vilkanor.3072

now: meteor shower = ridiculously long casting time and easy telegraphed, 1800k max critical hit over 5 targets that can easily dodge fire grab = 2500k critical hit vs player (8k vs basic mob) dragon's tooth = slow, telegraphed, incredibly easy to avoid 1k damage phoenix = slow, predictable, 300 damage then (2012/2013): meteor shower = ridiculously long casting time and easy telegraphed, uncapped AoE damage, infinite hitbox, wreaks havoc and despair on enemy zerg fire grab = 18k critical hit sends shivers of terror in gankin's group spine that dared to face the lone roamer dragon's tooth = slow, telegraphed, incredibly easy to avoid 10k damage severely punish lazy gameplay from opponents phoenix = slow, predictable, 3k damage sends opponent to the Mysts current Elementalist is a joke; on any of my alts I can do 10x better with 1/10 of the effort

you misinterpreted the text, it should be read as following: "while casting any Ele skill, you will take massive damage from opponents"

you may accidentally hurt someone, and devs don't want that. Safety first

don't waste time, we've been telling 'em since 2012 but they keep saying "Elementalist is where we want it to be" (the garbage can, I guess) so they are fine with things as they are

don't. Roll a Thief

c'mon, Ele nerfs have been the norm since 2012, you guys should be accustomed to that by now

I think the truth is met halfway. Some players just want to leech from the zerg without providing any value to the group, and some commanders are just biased (maybe for good reasons, won't deny, but still they may miss giving a good player a chance). When I play on my thief, if I decide to join a blob, I focus on being helpful: using aoe weapons, sharing venom, stealth ressing, porting, flanking, picking stragglers, etc. If the thief rushes to frontlines, has single target focus, doesn't help in any way, and basically is just a ressbot... well, then that's the pathway to be an outcast

I am by no mean an experienced thief player, but equipping the short bow and building for sharing venom/poison seems to increase the amount of lootbags collected

at least when it comes to wvw, after 3.000 hrs with Ele I confirm that it's clunky, and with an astonishingly high risk vs a ridiculously low reward mechanic (aka "the pianist").

Ele will never improve, by design

if you haven't played the 'original' Elementalist (release date one), you can't truly grasp the bottomless pit in which this profession has been thrown into.

the playing field is evened out by accessibility latency: it's not that you click WP and port instantly, there is loading time on your side, and from the other side you may be largely vulnerable while being incapable of any action.

Just having it cease to function when you need it the most is simply bad design and defeats entirely its purpose, which is "reducing the travel time as much as possible". The way I see it, the WP should be a "physical" object with relative healthbar, and only be unavailable if destroyed.

again, I'm talking about WvW

judging viability by dps: "we don't do that here". As I mentioned, it is undeniable that Ele can perform well in PvE, and it can be carried in WvW as well (if in a zerg): all the problems of the class, though, emerge once you try dueling other classes (pick any, the result won't change). When I started playing this game (day 1 of release), all classes were a bit unbalanced, and Ele was no exception: at some point, after few patches, a balance was reached. Yet, for no rational reason, Anet kept nerfing and nerfing Ele until the sorry state of today was achieved. If all other classes can have self sustain AND dps, why Ele can't?

it is a viable class for PvE undeniably, but in WvW it has the same downsides as core ele (no, maybe even more, due to the increase in 'pianist-syndrome' for no real practical advantage)

I have a neutral stance on this, as it is not really on topic and mostly depends on personal preferences. It probably depends on game-developing issues, it would be chaotic to allow so many variables for all professions/classes, so I guess it's a standard practice to just "separate and specialize", think the old Street Fighter series: casuals would go for Ryu/Ken because they were easy to play yet effective, but people who mastered -say- Cammy were godlike at the cost of painful and long learning curve. In GW2, people who wants an easy time can hop on Warrior/Guardian and have immediate gratification, and expect to hop on Elementalist preparing for a long journey toward mastery only to be rewarded with defeat and derision.

let's say you have Team A and Team B of whatever sport you may fancy: Team A: professionals, million dollars invested in training and equipment, elite coaches, etc Team B: amateurs sorted randomly, that don't even play that particular sport one would assume that, over a span of -say- 100 matches, Team A would win consistently, would not? That's because, knowledge, preparation, equipment, training, experience, talent, skill, etc, are supposed to count, no? However, Team B wins the league. How's that possible? See, the whole point of increasing complexity in the mechanics is precisely to reward skilled players with better performance distributed across a consistent number of encounters (I am specifically talking about WvW or at least PvP). Ele is a disaster: squishy, long CD, excruciatingly long and overly-complicated boon staking process, no viable self sustenance, can't pressure, can't resist pressure, low mobility (folks, who remembers the ORIGINAL dagger 4 skill?) and, worse than anything, low damage output. On my thief, I can reach 18k damage with autoattack and have 7 evasions ready to troll-escape any sticky situation, on my Ele I have to play piano to get 8k.. and still die in one hit.

'members when Quaggan were a thing?

the event is fair: it pits lots of noobs vs other noobs, with the occasional veteran thrown in to gather the lootbags, it reminded me of the good ol' days when all maps were full of players, also more events = higher chance for people to enjoy wvw and settle down there as their first choice. All in all, I welcome the initiative and would appreciate more in the near future

in the garbage bin

a long time ago, a competent Elementalist was a serious threat for even a mid size squad (no hitbox cap, infinite might stack, no damage cap, etc) yet the memes about thieves pressing "2" to kill were raging strong. Now, if Elementalist at its peak was meme material for thieves, the current ele is just a wasted slot. Granted, I still have my share of fun playing it, but it's only due to nostalgia rather than actual effectiveness, all other professions can perform vastly better in each role.

3? that's bunker!