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  1. #1

    Elementalist in PvP. Or, how to effectively troll your own group?

    Elementalist is simply the worst class for sPvP, period. And most of the things I will mention here can surely be applied to other PVP situations as well.

    Let me breakt this class down roughly. (wall of text inc)


    TL;DR: This class need some serious rework, and if I look through other GW2 boards, I am not the only one who thinks so.


    Attack
    -------
    Going to kill anything in mid range-meele ( dagger/dagger or scepter/dagger ) is suicidal. Everything, and I really mean everything, will instantly focus you and kill you within seconds.


    That's why you have to stick with your rod.

    Fire
    Fireball. 1500dmg per hit, relative slow attack. Does some aoe. Nobody really cares about this attack in particular. It is just something that you have on autocast. If god allows it, you may crit from time to time with it and do some 3000dmg. Woho. It really is almost the only way to "burst" somebody dead.

    Lava Font. What a joke of a skill. If somebody would decide to go brain afk and stand in the font then yes, this skill would do some dmg. Just that nobody does. They just take a few steps and they are out of the AOE.

    Flame Burst. The only skill that is okay-ish. Does some nice damage over time as long as the enemy does not remove the dot.

    Burning Retreat. Only good for getting away. However, every single badplayer and his mom are able to chase you. It is no real retreat skill at all. The fire doesn't do noteworthy dmg either.

    Meteor Shower. Here we have a skill that might do some dmg, as long as you cast it on groups of people and, again, they do not simply move out of it. Cast time is so brutally long that you should have some really good positioning to get that skill out.

    Air
    Chain Lightning. Lol. No comment. No dmg, does jump from player to play to make no dmg on them as well. People have like 20.000hp, this skill does some 600dmg. That's just cute.

    Lightning Surge. Is a good skill. Does mediocre dmg, but it's some sort of control if you manage to cast it "smartly". But if you really do not cast it on random, it is so fucking situational that it's almost useless again. You first have to be in Air and then cast it on a target that is supposed to use some heavy burst skill that you want him to miss. Good luck predicting what he is going to do, switch and cast at the right moment. 99,99% of the time I just cast it on random.

    Gust. It's a good CC.

    Windborne Speed. The range needs to be seriously increased. If you want to buff your teammates, you have to stand RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. This, however, is total bullshit since you have to stay away from the enemy and thus from almost all of your friends. Most of the time it's just a retreat skill for myself.

    Static Field. Best CC the elementalist has in my eyes. Works pretty much like Veigar stun in LoL... The cooldown might be a tad long with 40 seconds considering that the stun is only 2 seconds.

    Earth
    Stoning. It's my only weapon against nasty meeles. Weakness helps to get away from meeles, because there is nothing that you can do in stone to actually kill them. If you switch, you lose weakness from stoning and they burst you within seconds. The damage is again just low.

    Eruption. It's nice and works somehow like Lava Font. If you manage to get it one a stuned/knockdowned/braindead enemy, it will do some really nice damage, especially over the condition.

    Magnetic Aura. Doesn't help against meeles and doesn't help against casters / conditions. It's just something to piss off people with guns and bows for some seconds and that's it. I never managed to outplay a Warrior or Ranger with this. 5 seconds are just 1 or 2 skills anyway, so nothing gamechanging is going to happen.

    Unsteady Ground. It's a really good mass slow, but I don't understand why it even makes dmg. I mean, really? 93 base dmg? Comon' It does help you, or your teammate(s) to escape / gain some control.

    Shockwave. Again a good single target CC with, at best, medium dmg. But since controlling is again a priority here, that skill works fine in my eyes.

    Water
    Water Blast. Does some 300 dmg (lol) and heals for some 350 (even more lol) while others hit for 3000+. Sorry but that's really uesless in my eyes. Either increase the amount that's healed, or add some extra effect like slow. I have never saved any1 with that so far.

    Ice Spike. It's a nice skill that is relatively easy to cast since it falls down quite fast. Damage is acceptable since it gives 5% extra vulnerability.

    Frozen Ground. The Chilled effect is really nice, but a 40 seconds cooldown on something that only lasts for 5 seconds? The cooldown should be lowered imo.

    Geyser. It's just a small aoe heal that really nobody gives a fuck about. I've even seen people run away from it. If you manage to heal somebody with it, cool. But it heals for like 2 ticks or any kind of dot.

    Healing Rain. It's a good aoe heal and together with Geyser you can actually heal about 50% of HP, but for that other do have to stand within the Geyser. It even removes a condition, which makes this skill acceptable.

    ----------------------------

    In order to be fully effective, you have to constantly switch between your attunements, which brings me to stance-dancing.
    Why the eff do we have such a huge cooldown on our attunement switching? 12 seconds is just way too long, seriously. You cannot make any smart and successfull combos with such a huge CD and I think that's a big issue. Lower it to 6 seconds and make it a 0,5gcd instead of 1,5. Like this we do not have to be chess players and think 10 moves in advance to play this class (since other do not have to do that either).

    Another thing is, if you cast Meteor, you only have to cast it until aprox half of its casttime, or until the first meteor hits the ground, after that, you can again start to freely move around and the Meteor will still be cast properly. It's actually a good thing for us, but a bug nonetheless.

    However, if you dare to move before that, your meteor gets locked (just like Healing Rain) for 4 seconds. I mean, why? Why do we have to be punished for aborting a skill? I fail to see any logic behind that other than "just because".

    Defense
    --------------

    Since everyone wants to kill an Elementalist over anything else that moves on a battleground, you would expect us to be a "high give high receive" class, but nah bro. We are just a "low give high receive but good at running away class".

    Let's put it like this. If you have a soldier or an adventurer on you and you do not have Mistform, Eartharmor and Lightningbolt, you are dead. I've tried all kinds of combinations regarding my slots, but those three are the only ones that will give you a free escape if you do not mess them up. However, getting on distance is not enough for an Elementalist, since once you stop moving, you die. You have to keep running, literally, since they will chase you. And they will get you if you stop. You cannot just decide to just fight back when a Warrie or Thief approaches you, since you are no 1on1 class.

    And have fun trying to kite a Thief who goes stealth every few seconds, which makes you lose your target so you can't even CC him properly since you first have to target him, change camera position, press buttons, just for him to disappear once more and be right at your ass, bursting you down. Since ~70% of my enemies are Thiefs, I find this very depressing.

    Cooldown on every escape skill is enormous, going from 45 seconds to 90 seconds, which makes them a "use once and hope you get away with it" skill.

    Most of the time I really do get away, but what's the use of it? My HP is often so low that I cannot simply go back to the fight, even on max distance. I do heal myself up, but never over 50/60% of my HP, which leaves me again very vulnerable and thus a desired focus target for just about anyone. I have to wait for my escape skills to be read again, or I will just die in every groupfight.


    General CC and support
    -------------

    Really the only thing I like about the Elementalist is my CC and the support I have. I can stun somebody, I can slow him just to stun him again. I can heal my mates, which no other class can do like me. But that's really just about it. I am going to try a full heal/support char tomorrow, just to see if it's any good.


    General things about the Elementalist
    ------------

    The skill requirement to play this class is extremely high in comparison with just about any other class right now, while the results are freaking low and unrewarding.

    In order to deal some damage you have to watch out for your positioning, get your meteor out, ask for people to stay still and accept damage from your static aoe spells and hope that nobody focuses you.

    Once you are focused by one or even more people, all your damage is gone. If you try to fight them, you are dead. They will just burst you down, so you have to run away. While running away you make zero dmg as well, and your support drops to almost zero, too. The only good thing is that you keep one or two people busy with running away from them while they chase you for a few seconds. Once you managed to get away, you have to most likely heal you up and reposition you. However, most of the time the fight is either won by the time you are back, or so horribly lost that you make no difference anymore and you can just walk away again or die a "honorable" death while trying to make some dmg. Or you can /dance. It really is the same.

    We are good supporters, but we can either focus on supporting the team, or doing dmg. If we want to be recognizable supporters, we have to drop dmg also via Traits.


    We also have no "gimicky" skills like Stealth or Cloning. I mean, just how annoying is this cloning crap? It always takes me so long to finally find the real Mesmer that, by the time I finally found him, he can cast them anew. The cooldown on two clones is 45 seconds base afaik. Oh, and there is Decoy, which gives him stealth AND creates a clone. Dafuq?

    I do not even want to talk about stealth. Just the fact that you lose your target when a Thief uses it is so utterly retarded that I have no words for it.


    Another thing is the support that YOU receive. Almost all classes have some area of effect that would be helpfull to you. Just that it never reaches you, since you are always on max distance to everything that happens. Blinding Powder? Nope. Frost Spirit? Nope. The list can go on, and go on, and go on.

    The only way to do some dmg in PVP is to stack Might, and stack even more might and hope that nobody sees you.

    Now, if you think I am writing complete bullshit, please address my points and tell me where. I have NOT mastered this class, nor this game. I do not think of myself as even a mediocre gamer so far, but other players on the battlegrounds aren't that good either since the game is relatively new and my friends, who are all playing other classes, tell me that they do not have the same issues, even remotely.

    I do not wish to change to some other class already just because I have the feeling that Elementalist is broken in PVP. The class makes a lot of fun in PvE and a mage has always been my favorite class in just about any RPG.

    But PVP is a huge part of GW2 and I want to put a big focus on it once I hit 80. I'd just like to see some reworks done on this class to make it more competitive.


    Right now I feel like a WoW Vanilla Paladin.
    Last edited by StayTuned; 2012-12-21 at 04:30 AM.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    Elementalist is simply the worst class for sPvP, period.
    It's not just the worst class, it's the worst class by miles. Class balance has a lot of issues but no other class is as badly behind as elementalist.

    In order to be fully effective, you have to constantly switch between your attunements, which brings me to stance-dancing.
    Why the eff do we have such a huge cooldown on our attunement switching? 12 seconds is just way too long, seriously. You cannot make any smart and successfull combos with such a huge CD and I think that's a big issue.
    This is the heart of the problem. They're approaching the class with two conflicting design philosophies and it breaks things completely. On one hand they keep speaking of "versatility", that the elementalist needs to be a bit behind on everything since they have so many skills available with one weapon that they can do everything. On the other hand they insist on making cycling through attunements necessary which means you aren't actually versatile because whatever skill would be handy is likely to be behind attunement cooldown and inaccessible.

    To deal effective damage you need to combo skills from several attunements which means they're going to be on cooldown most of the time when you would want to drop the utility, support or cc from whichever attunement. Meanwhile other classes don't need to be constantly swapping weapons for their damage rotation which means they have their secondary utilities available when needed. They keep talking and talking about supposed elementalist versatility being their biggest thing but as long as ele is forced to keep swapping attunements basically on cooldown the versatility isn't there since you cannot use your skills on demand.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Wow you are horrible

    elementalist are very good if you know how to play it

    its hard but just Wow i mean WOW i mean seriously WOW so much crap in one post

    TLDR : You Suck and i recommend deleting your Elementalist and create thief,mesmer,warrior,guardian

    Constructive criticism is cool. Flat out insults aren't. Infracted. -Edge
    Last edited by Edge-; 2012-12-24 at 07:31 PM.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    Give a full toughness/vit build a try and you might thinkg different about the mid-range part for elementalist

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by kuruptz View Post
    Wow you are horrible

    elementalist are very good if you know how to play it

    its hard but just Wow i mean WOW i mean seriously WOW so much crap in one post

    TLDR : You Suck and i recommend deleting your Elementalist and create thief,mesmer,warrior,guardian
    You give me a tldr for a three liner and flame me without actually addressing one issue I've written down. Makes me think you didn't even read anything of what I've wrote. Why do you shitpost?

  6. #6
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    You give me a tldr for a three liner and flame me without actually addressing one issue I've written down. Makes me think you didn't even read anything of what I've wrote. Why do you shitpost?
    but i mean WOW i mean

    i just cant find the words

    elementalist? just wow i am lost

  7. #7
    Deleted
    So can you show us the build you're running? Since you instantly rate D/D and S/D are bad I'm wondering what the heck you're doing with your build/sigils/runes etc since I'd put S/D and D/D above Staff for sPvP, in WvW Staff wins.

    Though reading your through your post, you only talk about Staff abilities. Complaining about low damage on everything, if you want to do higher damage don't run Staff. Staff has better support and AoE.

    Are you using even using your own combos because from your descriptions I'm finding it doubtful. Eruption and a Geyser/Healing Rain gives you burst healing.

    Are you telling your team when you put your AoE fields down? Like Healing Heal so you team can blast into it aswell. Static Field?


    If you're dying in "seconds", I'm trying to figure out if you're even running any defensive utility or using your cooldowns effectively or just spamming them. You can create some very effective tanky Ele builds with all weapon sets.

    Do you have any points in the Arcana triat line, since you complain about Attuntment CD? We have a CD on them because every other profession has a CD on weapon swap and ofcourse you have to constantly swap between them to be effective, that's what the whole Ele profession is about using each one.


    TLR - There's a few problems with ElE, yes but I have to wonder what you're doing to be saying half of this stuff.

  8. #8
    I'm running this here at the moment.

    http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQ...xkjIHrOOdk6MyA


    I found this to be the most "glasscannon" build I managed to get so far.


    As long as the enemy lets me build up Might, I destroy entire teams.

    I find it too hard to keep those stacks if I also have to take care of my positioning and keep running away.



    I wouldn't complain if other classes have to do the same stuff to be effective, but the Elementalist is by far the most demanding class and it gives too little in return if you mess up just once.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Well, I really would ditch the might stacking build, if it's taking you too long to stack it up to do anything, what's the point?

    If you want a glass cannon build you should really look into a S/D or D/D build, they're much more effective for damage builds as Staff is geared towards group support.

    S/D would probably be better for you, if you're finding things too unforgiving, as even you're basic skill 1 does decent damage. Try 0/20/0/20/30 with divinity runes.

  10. #10
    Scarab Lord Karizee's Avatar
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    Ouch. About the only viable situation I can think of for a glass cannon staff ele is on a castle wall raining down meteor shower if there's no mesmers around to pull you off. It just doesn't have any mobility or survivability and there's very little synergy in the traits.

    If you were trying to glass cannon a D/D build, you will be destroyed and that may be why you wrote it off so quickly.

    Watch this video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2_GX..._UvJ0ekkwq5lIH

    Read this guide:
    https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...12-20-12/first

    They will piss their pants when they see you coming!
    Valar morghulis

  11. #11
    Deleted
    I didn't read your full post cause I am about to jump in the tub with a good book, but did I read in there you have a glass cannon build and wonder why everyone kills you? try building something to survive the worst scenarios for you currently and accept that it will take a longer time to kill anything but perhaps you can do it rather than not stand a chance.

    ---------- Post added 2012-12-21 at 04:55 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Karizee View Post
    Ouch. About the only viable situation I can think of for a glass cannon staff ele is on a castle wall raining down meteor shower if there's no mesmers around to pull you off. It just doesn't have any mobility or survivability and there's very little synergy in the traits.

    If you were trying to glass cannon a D/D build, you will be destroyed and that may be why you wrote it off so quickly.

    Watch this video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2_GX..._UvJ0ekkwq5lIH

    Read this guide:
    https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...12-20-12/first

    They will piss their pants when they see you coming!
    I always hated videos of pvp from games but that was awesome, I want an elementalist now!

  12. #12
    Elementalist was broken since BWE3. It was OP in BWE2 because it had damage numbers too high for the versatility of the kit. They massively overnerfed the numbers and class literally cracked in half.

    It has only one role in PvP now, and that is tanky support in some teamplay scenarios. And even that can be done MUCH better by other classes.
    Last edited by Lucky_; 2012-12-21 at 05:26 PM.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Ele is not as broken as people are making out. There's a reason Ele is in the meta setup for sPvP and it's not because it's broken.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Pyre Fierceshot View Post
    Ele is not as broken as people are making out. There's a reason Ele is in the meta setup for sPvP and it's not because it's broken.
    Ele has absolutely no spot in sPvP. It has one very limited niche which currently sorta works in tPvP because it fits current FOTM team composition. It can be replaced in that FOTM as it is not what makes comp powerful.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Lucky_ View Post
    Ele has absolutely no spot in sPvP. It has one very limited niche which currently sorta works in tPvP because it fits current FOTM team composition. It can be replaced in that FOTM as it is not what makes comp powerful.
    Engineer is 10.000.000.000.000.000.000% worse than Elementalist then

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Pyre Fierceshot View Post
    Ele is not as broken as people are making out. There's a reason Ele is in the meta setup for sPvP and it's not because it's broken.
    This.

    Its true they have a small niche in the game, but currently so does every other class mainly. They are not as broke as people want to put it out there.

    The thing is that, the CLASS is designed to be a hybrid much like druids in WoW (supposedly). To be good at this class YOU HAVE to know every cooldown and KNOW EXACTLY when to use it (not to mention having a nice build), which is more than most people want to do. I simple do not play because I just like Air stuff, and since I will never change att I will never be a good elementalist.

    Ele is not broken, it's actually pretty good if you know how to do it. I've seen some crazy scepter/dagger or even dagger/dagger that just blew me away. Altho it seems that staff is more build-wise agreeable. Even the pro teams have an elementalist on them.

    @OP

    I didn't read the huge wall of text. Ive read some, but you are looking at things separately....and thats not how they work. Each spell you tried to explain have a situational use (like every combat skill in gw2 pretty much). It's just harder to do when you have that many for specifics things.


    Thats what I think.

  17. #17
    The Lightbringer barackopala's Avatar
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    Pffff you need to L2P to come up with comments like that, there are guilds like team legacy that are running with water ele's on pvp, why may you ask?

    They're strong, if played right. You can come up with anything you like, happens in all games... on LoL low people claim trynd OP, then realize that at 1500 no one uses him anymore, armor stronger. Don't come up with assumptions on your own if you haven't really analized the class out of the box, same happened on brood war where some units were considered bad (queens for example) and then people started realizing that in certain points they're extremely strong up to a point they're gamechanging.

    All you are doing is running on glasscannon builds, stop doing that, it's mindboggling on pvp.
    Cod has a new campaign, new weapons, new multiplayer levels every year. Zelda has been recycling the same weapons, villains, and dungeons since the 80's. Zelda recycles enough to make cod blush. The same weapons, villains, dungeons, and princess in every single Zelda for the most part. It's almost as cheesy as bowser vs Mario round 35

  18. #18
    Scarab Lord Karizee's Avatar
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    Elementalist is pretty much an unstoppable force of PRESSURE, stacking boons on your mates and conditions on your enemies with some nice stuns/slows, a few good bursty PbAOEs thrown in along with some incredible self heals. All the while applying constant PRESSURE.

    And the other teams asks, why won't she DIE?

    Ele is in a really good place right now - believe me, I almost gave up on it when I was first learning how to play and dying all over the freakin place. So glad I stuck it out.
    Valar morghulis

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by barackopala View Post
    Pffff you need to L2P to come up with comments like that, there are guilds like team legacy that are running with water ele's on pvp, why may you ask?
    Is that before the spec was nerfed or after? Bunker eles were really good but they were already nerfed.

    All you are doing is running on glasscannon builds, stop doing that, it's mindboggling on pvp.
    Outside casual zerg PvP, you play a glass cannon or a bunker. There is nothing else in this game. Most people in any PvP team are glass cannons, there aren't that many spots for bunkers.

    What you're basically saying is that elementalists shouldn't play damage in PvP, they should just be point holder tanks. That's nice but when you create the character there is no mention of it being not a viable damage dealer in PvP and even worse, they seem determined to nerf bunker specs on elementalist so it's looking more and more like there will be no viable role for elementalists at all.

    Luckily in this game it takes a few minutes to reroll thief and instantly be a viable glass cannon.

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by jaakkeli View Post
    Is that before the spec was nerfed or after? Bunker eles were really good but they were already nerfed.



    Outside casual zerg PvP, you play a glass cannon or a bunker. There is nothing else in this game. Most people in any PvP team are glass cannons, there aren't that many spots for bunkers.

    What you're basically saying is that elementalists shouldn't play damage in PvP, they should just be point holder tanks. That's nice but when you create the character there is no mention of it being not a viable damage dealer in PvP and even worse, they seem determined to nerf bunker specs on elementalist so it's looking more and more like there will be no viable role for elementalists at all.

    Luckily in this game it takes a few minutes to reroll thief and instantly be a viable glass cannon.
    i think this dude would hang himself if he had engineer

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