Guild Wars 2

Anyone saying D/D Thief or 2-kit Engi has not played Elementalist. Ele takes more skill than any other class in this game by a country mile, I’m not going to name any “builds” because ANY build is very challenging to pull off especially in a 1v1 against top-tier classes like Guardian, Warrior, Engineer, Ranger, etc.

As Ele you’re incredibly fragile, all your survivability revolves around perfectly timing dodges or blowing very long cooldowns (i.e. cantrips). You’re restricted to just a handful of viable builds, either a balanced build (arcana+water) or a glass build (fresh air) but if you go the glass route, there is a chance another zerker/glass build can literally 2-shot you instantly. Learning the class can involve spending a LOT of time in downed state.

You will need to mash keys like crazy and monitor 10+ cooldowns just to stand a remote chance at killing people while staying alive, and in return other classes/builds can usually just autoattack you to death. Mobility is also pathetic.

Good luck.

Can we not turn this into a “warrior isn’t OP” thread? Yes, Warriors aren’t OP, glad that’s out of the way.

But they’re still more effective in TPvP at just about EVERYTHING better than Ele’s, that’s the point.

If I told someone from another MMO that in GW2 a warrior can zoom around the map or melt people from range better than the iconic “mage” class, they would fall down laughing.

JinDaVikk.7291:

Going to say this…

You just admitted afk’ing for 24 games…

I’d perma ban you.

If this actually happened go kitten urself.

Don’t be so short-sighted. He’s doing us all a favor by highlighting just how useless and pathetic the current system is.
Every big-name online game has ways to minimize the impact of AFK’s/leavers/disconnects…except GW2, a game which is perfectly happy to let 4v5 matches happen and provide plenty of room to leave/AFK.

The more people abuse the current system, the higher chance that devs will notice it and fix it. Respect those players for it, especially that guardian who went 3+ months AFK’ing in Solo Queue matches and showed everyone how easily he could get away with it, and how pointless reporting is. He was finally dealt with after multiple threads where created in this forum about him, only then the devs noticed (lol).

A solution is LONG overdue.

Evan Lesh.3295:

You have only gained dishonor twice from AFK and twice from leaving in the past week. I speculate while you may have behaved like an AFK player, you did not actually get kicked by AFK detection. Could you describe how you ‘tested’ dishonor exactly?

Dishonor caps at 3.

Dwelling on the details is silly, please give the PvP community an ETA on when the 4v5 solution is coming (if you know by any chance). There appear to be no systems in place to deal with a very common thing in online gaming, systems that should’ve been there at release. Thank you.

Zenith.7301:

They need to give staff ele more escape options. Lightning Flash is not enough.

Umm…staff has more “run away” options than any other Ele weapon.

Fire – Burning Retreat – 20 sec CD, evade, fairly long retreat distance.
Air – Gust – 400 knockback, 1200 range
Air – Windborne Speed – cripple/immob/chill cleanse, 10s swiftness
Air – Static Field – 2s stun, big AoE field
Earth – Magnetic Aura – projectile reflection
Earth – Unsteady Ground – won’t let enemies go across it
Earth – Shockwave – immobilize

Combining staff skills with cantrips = slippery target. The main weakness is that staff gets absolutely shredded when trying to fight on point since all it’s damage revolves around AoE fields (that a blind man could avoid), and when Magnetic Aura is on cooldown it’s GG against any ranged attacker. Also we’re forced to run Ether Renewal or get melted by condi classes.

So the only use left for staff is stand behind teammates, hope like hell you don’t get noticed, rain down Meteors + Lava Font and maybe provide some healing (2 water fields).

Overall staff as a weapon is fine, but the core issues with Elementalists still remain – way too squishy, bad mobility, awkward attunement cooldowns, heavy reliance on cantrips for survivability, inflexible traits, etc.
The class in general is just not designed to compete with the likes of Guardians, Engineers, Warriors, Mesmers, etc when it comes to high-level play.

I heard Thieves got nerfed but at least they still have a ROLE for roaming and far-point harassing, at least they can hold their own in 1v1’s and team fights.

Ele’s have no role whatsoever, and the biggest kick in the balls is that they are still so hard to play properly.

They are giving far higher priority to everything else instead of fixing one of the biggest issues (if not THE biggest) that has been running rampant in PvP for the last ~6 months.

It really boggles the mind.

How the hell does class balance or rewards matter when when 1 out of every 3-5 matches is over before it even begins?

Oni Link.4621:

I hope you understood how ruined is the PvP player base now. Guess who is the culript…

The what?

Dirame.8521:

Wintel.4873:

Let me get this straight…people choose to use an extreme condi-only build, and literally explode into tears that ONE profession (the worst one and least played) has ONE trait that counters their extreme build?

I’m sorry but…what???

“But it’s bad design!” – what does that even mean in context of SPvP and practical use? Stop beating around the bush and get straight to the point – just how useful is Diamond Skin against 95% of builds/professions out there in an real 5v5 match?

Till then, please shut up and enough of this knee-jerk reaction to something that non-Ele layers have no clue about. To even REACH Diamond Skin the Ele has to make big sacrifices, just to counter 1 type of extreme-condi build. Most Ele builds don’t even have the flexibility to spare ONE point in Earth, let alone 30!!

Jesus H Christ what has this community devolved into….

You’re missing the point I’m trying to make. The trait does not function on a level where it requests that the player use his brain against a condi specc it just requests that you stand there and laugh at them. That isn’t fun to me and I don’t think Anet should create skills or traits like that.

I dare you to make an Elementalist right now, put together a functional build with Diamond Skin (good luck with that btw), do at least 10 Solo Queue matches and tell us how much that trait helped you against everyone you faced.

Everything you’re spouting only exists on paper, try it in an actual match and find out for yourself instead of wasting time arguing theories. As an Elementalist I’ve tried that trait and in 9/10 fights I was severely missing putting 30 points in a more useful trait-line. My build was completely broken thanks to taking Diamond Skin. I had to resort to an awkward 0/0/30/10/30 build (semi-bunker that does pathetic damage/pressure) or 0/30/30/0/10 (fresh air build where I was brought below 90% instantly).

The Ele community still hasn’t figured out how they are supposed to use DS in their build without completely destroying their overall performance…as far as we’re concerned the DS change never happened, it’s sitting in a trait line that we have no FLEXIBILITY to go into, nor any REASON to go into.

You would’ve known all this if you played the freaking class.

To ANYONE who has a problem with Diamond Skin – I dare you to make an Elementalist right now, put together a functional build with Diamond Skin (good luck), do at least 10 Solo Queue matches and tell us how much that trait helped you against everyone you faced.

People choose to use an extreme condi-only build, and literally explode into tears that ONE profession (the worst one and least played) has ONE trait that counters their extreme build? I’m sorry but…what???

“But it’s bad design!” – what does that even mean in context of SPvP and practical use? Get to the point!

Till then, please shut up and enough of this knee-jerk reaction to something that non-Ele layers have no clue about. To even REACH Diamond Skin the Ele has to make big sacrifices, just to counter 1 type of extreme-condi build. Most Ele builds don’t even have the flexibility to spare ONE point in Earth, let alone 30!!

Jesus H Christ what has this community devolved into….

So Thieves were nerfed to the point where they are nearly as useless as Elementalists?
I’ll take that as a win.

I read somewhere that a solution is “in the works” or something along those lines, or it’s going to be mentioned in “talks” at some point in the future. That’s a bit vague considering the sheer severity of the problem.

Meanwhile we’re having to endure 4v5 matches, the big Dec 10 patch did nothing about it. Why does the queuing system even allow a match to BEGIN when it knows that someone is AFK/disconnected? I don’t know.

This is an online game, AFK’s and disconnects are unavoidable….which is why every other game has at least some kind of system to preemptively deal with such issues and minimize their occurrences – otherwise that system is not ready to be released to the public. Why was the Solo Queue system implemented when it clearly wasn’t (and still isn’t) equipped to deal with such a common issue? I don’t know.

I hear people calling for harsh punishments for AFK’s/disconnects, but that’s not going to stop 4v5 matches from happening (see above point about online gaming). That’s not a SOLUTION, it’s a very weak band-aid.

The PvP community needs some kind of ETA on the actual fix please, so some of us will at least know how long we have to take a break from this game and when we can resume playing.
At this point ArenaNet have enough suggestions to make their harddrives explode, so this is not a matter of IF something will be implemented, it’s a matter of WHEN.

Dahkeus.8243:

Wintel.4873:

Can someone please translate what happened in this round:

but guy at srat say ok gusy lisen plan
1 close 1 animal 1 far rest mid
ok ok i say i am mid coz far is noob
burt map say i am 1 mid rest animal no close no far
and i die hard lol
loost

But yeah overall this post made the entire Dec 10 patch seem insignificant XD

Translation:
“At the initial strategy phase of the game I joined, I presented the following plan to my fellow teammates: ‘Dear sirs, would one of you kindly cover the closest point, and then another person attack the nearest NPC type beast for the point bonus, and finally, would the rest of you accompany me to engage the enemy at the middle point?’

However, to my distress, I found myself bereft of assistance when I went to the middle point and when I looked to find where my team was located, I found them all attacking the NPC beast. Not a single person had even decided to attempt in capturing either the point closest to our starting point, nor the farthest!

As a result of this ill fortune, I stood no chance to the overwhelming odds I faced as the enemy advanced upon my position, and I was struck down. Sadly, the game ended up as a loss."

Hmm no I think it wasn’t his plan, someone else suggested that going by the “but guy at start said ok guys listen plan”. And then he volunteered mid because far is for noobs, but the rest of the team ended up doing their own thing.

It’s complicated, we’re dealing with poetry not of this world. I’m yet to learn what “animal” is…possibly some location either under the map or hovering 100 feet above it o_O

Can someone please translate what happened in this round:

but guy at srat say ok gusy lisen plan
1 close 1 animal 1 far rest mid
ok ok i say i am mid coz far is noob
burt map say i am 1 mid rest animal no close no far
and i die hard lol
loost

But yeah overall this post made the entire Dec 10 patch seem insignificant XD

BakiSaN.9281:

Soz, I dunno what you’re running but I’m doing fairly well in tfs as well. And that’s team Que and midhigh ranked solo.

I think your teammates are doing an absolutely fantastic job of protecting you or something.
There is just no way a zerker/fresh air Ele can survive more than a few seconds in a teamfight if the enemy team has their priorities right. Playing that kind of Ele made me finally realize what “rally bait” meant.
As Thief I’ve taken Ele’s down from 60% to 0% before they even have time to dodge.

I have to choose between either Elemental Attunement or Renewing Stamina, both are Master-tier traits.
I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do now…either face very low vigor uptime with only Phoenix as S/D (zero vigor if I take the Staff or D/D route). Or sacrifice vigor and take the precious boons that attunement-swapping gives me. Either way it leaves me noticeably weaker than before.

Frankly I don’t know how to deal with these nerfs.

IMO Engineer is the best class for Ele’s who are just sick and tired and want to experience something new…something powerful with enough breathing room with solid base stats and good design. You still get to mash lots of buttons (hello kit-swapping), it’s not something braindead like Warrior or Guardian.

As Engi you have access to various tanky builds, condi builds, glass/power builds, etc. If you get bored of grenades you can try bombs, if you get bored of that you can take out the rifle or flamethrower. People who haven’t actually played Engi tend to say “sounds gimmicky” except that all those gimmicks are incredibly functional and can work together very well.

In fact I would say Elementalist is twice as “gimmicky” as Engineer because I consider attunement cooldowns to be the most silly thing in the game.

People who have enough love for the class are still having their numbers whittled down, their patience constantly tested. People from other professions trying their hand at Ele quickly assume “oh man, this just isn’t the profession for me”…which is so wrong.
Only because suddenly every fight became significantly harder and deaths became frequent. Mashing all keybinds and dancing around like crazy in order to fight someone who is idly pushing 2-3 buttons is only entertaining for so long.
It’s like telling someone to bring a knife to a gunfight, of course they’ll say "oh, but knife just doesn’t suit my playstyle. I’ll use a gun thanks. "

Overall I wouldn’t be surprised if Ele’s are the lowest-played class simply due to how easily they can die (even in PvE) and how punishing the playstyle is.

1) Ele’s don’t have enough go-to easy condi application abilities, not anywhere near the same level as Necro/Engi/Mesmer.
2) Ele’s don’t have enough survivability to out-last enemies (conditions take time)

Hahaha imagine Elementalists without downed state.

“Wait, did I just accidentally kill an Ele…or was an Ele even there to begin with?”

I originally picked Ele for TPvP and used to have some insane fun with D/D back in the days of 20 second RTL’s and super-charged Resto Signet + heals.
But after the absolute BARRAGE of nerfs while all other classes slowly power-creeped upwards, we know where Ele stands today. I’ve been pushed to Engineer for all my TPvP fun.
Ele has a growing list of core issues/concerns that the Dec 10 patch completely failed to address, I ‘m getting the impression that ArenaNet simply don’t know what to do with the class. It’s frightening.

However Ele still remains one of the most amazing classes for PvE and certain WvW situations.
I think staff has the highest AoE damage in the game + permanent fire fields. S/D + Lightning Hammer is also arguably the highest single-target in the game, also very fast might-stacking. Hands-down one of the best classes for group play in PvE and WvW.

reikken.4961:

BlackBeard.2873:

Mostly like this:

Where is your lava font?

full zerker + persisting flames + blasting staff + lava tomb
that is how you play ele. take advantage of all the time you spend downed

Thing is though, when I play on other classes (especially as ranged) I never bother trying to stomp a full-zerker ele. Instead I just destroy their downed health pool, it only takes a few seconds to do. Usually Ele’s wait till someone attempts to stomp them and then mist-form away at the last moment, so it’s better to just blow them up lol.

Lately have been seeing a few ele’s around trying 30 earth (Diamond Skin) + zerker amulet, I had to remind them that nothing has changed and it’s still possible to 2-shot them (or insta-kill them) if they’re not careful.

Darnis.4056:

AoE’s prioritize Player characters over AI… it doesn’t effect you in the least..

Are you sure about this?

ronpierce.2760:

Elementalist?? I was with you until you said you were elementalist. Sure, ele has some issues, but just use that new heal against an MM, its a guaranteed full heal. Same with spirit rangers. :P Just sayin :P

I don’t play Ele as main, just read some of their changes and laughed. I quickly removed that out of my post before someone turned this into an Ele vs Ranger/Necro thread and completely derailed this (like what you’re doing :P).

Please remove the AoE target limit in TPvP.
OR
Fix the absolutely insane AI clutter that Rangers/Necros are capable of pulling, especially when 2 of them are in the same area.

You can end up with something like 10+ targets which is ABSURD. Forget not even being able to see the target (especially if they’re Asuras), my abilties are barely hitting anything because I’m AoE-capped. I cannot believe something like this got through testing.

BlackBeard.2873:

Mostly like this:

In TPvP, pretty much this.

But you need to turn up your texture levels, since so much time is spent staring at the ground it should at least be a detailed ground that’s nice to look at.

They have a slight advantage but I’d rather see the AI spam get fixed first.

…and then ask yourselves why you thought GW2 would be an exception?

No, WoW hardly counts because it had a fairly short run during MLG and then they ended it because balance was a joke.

Balance will always be a joke in MMO’s, no exceptions. Remember that.
More proof: Blizzard still haven’t achieved it after 9 years of WoW despite hundreds of tweaks & balance shuffles.

Proof that Diamond Skin changed nothing:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Class-Tier-List-Post-December-10th-Patch/first

I love how ele’s are still at the bottom of most people’s tier lists.

Ironic considering they got some of the “biggest” changes (which did absolutely nothing to fix the core issues).

Anything changed for Ele’s at all? I’m speaking build-wise, because I can’t make anything work that doesn’t involve Fresh Air + 30 Arcana or dipping further into Water for faster Cantrips.

Staff still seems to be kill fodder. Still getting 2-shotted out of nowhere.

I’d be nice if you explained -_-

Necros can’t even do 1k direct damage? I find that impossible to believe.

I was saying this whole time that Diamond Skin is far too specific and requires the Ele to sacrifice far too much against 95% of builds/classes out there in order to counter just 1 build.
I’m going to assume this is that 1 build which has absolutely ZERO direct damage pressure, would I be correct?

Lopez.7369:

I really want the developers to explain what they think a condition build is supposed to do against this build.

I run a condition build on my Engineer and I"m going to have zero issues dealing with Diamond Skin.

Sabreene.8062:

No matter the wording, that makes it seem divisive: men vs women players, and spending money on what Anet deems that men would want.

What most men would want, yes. Not all. Majorities and minorities within majorities and minorities, if that makes any sense.

The goal is to aim for the broadest possible audience while still giving at least something to the minorities, and I feel ANet have done an acceptable job of that.

Dev posted this just a few hours ago in response to 4v5’s….no info on how soon the fix will come though

Justin ODell.9517:

Incurafy.6329:

How hard would it be for you to prioritise something such as a requirement that each player press the “I’m ready” button within the match start time limit, else everybody is booted back to the lobby and rejoins the queue with the players they had already been matched with while the game searches for more?

It is already a priority and is likely to be done as part of the back-end server restructure.

Incurafy.6329:

If it wouldn’t take you that long to implement, why can’t you just include it in one of the bi-weekly PvE patches? It would improve SoloQ considerably with that change alone.

It would not be a simple change for the existing systems unfortunately. We also can’t just slip things in to random updates like that for many good reasons which I agree with but can’t get into on the forums.

I’m in the middle of writing an outline for the matchmaking blog, hopefully that will go out soon so you guys can at least see what proposals we have planned. We’ll also start a discussion around the proposal. I’m sure that together we can come up with something awesome and practical.

Dev posted this just a few hours ago in response to 4v5’s….no info on how soon the fix will come though

Justin ODell.9517:

Incurafy.6329:

How hard would it be for you to prioritise something such as a requirement that each player press the “I’m ready” button within the match start time limit, else everybody is booted back to the lobby and rejoins the queue with the players they had already been matched with while the game searches for more?

It is already a priority and is likely to be done as part of the back-end server restructure.

Incurafy.6329:

If it wouldn’t take you that long to implement, why can’t you just include it in one of the bi-weekly PvE patches? It would improve SoloQ considerably with that change alone.

It would not be a simple change for the existing systems unfortunately. We also can’t just slip things in to random updates like that for many good reasons which I agree with but can’t get into on the forums.

I’m in the middle of writing an outline for the matchmaking blog, hopefully that will go out soon so you guys can at least see what proposals we have planned. We’ll also start a discussion around the proposal. I’m sure that together we can come up with something awesome and practical.

Sabreene.8062:

The statement above is unfair to both men and women.

You’re lumping all men together, saying they wouldn’t be interested in having a balance of armor. I’m sure a lot of men would like to have their women characters in some of the armor that’s only available to male characters. And they might also be interested in showing off their chest in medium or light armor, and not just in the heavy armor.

You’re also lumping all women together, saying they are the only ones that don’t like the skimpy look. Some women love the skimpy armor! It’s not a matter of men vs women.

Which is why I specifically used the word “most” and not “all”. I’m not lumping anyone together, you need to read more carefully

There are some sets around which show portions of the male chest for whichever few players are into that.

Sabreene.8062:

Also, just because women are outnumbered by men, and maybe are not the target demographic

I never said women weren’t the target demographic (again, read my post carefully). It’s a matter of proportions and resource management.

I think ArenaNet gained big points right off the bat when they decided to have LOTS of options of medium/heavy female armor which are well-covered, sensible and not skimpy. People aren’t appreciating that enough.

Sabreene.8062:

doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a voice or should give up stating their opinion. If everyone everywhere just gave up on things because they were outnumbered, there would be no change and improvement.

Things are changing slowly and naturally, and they should be allowed to change at their own pace.
Considering this is a fantasy MMO about fictional characters, I’m not sure what “improvement” means exactly.

By all means people should keep stating their opinion, but what they should NOT do is make demands based on their opinions (like what the original poster of this thread is doing) and expect change. We all saw how the community itself responded to that.

SafiMoyo.5130:

As a female, it does bother me. Not enough to ask/want it removed, but enough so that I want…

1.) More choices for female human medium armor. You get one extreme or the other. There’s SO little in between that it barely exists.

Please take a good look at this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_medium_armor

How many more choices do you want? All other races/genders get exactly the same number of sets, what makes human females special??

Define “one extreme or the other” and “in between”. These are such incredibly subjective terms, everyone has their own opinion on what they mean. You want more stuff “in between”, but nobody knows what that means other than you.

All I can see in this thread is more proof that people are impossible to satisfy no matter how hard a developer tries. ArenaNet went out of their way to design a solid number of well-covered armor sets to cater to people who are sick of skimpy armors in MMO.
They let people mix’n’match the sets, customize dyes, transmute item appearances, WHAT MORE DO PEOPLE WANT.

SafiMoyo.5130:

2.)Important! Skimpy men armor. If guys get a piece of digital girl candy to stare at, why can’t girls get ours as well?

You can have your underboob, but let me have my undernuts as compensation

It’s hard to take you seriously because now I’m wondering whether your whole post was a joke, or whether you’re bei ng serious about genitals being revealed in an MMO.
Firstly, please look up what “genitals” are (in a dictionary preferably) and why any part of them aren’t allowed in standard media, why breasts are not considered genitalia.
Secondly, there are a few somewhat revealing sets for males (some show their chest),though it’s not at equal as what females get…I’ll explain why in 3rd point after this…

Sabreene.8062:

I wouldn’t want the more skimpy female armor taken out, but rather, give us more options. Give a skimpy option for male & female, and a more covered (the “male” look) for both female & male.

…Which brings us to the 3rd point of explaining why (and it’s a bit more complicated). The MMO gender ratieos are changing, but the dominant chunk of players are still male.

The Daedalus Project was a 6 year study of MMORPG demographics (finished in 2009), with a sample size of 40,000 it found out that 85% of MMORPG players are male across the top MMO’s. Extremely broad MMO’s like WoW had around a ~60-70& male ratio while more specific ones like EverQuest and EVE were 85-95% male.

You do the math and figure out whether ArenaNet should spend resources designing sets of gear that most of the playerbase won’t be interested in. Put away your own opinions and think from a developers perspective, see the big picture.

Sources:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130552/unmasking_the_avatar_the_.php
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000194.php
http://www.destructoid.com/boy-s-club-why-don-t-more-women-play-eve-online--254710.phtml
http://petsymposium.org/2011/papers/hotpets11-final7Likarish.pdf

Rogues in WoW supposedly pulled the same reasons to claim they weren’t overpowered because stealth didn’t make them invulnerable.
But that didn’t stop the very MECHANIC making them one of the strongest PvP classes for around ~8 years in a row (while all other classes went though a rollercoaster ride of balance). They probably still are, I haven’t played for a while.

Face it, stealth classes in MMO’s are impossible to balance. Any class which has the ability to reset the fight at will holds the advantage.

Wait, so a random player gets benched in the starting area and can’t leave? What are they supposed to do, get bored and go AFK (worsening the problem)? No offense but that’s…dumb.

It’s far better if the everyone is simply returned to the front of the queue (high priority) if someone is AFK or disconnected shortly before the round starts.

World Of Warcraft did this back in 2009 with their 5-man dungeon finder system and it’s still working fine today. Ready check happens shortly before it begins, if everyone isn’t ready then all players are returned to the front of the queue.

A proper 5v5 is worth waiting the extra few seconds in queue for.

Dee Jay.2460:

However in WvW the Bunker + Conjure Weapons build is extremely popular and powerful. Why does that not work in sPvP?

Because conjure weapons are basically a vastly inferior version of Engineer kits. Conjured weapons are extremely situational and anything can happen in SPvP, you need immediate access to all attunement abilities or risk dying.

I don’t do WvW so can’t comment on that bunker + conjure build…frankly I thought Staff was far more popular in WvW.

Dee Jay.2460:

Maybe after the patch on Tuesday. I’m sure that should cause some stir among the Ele-community.

Eh, maybe the Staff community. D/D is getting a slight nerf and overall I don’t think much is changing, we’re still going to see Ele’s forced into Arcana because Evasive Arcana is so crucial, and Water for condi cleanse. That leaves us back at square one with having only ~20-30 free trait-points to spend in either Fire (staff), Air (Fresh Air glass) or Earth (full bunker).

Necros are trying to make a huge deal about Diamond Skin but they are clueless how Ele traits work and how much has to be sacrificed to reach 30 Earth lol.

Yeah I’m pretty sure all those people who were saving tons of chests (me being one of them :P) weren’t about to suddenly get a massive load of points lol.

TPvP – Ele’s got nerfed while all other classes surpassed them. Currently they struggle to find a role or a reason to exist.
WvW – Ele’s are fine, staff is quite effective albeit being a free kill in 1v1
PvE – Ele’s are mostly fine, the go-to max dps builds are Scepter/Focus + Lightning Hammer or Staff

Dec 10 changes – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/first

This patch’s goal for the Elementalist was to increase the power of the Earth, Air and Fire lines, while taking away some of the need to go into the Arcane line. This was done by bringing up the base cooldown of attunements so that Elementalists aren’t forced to go as deep into Arcane in order to get the old attunement cooldown %’s. In doing so, we decided put some of the most powerful Adept tier traits in Water magic and Arcane to the Master tier to avoid power creep that would have occurred by letting players gain powerful effects in Master and Grandmaster tier of Fire, Air, and Earth and still get the extremely powerful traits in Water and Arcane by only splashing in 10 points.

> Fire II – Burning Fire – This trait has a new effect. Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you. 3 conditions. 40 second cooldown. Moved to Master tier.
> Fire VIII – Conjurer – Moved to Adept tier.
> Fire III – Ember’s Might. The effect of this trait has been changed to Burns you apply last longer. 25%.
> Burning Rage 25 – Increased damage dealt to burning foes from 5% to 10%.

> Air V – Soothing Winds. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
> Air XI – Tempest Defense. Decreased the cooldown from 60s to 25s.

> Earth V – Stone Flesh – Increased toughness while attuned to Earth Magic to 1.5/level (120 at level 80).
> Earth VII – Strength of Stone. This trait is now Gain condition damage based on your Toughness. 10%.
> Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.

> Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
> Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
> Water VIII – Arcane Abatement. Moved to Adept tier.
> Water X – Soothing Wave. Moved to Adept tier.

> Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Moved to Master tier. Decreased cooldown from 90 seconds to 45 seconds.
> Arcane IV – Final Shielding. Decreased cooldown from 90s to 75s.
> Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
> Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.
> Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. Moved to Adept tier.
> Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
> Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. Moved to Adept tier.

The following changes were done to reduce the necessity of putting points into the Arcane trait line.

> The base cooldown of the attunement that you just left is now reduced from 16 seconds to 13 seconds. Attunement cooldown rate now increases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now Attunements go from 13s to 10s instead of the old range of 16s to 10s.
> Base global attunement cooldown is now 1.625 seconds. Global attunement cooldown rate now decreases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now global attunement cooldown goes from 1.625 to 1.25 instead of the old range of 2.0 to 1.25.

Lordrosicky.5813:

ens.9854:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Diamond skin on the other hand is a blanket hard counter with zero counter play.

Are you really worried about 30 earth elementalists? All this trait does is make a viable anti condi bunker when combined with water/arcane, and it’s about kitten time condi burst actually had a counter so maybe we won’t see 2-3 necro/engi every game and I can run my bunker guard with less than 6 cleanses.

There is 0 chance you will die to an ele with 30 earth, and if you played ele and realized how bad off they have it you’d understand.

People dont go into trait lines for the stats. Except the bottom lines.

I don’t think you know how Ele’s work. The class has absolutely no foundation/base strengths, literally EVERYTHING comes from traits and slot skills. This is made worse by traits having almost no flexibility, Ele’s are forced into Arcana/Water to avoid getting insta-killed on sight.

Basically if you ever get killed by a 30-earth Ele, it’s an L2P issue for you.
Diamond Skin is going to be a very specific condi-bunker trait and have zero use outside anything that doesn’t rely heavily on condi damage (besides one or two specific Necro builds, I can’t think of anything else).
Imagine that, a build that counters exactly 1 other prof/build and gets eaten alive by everything else.

jimmyimo.2089:

Permaban them after leaving/afking 5 times in less than a month.

Such dumb measures won’t solve anything because 4v5’s will still happen, people will keep getting frustrated, and unfair bans will be handed out. Did you even think about that?
The FIRST priority should be creating a system that guarantees 5v5 matches – THEN we can look at punishing repeat/deliberate offenders.

Solution – if the 5th person isn’t available shortly before the match starts (ready check), then the match should not start at all and everyone in that round should be returned to the front of the queue with high priority.

That is what World Of Warcraft did back in 2009 with it’s 5-man dungeon finder system (and it’s still working fine!). Find 5 people, do a ready check, if someone isn’t ready then it go back to the queue. I would rather keep sitting queue than enter a match that is already lost.

In any group-finding system you’re going to have AFK’ers and disconnects, it’s an unavoidable part of online gaming…so it blows my mind how ArenaNet could implement Solo Queue without any measures to deal with stuff like that.

^ Mmm fun times with Rocket Boots. Few things with the above build:
> Too hard to sacrifice Surprise Shot (Rifle Turret) not only because it has a super-short cooldown, but it’s a reliable guided projectile with decent range that hits hard. Could almost be called a core ability of the build.
> This probably comes down to taste, but I use this build as a “sniper” build rather than a close-quarters build. So in Firearms I prefer to take Rifled Barrels (200 range), Hair Trigger, Rifle Mod (+10% flat damage)
> Similarly I end up taking Scope instead of Power Wrench.

It’s a fun build in full zerker gear, but be warned about the lack of defense. Anything with high evasion (e.g. Thieves, Mesmers) or the ability to lock you down (stuns/fear/etc) = you better be on your toes

Thief has some incredible cheese builds. Evasion-spam build, heartseeker/stealth build (just wait till people are low health, open on them, kill them, back to stealth).
The cheesiest of the cheese is obviously Warrior, but Thief can come pretty close purely due to stealth. Stealth/rogue-like classes are always very easy to play in MMO’s because you can just run away away if you mess things up.

You should’ve been saving chests instead of opening them and salvaging all that junk.

Think about it this way, chests are 100% useless now so ANet can’t possibly make them MORE useless in the future – it can only get better. Therefore it’s a good idea to save them.

You know the total rank points it took you to reach Wolf (just up from Dolyak)? Yeah, multiply that by 33. That’s what it takes to reach Dragon.
There are people with no jobs who play like 50+ hours a week and still haven’t reached that.

Cynz.9437:

Forsaker.9213:

condi meta?? Lol where

in pvp…where else
it is all either full team of necros/engis or wars
i just got out of match with 6 warriors…rest were necros and engis

So you got a weird matchup, what’s the problem exactly o_O

The big problem with berserker Staff Ele that if ANYONE catches you in a 1v1 (their build doesn’t matter), you lose.

It can get very frustrating if you find yourself attacked by a random guy while traveling between nodes. Your entire defense revolves around sticking with the group and making sure the enemy doesn’t notice you, which isn’t exactly easy because staff ele’s have no stealth, no mobility and their spells are flashy.

That’s why I would recommend warrior, at least you stand a chance if you find yourself in a 1v1 scenario. You get high base stats, good mobility, switch between weapon sets, etc.

Or at least go rifle engineer. Anything but staff ele lol.

New modes are definitely on the way. It’s just that we don’t know when they’ll come (2014), expect news about it some time today or tomorrow….big dev reveal regarding the future of PvP.