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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Zilong View Post
    The thing is that, the CLASS is designed to be a hybrid much like druids in WoW (supposedly).
    And it has the same problem that druids had at the start of WoW. In their determination to make druids versatile but with a penalty for being able to fill every role, druids were not really viable in any role for a long time. Literally the only reason they were ever brought to raids was so that they could innervate priests. It's a long standing tradition of MMOs that whenever there's a class that's supposed to be versatile and able to fill every role they slap a versatility penalty on it and it ends up being terrible in every role.

    Leveling a Guardian and an Elementalist at the same time has really made it clear how weak the class is in every aspect of the game. My Guardian would just run in a group, face tank a bunch of mobs 5 levels higher than her and cleave them all down pretty fast while getting auto self healed in the process. I didn't pay much attention to gear and was running with more than 10 levels outdated stuff in all slots and whatever. The elementalist is supposed to be the master of aoe but in actual damage output the guardian will win out massively since he doesn't waste time on dodging and kiting.

    Elementalist is a lot more fun in solo PvE but that's BECAUSE they're so weak. The Guardian can just autoattack and kill anything on equal level besides champions (and if you're built for tankiness and passive healing you can autoattack some champions to death as well), the other buttons are there only to make it a bit faster. That gets boring and it's more satisfying to play the ele when you have to actually actively dodge, kite and heal yourself. But it's really, really obvious that the elementalist is broken when a Guardian needs to go solo a dungeon to have to put in similar effort in the game.

    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.
    Well that's exactly WHY the ele is broken. You CANNOT do this outside casual play. To pull of any damage or a buff combo you need to swap your attunements in a particular order which means your attunements are on cooldown all the time. It does absolutely no fucking good for an ele to have that skill that's perfectly appropriate for the situation when it's in an attunement that's on cooldown and you are required to keep most of them on cooldown to be effective.

    Try a very basic example from PvE. You can do a ton of ground circle aoe fast if you use the number 2 skill of your staff from all attunements except lightning. Go water, use 2, go earth, use 2, go fire, use 2 and then you can drop some more fire stuff until water comes off cooldown and then you go through it again. That's not even a proper combo but it's some real nice basic aoe for a newbie that doesn't have a specific build. But then if you do that your attunements will be on cooldown all the time and your versatility is completely gone. You can't just swap to what is needed since you do a "DPS rotation" that keeps all the attunements on cooldown. If this game had raids you'd probably be forced into a rotation much like that.

    To pull off damage in PvP you have to do something similar, rotate through your attunements rapidly in a particular order to use particular skills to pull of a lot of damage fast. That means your versatility is gone, you cannot swap attunements to use some utility because you're forced to cycle in a particular order.

    If you want to use the actual combos you're locked out of your versatility even more. So, you make a fire field and follow up with a blast finisher and yay, you've buffed Might. Now half your attunements are on cooldown. That Guardian over there will be buffing without locking himself out of his own skills. Other classes will pull off burst and combos without losing access to their skills but the elementalist in PvP is completely locked out of most of his skills. The elementalist actually has the WORST toolset of all classes because it's all in different attunements and you can't just swap them at will.

    Like I said, they screwed up the elementalist by coming up with two entirely conflicting design philosophies. First they wanted the elementalist to be versatile with access to all these skills. Then they wanted to make you cycle between attunements constantly by putting in combos and burst rotations that need you to swap between attunements in a particular order. You either cycle and lose access to your impressive versatile skillset or you don't cycle and you lose your damage and ability to pull off those buff combos.
    Last edited by jaakkeli; 2012-12-21 at 10:16 PM.

  2. #22
    The Lightbringer barackopala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kuruptz View Post
    i think this dude would hang himself if he had engineer
    I main engineer and I hate playing as granadeer on pvp, rely too much on skillshots QQ, but it's fucking powerful D:!

  3. #23
    Scarab Lord Karizee's Avatar
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    Well, yeah - it's not easy to learn to play well. Definitely a learning curve. I played a pve demolock in Cata so I guess you could say I have a preference or a knack for picking high skill level professions

    For me the Elementalist plays more like a lock and I think there are probably alot of players that pick it up expecting it will play like a mage and that's why they struggle.
    Valar morghulis

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by barackopala View Post
    I main engineer and I hate playing as granadeer on pvp, rely too much on skillshots QQ, but it's fucking powerful D:!
    grenade in pvp :/ cant see really how that works at all maybe in wvwvw zergs

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Karizee View Post
    Well, yeah - it's not easy to learn to play well. Definitely a learning curve. I played a pve demolock in Cata so I guess you could say I have a preference or a knack for picking high skill level professions
    The only reason ele has a reputation as a hard to learn class is because most people click or are just terrible with their keyboards. It's the same in every MMO, there are some classes/specs that require much more speed with hotkeys and they get the reputation as "hard" while those who are already speed typing champs notice nothing particular about that spec.

    For me the Elementalist plays more like a lock and I think there are probably alot of players that pick it up expecting it will play like a mage and that's why they struggle.
    There isn't anyone playing damage in PvP as ele and not struggling against players of equal skill. If you don't struggle, it's because you're picking fights with inferior players (or heavens forbid running around 1v1ing white geared low level newbies in WvWvW). Outside of casual random PvP, there are only two roles in this game, burst and bunker, and eles are rubbish as burst but not as bunker.

    It's not an issue of the class being hard when the numbers just aren't there. Ele can sacrifice everything else they have to maximize their burst and they'll still not get near the numbers that the best burst classes can pull. The best player in the world will not do the damage on ele that any half retarded clicker can do on a thief.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by jaakkeli View Post
    snip.

    Well that's exactly WHY the ele is broken. You CANNOT do this outside casual play. To pull of any damage or a buff combo you need to swap your attunements in a particular order which means your attunements are on cooldown all the time. It does absolutely no fucking good for an ele to have that skill that's perfectly appropriate for the situation when it's in an attunement that's on cooldown and you are required to keep most of them on cooldown to be effective.

    I never got into Specifics on the druid because I didn't need. I know it had big problems and just now it's returning into a more "relaxed" way with MoP. But keep in mind that I think Eles are good hybrids if you know what to do. The amount of time to actually understand and perform those skills are one of the biggest on the game. They are "weak", but that's not even fair to describe them. They can have a way, a good response, out of anything and since the game does not ENCOURAGE the quantity of dps I think it's fair game (of course we still have alot of issues in all classes). Eles are not terrible in every role, and you can spec them for one thing only but that will leave you with some auto-attacks times but we all know that this also happens in every class!

    My point is. The Class is supposed to be a nice hybrid for support/dmg/heal/control and any situations really. And being a hybrid often means to not be the best in one of them, which we see that happens but take a bit and see that the hybrid fits nicely to the Combat of GW2 (as opposed to other combat systems). Most games combat is more of a rotation and set skills you always use with one or 2 CDs, Gw2 is an action-rpg game with a very reaction-like combat, which Ele is VERY GOOD. I think mainly what people complain is that they just don't know how to play and just want to play simply with one attune.

    Your comparison is just misplaced (I believe). Guardians as I said on the forum long time ago since Beta are the default "paladin", they are the easy class to do anything, mainly because they are the closest to the other mmos "style" of playing.

    As for you saying that exactly why, I dont think its true. It's just how the class work and you are not up to do what it takes. I still play my ele with Air scepter+dagger maybe using some Fire stuff here and then, never really change att besides that. I still kill pve/pvp, I still have fun but I do know I'm not doing the best the class has to offer. I know Eles got one nerf on clearing conditions but they are still the best at that+healing plus some control.

    Anyway, it's complicated to talk about this. XD

  7. #27
    Scarab Lord Karizee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jaakkeli View Post
    If you don't struggle, it's because you're picking fights with inferior players (or heavens forbid running around 1v1ing white geared low level newbies in WvWvW).


    Dam! My secret is out!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twRXCZXFCL0
    Valar morghulis

  8. #28
    Banned Lazuli's Avatar
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    Wow, Ele's are one of the most overpowered Gods with a D/D bunker build. Get good kid...

    Ele's aren't the worst class, they just require you to switch between every. single. element. but I see most bads just spamming autoattack.

    First off, if you ever take the time to autoattack even once as an Ele in pvp you are doing it WRONG.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Lazuli View Post
    Wow, Ele's are one of the most overpowered Gods with a D/D bunker build.
    Sigh. We only have 2 pages of people stating that yes, eles are indeed viable bunkers. The thing is bunker is a niche role that doesn't have that many team spots and plenty of people don't actually want to play a point guardian bunker. This is all like telling that elemental shaman lamenting being one of the worst damage specs in arena to stfu since resto is so good.

    What if you want to play damage? Like, you know, MOST PEOPLE IN THE TEAM? How did elementalist become the class that needs to play bunker or not play at all? Was that detail mentioned at character creation? No?

    Ele's aren't the worst class, they just require you to switch between every. single. element. but I see most bads just spamming autoattack.
    Again, you're playing with scrubs. Any class is OK if you're only playing with scrubs. Any class is bad if all you do is spam autoattack. Please show us some evidence of a non-bunker elementalist doing well in PvP against skilled opponents just by "swapping into all the elements all the time". Like a video or something.

    For proper play, you definitely DO NOT want to "switch between every single element all the time", you want to switch carefully with a detailed plan in advance. That's the whole complaint: to do anything at all you need to execute pre-determined attunement swap combos that lock you into using only specific skills thanks to the switch cooldowns. You need to think tons of moves in advance which works OK in slow paced PvE dungeon boss fights but just doesn't work in PvP where seconds matter and the situation is changing so fast that you need to respond instead of planning on using that skill 12 seconds later when the attunement actually becomes available again. And even when you pull off your complicated combos perfectly, your damage is laughable comparable to what a glass cannon thief will do with spamming basic attacks mindlessly.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by jaakkeli View Post
    Sigh. We only have 2 pages of people stating that yes, eles are indeed viable bunkers. The thing is bunker is a niche role that doesn't have that many team spots and plenty of people don't actually want to play a point guardian bunker. This is all like telling that elemental shaman lamenting being one of the worst damage specs in arena to stfu since resto is so good.

    What if you want to play damage? Like, you know, MOST PEOPLE IN THE TEAM? How did elementalist become the class that needs to play bunker or not play at all? Was that detail mentioned at character creation? No?



    Again, you're playing with scrubs. Any class is OK if you're only playing with scrubs. Any class is bad if all you do is spam autoattack. Please show us some evidence of a non-bunker elementalist doing well in PvP against skilled opponents just by "swapping into all the elements all the time". Like a video or something.

    For proper play, you definitely DO NOT want to "switch between every single element all the time", you want to switch carefully with a detailed plan in advance. That's the whole complaint: to do anything at all you need to execute pre-determined attunement swap combos that lock you into using only specific skills thanks to the switch cooldowns. You need to think tons of moves in advance which works OK in slow paced PvE dungeon boss fights but just doesn't work in PvP where seconds matter and the situation is changing so fast that you need to respond instead of planning on using that skill 12 seconds later when the attunement actually becomes available again. And even when you pull off your complicated combos perfectly, your damage is laughable comparable to what a glass cannon thief will do with spamming basic attacks mindlessly.

    They are more than viable bunkers, they are VERY good bunkers. They are also very good support overall in the team fights at the nodes. I've seen very pwoner dagger/dagger DPS elementalists, that might not be THE BEST DPS but hell they are very good at everything, it does make it up. If you win the battle big chances are he will escape before you ever get a chance to do get him on downed state (and as far as I remember his downed skills are super good right now, not sure if they were fixed yet).

    Right now the game is shaky as to what can do what, simply because alot of changes (hopefully) will come. I'm unhappy with Rangers and their enourmous massive fail spirit stuff, with 1 ele skill you can kill all of them XD, rendering me useless (if I try to be a support ranger). But the class is far from broken.

    And whats with "youre playing with scrubs?". I see plenty of videos and actual people doing VERY good with elementalists (and any class to be very true). It just takes ALOT that is still not "revealed" for most of us, and if I am to guess that's a tool/help to balance the classes/skills/builds around. You rarely see TOO much info on the skills tips while WoW will almost give you the formula in-game XD. And I do not consider myself a scrub, nor playing with scrubs for most of the time.

    With all that in mind. I do agree that we need more variety of builds. And that does include dps for the elementalist. And for all the other classes (as well as balancing of what we have).

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Zilong View Post
    And whats with "youre playing with scrubs?".
    My apologies, I was just annoyed that people bring up stuff like "don't just stay in fire attunement auto attacking". Some of us have really tried to make the class work and it is damn annoying to have people assume you've not explored what the class can do.

    I think a lot of the QQ on elementalist also comes from people who rolled an elementalist expecting it to be effective at long range since, well, it looks like the mage archetype from other games and all the official prerelease material focused on that, the dagger always looked like some neat side option that they're exploring, but then it turns out that you're forced to go melee for PvP and to add insult to injury you're not even particularily good at it. Not to mention the lack of elementalist weapon swapping means you don't play like the other melee in game - that warrior can keep a rifle on swap but you're the only one completely stuck choosing between melee and ranged.

    If only ranged warrior weapons were usable, you'd see a lot of QQ from people who rolled a warrior expecting to run around hitting people in melee. You'd see double the QQ if that ranged warrior wouldn't even be particularily good at PvP.

    The easiest solution would be to rework sceptre/focus skills so that they actually work in PvP to give elementalists a proper ranged option.

  12. #32
    People have to realize that it doesn't matter how good "the pros" are with a class. Those people are 1 out of hundreds of thousands normal players who find this class unrewarding and too hard to play effectively.

    Why should somebody put so much effort into learning a class like the elementalist with his 20 skills and sperate, even invisible cooldowns ( you have to keep track of cooldowns on other attunements in order to avoid failswitching ), when for example a Guardian can reward the player much easier?

    I am not a badplayer, and I am trying to master this class no matter what. I am farely new to GW2 but I am not allowing a game to beat me. Hence I've spent like the past 7 days doing nothing but trying out sPVP and I have to admit that daphoenix D/D build is indeed the best one so far. Why didn't I think myself of a tanky D/D build? Because it kinda destorys the thought behind an Elementalist. I though of him more as a mage, rather than a Shaman.

    But the learning curve is still just too high compared to other classes. Somebody might say "yeah so what? That's what makes the Ele special and rare", I think it's just unfair because the increase in difficulty is just too huge.

    The Elementalist is just simply no class for people who play the game a few hours per week. I never intented to put so much effort into GW2, but after being constantly dead, the Elementalist left me with no fun at all and I didn't want to switch to other classes just yet.

    Now I have written down three A4 pages of tactics, combos and initiates which I have to learn, while others just... don't. Meh.
    Last edited by StayTuned; 2012-12-22 at 09:50 AM.

  13. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    Why should somebody put so much effort into learning a class like the elementalist with his 20 skills and sperate, even invisible cooldowns ( you have to keep track of cooldowns on other attunements in order to avoid failswitching ), when for example a Guardian can reward the player much easier?
    That's one of the things you need to do, if you really want to master the profession. Bunker guardians have one of the lowest skill caps in the game hence why they are rewarded easier.

    Ele is actually one of the simplest professions to play, it just takes awhile to master.

    Why does tanky D/D Ele destroy how the Elementalist is portrayed? It's a master of the elements and just like any fantasy mage/wizard etc each masters them in different ways.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by Pyre Fierceshot View Post
    Why does tanky D/D Ele destroy how the Elementalist is portrayed? It's a master of the elements and just like any fantasy mage/wizard etc each masters them in different ways.
    I don't give a crap about that nonsense, when I start a new game I just want to pick whatever is the ranged glass cannon class without pets since that's what I always end up liking the most anyway (regardless of whether ranged class cannons are even any good in the game). The class description, the archetype and all the stuff they released before the game was out suggested that the elementalist is the closest thing to that and then after wasting tons of time trying to make it work in that role you finally realize that literally every other class in the game works better as a ranged glass cannon.

  15. #35
    Deleted
    Just read the Ensign posts here http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/...l/page__st__30 and you'll understand why Ele. is the way it is.

    For those who don't know Ensign, he was a top gvg (and one of the most respected players) in GW1.

  16. #36
    Banned Lazuli's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jaakkeli View Post
    My apologies, I was just annoyed that people bring up stuff like "don't just stay in fire attunement auto attacking". Some of us have really tried to make the class work and it is damn annoying to have people assume you've not explored what the class can do.
    I main Ele and Thief.

    You make Ele sound like a lot more effort than it is, this isn't chess bro.. maybe you're just bad.

    Staff is for support and work extremely well if you have someone to finish your combo fields (tpvp)

    D/D for damage/bunker

    The only 'problem' with Ele is it isn't noob friendly and yes, takes more effort than some professions. I like that. Just like mesmer.

    If you want faceroll shit roll a Thief lol 2 button class.. it's GW2's pre-MoP arcane mage.

    I was completely disappointed with Thief in this game and rolled Ele. Maybe you should do the opposite.

  17. #37
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by StayTuned View Post
    People have to realize that it doesn't matter how good "the pros" are with a class. Those people are 1 out of hundreds of thousands normal players who find this class unrewarding and too hard to play effectively.

    Why should somebody put so much effort into learning a class like the elementalist with his 20 skills and sperate, even invisible cooldowns ( you have to keep track of cooldowns on other attunements in order to avoid failswitching ), when for example a Guardian can reward the player much easier?

    I am not a badplayer, and I am trying to master this class no matter what. I am farely new to GW2 but I am not allowing a game to beat me. Hence I've spent like the past 7 days doing nothing but trying out sPVP and I have to admit that daphoenix D/D build is indeed the best one so far. Why didn't I think myself of a tanky D/D build? Because it kinda destorys the thought behind an Elementalist. I though of him more as a mage, rather than a Shaman.

    But the learning curve is still just too high compared to other classes. Somebody might say "yeah so what? That's what makes the Ele special and rare", I think it's just unfair because the increase in difficulty is just too huge.

    The Elementalist is just simply no class for people who play the game a few hours per week. I never intented to put so much effort into GW2, but after being constantly dead, the Elementalist left me with no fun at all and I didn't want to switch to other classes just yet.

    Now I have written down three A4 pages of tactics, combos and initiates which I have to learn, while others just... don't. Meh.

    go on engineer play it 700hours plus and come back and complain

  18. #38
    Deleted
    Eles arent hard or even bad. if you play as a glasscanon you are a glasscanon.

    Also if you dont swap your attu. you will die like every other class that doesnt swap his/her weapons. you just have 2 more "swaps" then the others.

  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Hate it when a class thread comes up and people spam reply with, "It's just hard to play, but it's fine."

    If it's THAT much harder to achieve the desired outcome relative to other classes, and you need an amazing player to even hope to achieve it, then it's not fine. That amazing player could just pick up a better-polished class and do even better.
    Eh, there is lot's of things to hate, just don't think that's one of them. It's not OMG SUPER HARD! It just takes more time to get used to it, to know the situations the game provides and use the 20 skills from your weapon to go thru, most use like 10 skills (like any other class), but to MASTER the class of course it's going to be good to know that that 11th skill can save you from a stun for example. Most of the times what you see is people complaining how they can't sit on one attunement cause that's how they want to play. They can do that, hell I do that. That happens to any class to be honest. People just feel lost with builds,range,att swap,weapon and the usage of skills.

    That ama-zing player is an amazing player. He will do good with anything. It's not because he can figure out Eles better than you that he will do even better with other classes. That kind of logic is just not right. As I said, Eles (and every class) needs polishing. But most people are complaining just because the Eles don't play as the regular mage they desire.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    [/B]That seems to be the strawman that everyone tosses around when the topic comes up, but I haven't seen anyone actually say they want to do that. More often I see people trying to discuss the fact that attunements really are very clumsy and the way the abilities are spread out it doesn't really lend itself well to dynamic gameplay.
    Well, for one. People who actually like XD are playing the game how it's made and doing good. I group with good elementalists often and they seem to do a good job and not complain and even like it, I had a guild with so many of them, my dungeons runs were often with 2-3 eles, and they were fine and smooth, regardless of many "I dont do damage" posts and all, in fact many times we got out of situations because of the big versatility that comes with the class.

    For two, if you go back you will see me saying that I play with one att, and If I could change to make more focused elements I would, because that's how I would like the game for myself, if I did complain.

    and 3 - As you can see the logic is here.
    People are playing and doing good in-game, and no matter what people post that's a fact. The problems we find are often bugs, or balances issues that you find in every class. I will give you that what I said might not be accurate. People are not complaining because they can't sit on one att. They complain because they want to focus in one/two things and be fine, which is just saying it the other way around. IF the gamer takes it's time and learn the CD's and how to re-act they will struggle a bit but will be good. And that's even for other classes, I've played so much with ranger that even tho is a easy class, right now I play so much better than when I started. It just comes around fullll-circle.

    Mesmers can be very tricky to play with, and many don't go there simply because they know that. But it's known of the class to be tricky, so the complaints are in another area. But Eles are viewed as the default mage, so it is expected to work similar, and make a choice, Ill go ice because I like that so my fire spells will be useless. And that doesn't happen here.

    In the end, I will very much like to have maybe one or 2 more weapons choices and have to specialize in 2 att. But thats just personal preference of how I would like to play, and it's valid. But the class isn't broken.

    Now I'm out because replying to 1line quotes are not just my thing. Easy to ignore arguments, but then again that's the forum.

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