – can you please tell me why ANet removed Skyhammer from Team Queue shortly after that map was released?

Give me an honest answer. Thanks.

But…Scope is one of my favorite Engi traits

Durzlla.6295:

I hear there’s these builds out there called bunkers that are designed to be defensive and have almost no damage, I know it’s weird that someone would wanna go with “not dying” instead of blowing everything up, but supposedly it’s this thing called a “staple” in a PvP team, it’s weird isn’kitten

Cut the sarcasm, there’s a reason I didn’t call it a bunker build. Ele has no real bunker build, no matter how defensive you choose to go – and it comes at the cost of having absolutely zero damage/pressure capability.
They can never be as defensive as what Rangers and Necros can accomplish, and not even come CLOSE to the “immortal” style bunker builds of Guardians, Warriors and Engineers.

Ele’s rely entirely on spamming dodge with 100% vigor uptime, that’s their “bunker”.

1) The fact that Skyhammer was removed from Team Queue means ArenaNet already admitted that the map is a joke for any kind of rated/tournament PvP. If the developers THEMSELVES know the map is terrible, who the hell is anyone to say otherwise?

2) Raid Of The Capricorn was removed from both Solo & Team Queue a long time ago because ArenaNet knew it was terrible for rated/tournament PvP. Skyhammer is far worse.

3) SO WHY IS SKYHAMMER STILL IN SOLO QUEUE WHEN IT GOT REMOVED FROM TEAM QUEUE SO LONG AGO???

4) Keep Skyhammer in the game as part of Hotjoin. It’s a unique map that allows for extreme trolling, has instant-death glitch and as such belongs in Hotjoin.

Non-condition classes: Ele wasted 30 points in a useless trait-line
Condition classes using Carrion amulet: Ele is borderline unkillable
All group fights: Ele will always be below 90% hp and wasted 30 points in a useless trait-line
Ele builds: There is basically only 1 build that makes Diamond Skin work, D/D 0/0/30/20/20 or similar. It’s extremely difficult to make it work because zero points are spent in offensive trees (Fire/Air), it’s mostly defensive.

What build & weapon do you use?

dante.2864:

Had most success with s/f fresh air. Its the only build I found that could deal best with all the meta builds atm.

I dunno how s/f fresh air is supposed to deal with any bunker/semi-bunker build. Fresh air is a one-trick-pony with no sustain whatsoever, just moderate spike damage with Lightning 2….because you’re not going to hit any half-decent player with dragon’s tooth or phoenix, some of the most telegraphed abilities in the game.

1v1 vs thieves is also painful because they can take almost your entire health bar off in 1 second. Then there’s the automatic loss against most mesmer builds. Then there’s the lack of cleanse, conditions will just eat you alive.

Fresh air is nice damage when abilities actually hit, but it’s basically a gamble with your life and hoping enemies are terrible.

Qaelyn.7612:

I ask the devs again.. please…

Increase the penalties for people who abandon their teams.

Thank you.

Penalties were already increased. It changed nothing, 3v5’s and 4v5’s will continue to happen no matter how severe the penalty is made.

Because engineers have to give up slot skills in order to have those kits, while Ele’s have both the swapping ability and whatever slot skills they want. So it’s basically toolbelt vs slot skills…In theory.

In practice, all it’s resulted in is the Ele being 10x more awkward and flow-breaking to play compared to Engi. Just to further rub it in, absolutely no defense or CC comparable to what Engi’s have.

Caffynated.5713:

The devs don’t think about ele. None of them play ele and they never face one in PvP.

On the contrary…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/1106-suggestions-pre-patch-0-were-ok/first#post3403927

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

So we’ll have to wait till Jan to see what kind of changes devs have in mind for Ele. At least they are listening.
There is still hope for this miserable excuse of a class.

Treborlavok.3504:

Missing
-> rifle auto attack for engi still sub par compared to ranger or even war lb/rifle. Either make the range shorter and double the dmg(since it’s basically a shotgun type weapon and not a rifle) or bump up the range and add in bleeds and or poison.

I think static discharge zerker builds might become way too bursty like that…

Mother of god…if you had spent that all that time/dedication towards PvE I can only dream of how much gold+gems you would be rolling in right now.

Mbelch.9028:

I would hardly call Grouch’s post “arena net admitting ele needs help.”

Sounds like a reading problem, look up what “valid concern” means.

Mbelch.9028:

I actually guarantee I’ve got more WvW roaming and dueling experience than you.

Don’t care, read the thread title and stay on topic. SPvP is SPvP.

Mbelch.9028:

You stick to your kittened opinion, I’ll give mine.

Ele needing help in SPvP is no longer subjective, no longer up to opinion.

Mbelch.9028:

PM me in game if you’d like to duel.

Waste of my time and not helping the Ele community in the slightest, just stroking egos. A bit selfish IMO.

Mbelch.9028:

I just played a series of TPvP games with my custom D/D ele build.. The results? One loss, but 6 wins.

Our loss was because our engineer pooped out.

Get this— team composition: two eles, two engies and a guardian who wasn’t good at all.

We are noobs to TPvP. All roughly around R15. Not sure how good that is. But we played some really good games, and in all those games, I only died 4 times as the DPS roamer.

The most competitive game we played was against a coordinated guild of players, all R59. They all had assignments and we really did well against them. The score came down to the wire at 494-500 (us). At the end they had two points but a stomp I made boosted us from 495 to 500 granting us the victory.

I guess I’ll also include my thoughts on how I FELT as an ele today. I felt appropriate. I at times took on 2v1 and won. I at times took on 3v1 and killed one and escaped. At times I had 4v1 and escaped but I also died several times in that same situation. My mobility in those small maps was great. My damage was more than sufficient, and I only couldn’t kill a bunker engineer, who also did no damage to me.

I was the top scorer every game, but I’m not boasting, as I know I’m not great at SPvP, I’m just trying to give hope.

So what am I saying? If you put the time into building and connecting with you build, you really can make ele shine.

…You’re rank 15. Literally hundreds of others vastly more experienced than yourself have stated that Ele needs help. ArenaNet THEMSELVES admitted it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/1106-suggestions-pre-patch-0-were-ok/first#post3403927

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

So both the TPvP community and ArenaNet have agreed Ele needs help. Gratz on your 6 wins against other low-rank players with your “custom D/D build”, I’m happy for you.

But please don’t try to use that to argue that Ele is fine…they are not fine by any stretch compared to the 7 other classes.

alwinp.2791:

So is elemantalist the best profession? Also, isen’t WvW supposed to be played with a group anyway?

That’s a bit of a vague question.

Lets just say Elementalist has more weaknesses/disadvantages than strengths compared to the other 7 classes.

JackBeShippin.4159:

I just dont know how to report these guys, anyone who can help me here?

You can help yourself by understanding that the entire PvP community is sick to death of 4v5’s and what you experienced was nothing more than vented frustration. It’s not the 80-10 score, it’s the fact that someone was missing from the scoreboard with no indication of whether they’ll come back (most of the time they don’t).

If you want to report someone for what happened, report ArenaNet.

Have a nice day.

Inb4 you get told to L2P by some dunce who doesn’t know what class balance is : /

The solution is as simple as the match simply NOT STARTING if someone hasn’t manually clicked the Join button, removing them from the queue, popping-up a Join button for the next person in queue, then commence match.

Anyway we’re far beyond solutions at this point, ArenaNet has enough player solutions thrown at them to fill their entire office with post-it notes.

They need to cut the constant delaying/ignorance and ACT.

Xillllix.3485:

You have to wonder why they would delay skills on the ele by one seconds (like fireball) when in a zerg battle there is already a 1 sec lag in the game.

It makes the game seems totally clumsy and unresponsive, as you see number on the screen always having to do with something you’ve done a few seconds before, while you are doing other stuff that will also get delayed.

Playing an ele feels like playing with lag.

PvE class is built with PvE in mind.