Current State of Elementalist?

[Acropollis.4267]

Hey guys, I'm a returning player after 6 years and I'm trying to decide on which class to put my time into. I did a lot of research online, but it has been hard to find accurate/current info on the state of the classes.

I really enjoy the complexity of the elementalist but I have read somewhere that this class has been nerfed and is underwhelming compared to the other classes in both PVE and PVP, especially for the amount of effort that needs to be put in just to be "ok".

I am willing to put in the effort, but I don't want to spend all my time in a class that is going to struggle a lot while requiring much higher skill than other classes.

Any info on this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[AliamRationem.5172]

In PvP there are currently several effective builds that I'm aware of. There are shock tempests and weavers running lightning rod builds and there are still fire and water weavers around as well. I think core is struggling at the moment and weapon diversity seems mostly limited to sword and dagger.

In PvE, a quick glance at snowcrows indicates tempest and weaver builds near the top of the benchmark list. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean they are the best option for every group composition, but they are probably doing alright.

I play fire weaver, which feels great to me for most content, but I'm pretty casual in my approach. I don't raid. I run T4 fractals sometimes, but not CMs. I spend far more time with open world/story content in PvE. I PvP some at the platinum tier and I do a good bit of roaming, too. That's what sort of player I am and I find this build great for everything I do.

[Euclid.2517]

I am a hardcore player who clears fractal cm everyday and all raid wings each week.

Elementalist is my main toon. I will just talk about PVE.

Weaver

If you really enjoys the playstyle, it is fine.

The condition weaver is really good and fun.

But for power weaver, if you compare it to other power classes, objectively there is no reason to pick it. Power Soulbeast is strictly better in every manner. (CC, boons generation, burst damage, sustained damage, survival).

If you truely master it, power weaver is not bad but certainly not the best for reasons above.

Subjectively, it is very fun as you need to give everything you have and keep your hands busy.

Following is a old post, but I think it is still very relevant.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/71563/elementalist-too-many-bad-and-meh-abilities

Tempest

Tempest recently got buffed in both dps side and support side. IMO, I think it is underestimated by many people.

Dps side, tempest provides one of the best AOE damage.

Support wise, you can apply 25s stacks of might, fury, regeneration etc. to 10 people. And it is the best pure healer imo.

[daisyk.4523]

If you're returning from 6 years & wanna get into instanced PVE, I'd honestly recommend learning dragonhunter or power soulbeast ^__^

As for what I can speak about:

Fractal CMs - Power weaver is fine. In lower kp groups you can ease into surviving while playing it with the Healbrand/Alacren meta, and if you wanna get into higher kp groups, it's an accepted & recognized dps class.

Like for real, after playing weaver everywhere, this stands as the one actual place that I actually really like playing my weaver. The precasting at the mistlock is just really fun. :P

And you just know, the boon support or BS or other dps or whoever picked up your fiery greatsword, they look at you and think "YES! There's a weaver in the group! I get more deeps for my opener!" the same way I look at a guardian and think "Yes, they're gonna pull the snakes in 99cm!"

Of course there are other classes that are great too, so it's not like "this is the be-all and end-all", it's just a good option among many good options (some of the others being power soulbeast, dragonhunter, and holosmith).

Regular T4s - Errr, weaver is a bit painful. Would not recommend. Or at the very least, I'd recommend having a second class to swap to, for those pesky mob-filled, bad-instab T4 fractals. Like honestly, guardian is just so much better for those.

Personally, I stay weaver if the fractal seems rather benign (like chaos, aetherblade, thauma), but if it's cancerous (like siren's, volcanic/the final fight feels really bad as power weaver, twilight/the first phase feels bad as power weaver) I switch to something else, like condi firebrand.

But yeah, this would be a non-issue if I did CMs as something like dragonhunter .___. or idk, holo.guardian also provides an insane amount of utility, it can do more skips than ele, it can bring reflects, it can bring stab, it can bring pulls..i don't know much about power soulbeast, other than people like your little spirits, people like having you around, and also i rarely hear anyone complain about spending so much time on their ranger or maining ranger. also in speedrun raids, you tend to see a lotta green bars (soulbeasts) along with blue bars (dragonhunters). soulbeast seems good. better than weaver, prolly..i don't know much about holo, except there's always that one guy who mains holo and can do everything as holo and is known as "the holo guy".i cannot speak much for raids, except that i would highly recommend against learning them on power weaver. i speak from personal experience. :pensive:..condi weaver is a curiosity for me...tempest is irrelevant in instanced pve