Recent Elementalist Love?

[EpilepticEmu]

Hi all, first post here!

So I always thought i'd play elementalist, as that was my main love in GW1. However, after recently seeing/reading about the engineer, mesmer & necromancer I've thought that I might go in one of those directions. Then I realized that maybe the reason that I've fallen out of love with the Ele was that i haven't seen one in a recent video, or read much about them! Has anyone seen any info about them from last weekend's press beta?

If not, I have a few questions that I'd love to hear about. How does the elemental atunement interact with weapon choices? I assume the elemental atunement will give you that element's skills, but then what about weapons? That seems like an awful lot of skills if a staff water ele has all different abilities from a dagger/focus water ele. Or maybe the atunement only affects the last 3/4 skills, after the weapon ones?

Thanks, any info and/or links to recent Ele info would be greatly appreciated!

[Centaur]

Hi EpilepticEmu, welcome to this forum.

There have actually been several ele videos from this past weekend's beta. Check out the GWOnline.Net (http://www.youtube.com/user/GWOnlineNet/videos) youtube channel, which has a number of elementalist videos. Also, mmorpgitalia.it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXEs4OzCU8o) had an ele video about skill combos, and Curse (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2kK5Ocxvac) had a video about elementalist traits.

As for attunements and weapon choices... yes, the elementalist can choose different weapons, but unlike other professions, the ele cannot switch weapons while in combat. The ele only has 1 weapon slot (unlike most other professions, which have 2). But instead of that ability to switch weapons, the ele has the ability to switch attunements... which basically gives him 4 different skill sets for that same weapon.
But yes, out of combat you can definitely remove your staff and equip for example dagger/focus, and you will get a completely different set of skills (times 4 ofcourse, because of your attunements).

[Edit] here's a few more: 4gamershq ele video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8w6g6SowsU) and mmorpgitalia video of (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGe7UeBWBs) environment and underwater combat featuring an elementalist...

[ComplexNuber]

You also will get enough character slots by default to try all 4 of the professions you mentioned, it looks like the default will be 5 (it may change for all we know, but I doubt we'd get less). You can buy extra slots for roughly $10-$12.

To add to what Centaur said about attunements and weapons, Attunements alter ALL 5 skills that a weapon takes up. That means one weapon set will give you 20 skills. A staff has 20 skills, and one handed weapons have 12 skills in the main hand and another 8 in the offhand. Also note a dagger in main hand is considered entirely different to a dagger in off hand, so daggers technically get 20 skills. You can dual wield daggers if you like. Oh, and the underwater weapon you get (the Trident) has another 20 skills for you.

Like Centaur said, you don't get to use weapon swaps mid-combat else it would get way too crazy with trying to manage 45 skills at the same time, 25 is much more reasonable, with 15 + special class abilities (eg. steal, death shroud, shatters) for other classes. The elementalist class ability is its' crazy amount of weapon skills. Engineers have a similar situation to Elementalist and also don't get weapon swaps, however every other profession can switch between 2 weapons mid combat.

[Vayne]

Eles are a popular and powerful class option. A lot of people I talk to favor them for PVP. Due to things like earth attunement they're very survivable and due to water, they make a decent support profession. Eles are simply an awesome class.

One of the reasons other classes get so much love though is that they were also one of the first classes announced...in fact, the first, if I'm not mistaken. We've been hearing about eles for ages, where as mesmers are newly released and everyone was interested in them.

Also, eles existed in the original Guild Wars, thieves, guardians, and engineers didn't (though thieves, of course, owe a lot of their playstyle to assassins).

But don't kid yourself. I know a ton of people who are in love with eles.

[EpilepticEmu]

Thanks for all the responses! This was very helpful.