Did elementalist get the short end of the stick?

[kljs]

Sorry for bringing up an old post.

I played an ele as my main. With no idea what to do, I went off into Tyria to gain fame and fortune.

Ok, in the process of leveling, I died like dozen and dozen of times. I usually have to run away from mobs, dodge, strafe left and right, jumped into water...etc. Slowly, I find out that I need to use add traits which I did not add until level 40. Hence, that is why I die a lot. However, after adding the traits, I still die, but less and I can kill mobs faster. I was using fire traits all the way. (newbie mistake).

Later, found out the meaning of kiting (newbie again). Hence, I am dying a lot less and killing even veterans. (again, newbie ok?)

Around level 60+, I want in some high level maps, most of the time, I just choose to run through the mobs until I reach a heart or poi or vista. (still newbie about traits, armors and weapon).

Bear in mine, I did NOT switch between attunements. It was fire all the way until I learned how to switch.

Level 80 and my first dungeon. AC path 2. I was dying left and right until I had to apologize to the party about being a hindrance.

Continue on, I when from dungeon to dungeon. Slowly learning how to survive in them and also first time visiting Orr.

I rarely die now a days, but I do get one shotted by bosses if I get too close. I am full glass cannon build. I stand far away from anything and let my party members do the tanking.

So, I find that playing an Elementalist, you need to be quick with the skills, quick with the "running" away part, quick with your switching attunements, kite everything like a boss (always wanted to say that) and basically be a coward. That is how I play my full glass cannon elementalist. And it is how I survive in dungeons. Now, I only die like once or none at all.

My opinion is that Elementalist is support class. great AoE if you are staff build. I understand what the OP meant but I disagree the Elementalist needs to be re-evaluated. Elementalist is as good as the person who controls it. Like me, the process of leveling my elementalist was fun yet somewhat frustrating, but I stick to it and learnt how to use everything in my arsenal of skills to survive.

No comment on PvP as I don't PvP (ever).

I also level a Necro and a Mesmer. I feel that both don't need to do much running, kiting or being a coward like an elementalist. Still, the elementalist is a much better profession to use as it lets you learn how to use your many skills to survive rather than rely on 1 or 2 skills. Like my necro, I can just stand in a middle of at least 7 mobs and dagger all of them to death and only casting Well of Suffering and most mobs die fast. getting hit by all 7 of the mobs will probably get hp down to about half (because of vampiric traits and other traits). If my health goes down fast, I just cast heal why still standing there without moving. As for my Mesmer, the clones are the saviors for many fights. Shattering them takes out the mob's hp quite significantly. My Mesmer is only at this moment level 26, but it can kill elites without breaking a sweat. And I have no ideas on where I should put my traits points, and still it manages to survive a fight easily compared to an elementalist. The very same fight my elementalist took at level 50, my Mesmer did it at level 26.

Sorry for making a long old grandmother story. I agree with the OP that elementalist are somehow a weak class BUT I do not agree an elementalist should be buffed up to the level of at least the necro and Mesmer. With the right usage of skills and attunements, you can play the elementalist without much problem.

I hope that make any sense. If not, I apologize for talking nonsense.

[bokiz333]

SorrySo, I find that playing an Elementalist, you need to be quick with the skills, quick with the "running" away part, quick with your switching attunements, kite everything like a boss (always wanted to say that) and basically be a coward. That is how I play my full glass cannon elementalist. And it is how I survive in dungeons. Now, I only die like once or none at all.

My opinion is that Elementalist is support class. great AoE if you are staff build. I understand what the OP meant but I disagree the Elementalist needs to be re-evaluated. Elementalist is as good as the person who controls it. Like me, the process of leveling my elementalist was fun yet somewhat frustrating, but I stick to it and learnt how to use everything in my arsenal of skills to survive.

That is A way to play an elementalist. BUt certainly not the ONLY way to play it. (best is very subjective so I wont go there). I play pretty much the EXACT opposite from you. Bunker build. Dagger Dagger. First man into the fight. Fighting 1 v 3. First to run into a 30 man zerg.

The point isn't what I do, the point is you don't have to play your elementalist like a "coward" as you say. Now if you enjoy standing back and playing support and not being to handle soloing as well (ie you are specced for group play) then you should keep doing that. I have no idea how you survive as a glass canon ele with I assume staff in a fractal dungeon like dredge where they will get rightin your face and you better be able to take a few hits. At some point there are just too many to kite.

[Alexanian]

That is A way to play an elementalist. BUt certainly not the ONLY way to play it. (best is very subjective so I wont go there). I play pretty much the EXACT opposite from you. Bunker build. Dagger Dagger. First man into the fight. Fighting 1 v 3. First to run into a 30 man zerg.

The point isn't what I do, the point is you don't have to play your elementalist like a "coward" as you say. Now if you enjoy standing back and playing support and not being to handle soloing as well (ie you are specced for group play) then you should keep doing that. I have no idea how you survive as a glass canon ele with I assume staff in a fractal dungeon like dredge where they will get rightin your face and you better be able to take a few hits. At some point there are just too many to kite.

I do a lot of fractals and I feel strongly against glass cannon builds in my group. You can always pick them out. Im for everyone playing the way they want to, just not with me.

My opinion is that you do more harm to the whole groups damage when they are rezzing you often then you make up for with your "Glass Cannon" damage build. If a glass cannon dies too often in a fight, they stop getting rezzed, if it happens in too many fights, kicked from the group. We do more dmage w/o them.

Balance is everything in this game. Everyone could stand to learn this.

[Vayne]

I do a lot of fractals and I feel strongly against glass cannon builds in my group. You can always pick them out. Im for everyone playing the way they want to, just not with me.

My opinion is that you do more harm to the whole groups damage when they are rezzing you often then you make up for with your "Glass Cannon" damage build. If a glass cannon dies too often in a fight, they stop getting rezzed, if it happens in too many fights, kicked from the group. We do more dmage w/o them.

Balance is everything in this game. Everyone could stand to learn this.

I've always argued for a balanced build in Guild Wars, even as early as Guild Wars 1. The games were really designed for a balanced build. If they were more like Rift, where you could switch it roles on a whim and you could have a couple of different roles just hanging out there, waiting to be used it would be different. But since the game is designed to give you a variety of content, no one build too weighted to do one thing will work.

If you have a condition build and do nothing but conditions and run into something that removed conditions or where conditions don't work, that screwed you completely. If you depend heavily on even a single condition, let's say blind, and you run into dredge, you're screwed because they're immune to blind. If you stack all your stuff into armor and vitality, you don't do enough damage to kill stuff fast enough and it spawns before you can move on...in some areas of the world.

So either you're building a team with a group of people that play daily and you specialize and only play with that group, or you play a balanced build where you can do your damage, take your hits, help your team mates, but still solo when you have to. That's the best way to make a build for Guild Wars 2.

[Bell]

That is A way to play an elementalist. BUt certainly not the ONLY way to play it. (best is very subjective so I wont go there). I play pretty much the EXACT opposite from you. Bunker build. Dagger Dagger. First man into the fight. Fighting 1 v 3. First to run into a 30 man zerg.

The point isn't what I do, the point is you don't have to play your elementalist like a "coward" as you say. Now if you enjoy standing back and playing support and not being to handle soloing as well (ie you are specced for group play) then you should keep doing that. I have no idea how you survive as a glass canon ele with I assume staff in a fractal dungeon like dredge where they will get rightin your face and you better be able to take a few hits. At some point there are just too many to kite.

That's exactly what I do, too. I think that's the most beautiful part of this game: that you can actually play the classes so differently and still many of these options are valid ones.

I've struggled with my ele at first, because I think it's one of the more difficult classes to play well. But once I discovered the build I'm using now on the official forums and played around with it, I've really started to have lots of fun with it. And if you play really well, which I certainly don't claim to do, ele (or more likely the kind of ele, I'm playing) is a really powerful class and can hold its own against several opponents for quite a while. Even though, I'm above average at best, I'm doing extremely fine now.
Having the right build is paramount. So to everyone that has troubles with mastering his class I can only advise to read up on the popular builds out there, rather than fiddling around on your own, because it'll likely yield better results and thus the game will be more fun.

The only thing that I dislike about the ele is that you can't swap weapons. I know, that's why we have attunements, but I always feel very limited by the weapons I have currently equipped. With the DD I'm king of melee combat and carve through the enemy zerg as the spearhead of our group. But at every castle or keep I'm pretty useless with that setup. So I have to run away (if I hadn't had the opportunity to swap before getting there), get outfight, change to staff and meteorshower those freaks off their siege engines. And then again, when we are attacked while sieging, I again wished I had my DD on me, because it's just superiour in normal combat. WIth all my other characters I'm always carrying a weapon that's more melee and one that's far reaching or offers decent aoe for sieges. With the ele I feel like I'm bringing the wrong weapon to too many fights.

[Sericenthe]

Isn't figuring out your own build part of the fun? Who wants to play someone else's character?

Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. Bizarre builds can sometimes help you win fights. You're unexpected.

[Bell]

Isn't figuring out your own build part of the fun? Who wants to play someone else's character?

Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. Bizarre builds can sometimes help you win fights. You're unexpected.

Well, if you can come up with a working build then by all means do it. And if that's part of the fun for you, then of course you should indulge in that activity. It was just meant as a hint for players who struggle with their class. Because in this game a class can go from zero to hero just by changing a few traits.
It was just a

[Vayne]

Isn't figuring out your own build part of the fun? Who wants to play someone else's character?

Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. Bizarre builds can sometimes help you win fights. You're unexpected.

This! Absolutely how I feel about it. I'd rather be myself even if it puts me at a slight disadvantage, but that doesn't necessarily happen, because people expect you to have one of a few builds. If people don't know what to make of you, you're harder to pin down.

[bokiz333]

This! Absolutely how I feel about it. I'd rather be myself even if it puts me at a slight disadvantage, but that doesn't necessarily happen, because people expect you to have one of a few builds. If people don't know what to make of you, you're harder to pin down.

Well I'd like to point out that I'm a "hipster elementalist" as people call us now...played ele back when it was considered very UP. I played around with weapon sets and traits and arrived at the "standard" bunker set up that is so popular now. So I'm playing the most common (arguably best) ele build but because I got there myself.

I'm keeping an eye out on the chances they're going to do to scepter (they did some, I believe more are comming) and then I think I'm going to have to change my build completely to have a bit more cannon, less bunker and more range...and be scepter/dagger to stay a step ahead of the competition. But it's still early.

[thesserd]

So... i got into this topic when searching for "best elementalist dungeon build" and i decided to register and out myself too xD I played Guild Wars (1) so i assumed... playing an elementalist makes you die fast but you blink out in doing damage. I like to take that risk and ive always been more a fan of mages so my first GW2 character is an elementalist.

I love playing it... lvl 80 now... exotic (Zhed) armor and tried all weapon combo's and some builds etc. Got real annoyed by the scepter because it 'glitches' in Air Attunement... it just keeps buzzing after the enemy is killed >.< at the end i discovered i like dagger dagger best. So since im not good at finding out good builds my self, i went looking on the internet and found: http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/61...entalist-build

I love it, i feel like i do lots of damage, right? I'm quite a noob so maybe i'm not judging right. Anyways... this is how i play. I change up skill 6 - 8 now and then but basicly i use that build. I like the active funky way of playing with dagger dagger and i was happy to find a good build with it.

The unfair part comes now... My boyfriend plays Warrior. He's using this build: http://www.gw2build.com/builds/bleed...leed-9295.html
He does at least just as much damage as i do, or even more but i die like 5 times faster then him.

Which means playing elementalist is kinda useless (for me) right? I'm not a big fan of WvW and i dont like playing defensive or with staff either.

What am i doing wrong here? Or is this indead the short end of the stick, this topic is all about?