leveling an ele worth ?

hi everyone.

im thinking of leveling an elementalist mostly for pvp and pve (not wvw) but ive heard from people that elementalist is not very good in pvp and metabattle kinda confirms that, yet ive seen people doing gods work with ele. so i am torn between should i or should i not.

You don't have to level for PvP?If it's just for fun in PvE then sure.If you want to get mileage out of it in fractals/raids though it's more if you're interested in mastering ele's damage rotations while being babysat and while also not being 'best' DPS class in all but specific and optimized situations.

It might be not the easiest class to start and level up with if you're new, but it's doable and fun when you learn more about skills and rotation.In PvP, if you just want some fun go ele, it's not trash neither; but if you want to try hard and mount classement ... prepare for blood and tears, elem/weaver asks for a lot of efforts compare to some others, and it's not always rewarding.

Tl;dr not really unless you're a masochistic.

Legends say it's as bad as a Chrono Jail, maybe worse.

It's fun and all, but in terms of being top at something, not really, not now. You can't face-roll, you press tons of buttons and channel a lot of skills only to get the same/less outcome most of the time. Probably the only class that has no solo capabilities unless invested in with tons of stats/traits changes which makes your damage quite laughable, or the complete opposite.

In terms of someone performing way too good. The game shouldn't be balanced around that 1 in a 10000 player. If a player of the same skill level was to play on an other class, then the outcome would probably be unimaginable. Always see the fear of making the only 2-3 near-perfect players unbeatable, but no fear of hundred others that are of the same or higher league, and maybe less skill on another classes. I am not saying that other players aren't of high skill or on a braindead class, but the comparison used above means that all classes should be: carried by skill, not carried by class. Always see (git gud) skill mentioned when on elementalist, but rarely see it for others.

My advice would be to give it a try but care for investing much into it for when the weaknesses start to kick in, then, you might not like the fun the class offers over competing.

If you are NOT planing to do ATm or getting rank 1 in ranked i would say why not? But to ENJOY pvp with ele it's required to be experienced pvp player and that means:

1. Knowing mechanics of other classes and how current meta builds works
2. Knowledge of pvp jumping puzzles
3. Map awareness/map rotation: knowing where is your place on the map during match where you will be most effective.
4. Knowledge of what are pvp roles and these are:+1, roamer, 1v1, teamfighter, support, Bunker

Oh and you don't need grind anything to do pvp. Go to heart of the mist and you will be automatically pushed to lv 80 with all skills and elite spec unlocked. Your pve gear acts only as skins and all stats are from amulets you choose in pvp lobby.