Disappointment with game due to ele

[TheDarkness.6947]

When evaluating games, having a class I want to play is one of the things I look for.  Elementalist is part of what drew me to GW2 because I like to play a mage archetype and ele looked like a good fit.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, ele sucks. To me, the class is no fun to play - anti-heroic.  I’m honestly now kind of wishing I had chosen a different game and not spent money on this one.

 

I’ve tried several other professions, and compared to ele, they feel like their skill bar is full of WIN buttons.

 

I know there are some that have played ele for thousands of hours and will say it’s fine, maybe even OP in their hands.  Maybe it’s true, I don’t know.  I would say that they went through the learning curve at a time when things were different and the ele learning experience more fun/less painful.  I don’t want to have to suffer through thousands of hours of learning curve in down state just to be on par with other professions. I’ve already spent hundreds. 

 

I don’t think I’m alone here.  Most of the posts on this board are players’ perfectly reasonable suggestions to fix ele. I know there’s some of that on every profession board, even for classes that are currently strong.  But not to the extent that it is on this one (except maybe the warrior board).  

 

Anyway, I don’t expect my post to change anything or that Anet will even read it.  So I guess thanks to whoever reads this for letting me get it off my chest.

 

 

 

 

[Ragnarox.9601]

well I started playing ele month ago, as a guardian main I can say guardian is good, but ele is way better. Roaming is more fun as ele and have better solo kits than guardian. I like guardian cause of weapons skins like greatsword and legendary armor skins. But seeing ele will get a hammer got me excited as long time enhancement shaman from wow, was little disappointed how weak catalyst is but they can buff it. 

 

If you think ele is bad just buy some mouse with 12 buttons like razor naga or something, and keybind f1-f4 to it, you will have a blast. 

[TheDarkness.6947]

19 minutes ago, Ragnarox.9601 said:

well I started playing ele month ago, as a guardian main I can say guardian is good, but ele is way better. Roaming is more fun as ele and have better solo kits than guardian. I like guardian cause of weapons skins like greatsword and legendary armor skins. But seeing ele will get a hammer got me excited as long time enhancement shaman from wow, was little disappointed how weak catalyst is but they can buff it. 

 

If you think ele is bad just buy some mouse with 12 buttons like razor naga or something, and keybind f1-f4 to it, you will have a blast. 

 

I’ve been using a logitech g600 from the start.  My opinion that ele is a garbage class or at least way too punishing to learn includes that.   I do agree it would be somehow even less fun without an MMO mouse.

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, TheDarkness.6947 said:

When evaluating games, having a class I want to play is one of the things I look for.  Elementalist is part of what drew me to GW2 because I like to play a mage archetype and ele looked like a good fit.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, ele sucks. To me, the class is no fun to play - anti-heroic.  I’m honestly now kind of wishing I had chosen a different game and not spent money on this one.

 

I’ve tried several other professions, and compared to ele, they feel like their skill bar is full of WIN buttons.

 

I know there are some that have played ele for thousands of hours and will say it’s fine, maybe even OP in their hands.  Maybe it’s true, I don’t know.  I would say that they went through the learning curve at a time when things were different and the ele learning experience more fun/less painful.  I don’t want to have to suffer through thousands of hours of learning curve in down state just to be on par with other professions. I’ve already spent hundreds. 

 

I don’t think I’m alone here.  Most of the posts on this board are players’ perfectly reasonable suggestions to fix ele. I know there’s some of that on every profession board, even for classes that are currently strong.  But not to the extent that it is on this one (except maybe the warrior board).  

 

Anyway, I don’t expect my post to change anything or that Anet will even read it.  So I guess thanks to whoever reads this for letting me get it off my chest.

 

 

 

 

 

If you're new, I recommend you take the salt on these forums...with a grain of salt.

Before we throw in the towel on ele, maybe tell us more about how you've been trying to play the class so far?  What builds have you tried? What type of content is your primary focus at this point?  Where do you find you struggle the most compared to other classes you've tried?

[Lilieze.8290]

Once upon a time its a fun and great class, having many option to play but sadly they nerf every trait and every skill over and over again due to "balance" issue.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Lilieze.8290

[Flori.2194]

You just have to accept that ele is a class that is not sought after. Every game mode has its poster boy classes and ele isn't one of them. So every time you play ele in a certain game mode you have to remember that there is a class right now that is strictly better in anything you are currently doing. 

 

Besides Fashion Wars. Light armour classes are strong in fashion wars, but necros are somehow forced to be black-green and mesmers pink-purple...

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

I hear you on that. However, fiddling around with your build can help. I don't do raids or fractals but i have been having fun going through the storyline with staff. I just use 1-2 glyph of (lesser) elementals to body-block.

 

Also staff is good for wvw zerg. Sword is good for roaming and small scale stuff, but so is scepter, tho that takes practice for sure. 

 

The catalyst beta certainly made me want to play less, but i got over it and an hopeful they rework it. 

Edited September 29, 2021 by SlitheSlivier.1908

[Downstate.4697]

You are missing out on a great game if you let ele being sub optimal bother you.  

[Zaxx.8125]

To be honest, yes, Ele is not the easiest class to play, especially when you're new to it, but is nowhere as bad as people tend to describe it.

I don't know what gamemode you're playing the most, but I'll just assume general PvE (open world, maybe some Fractals and Strikes).

My first advice to you: if you're struggling with survival and applying your rotation, try running gear with defensive stats on it.

A lot of people just automatically go full berserkers/vipers gear when they don't know the class very well and then get disappointed that they die too fast.

 

I recommend trying this tempest build with trailblazers gear: Tempest - Condi Tempest - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds (I'd personally recommend taking blinding ashes in Fire traitline for even more survivability)

I'm using this in openworld when I want some easy and relaxed gameplay. If running trailblazers gear with this one, you can just facetank groups of mobs and watch them die to your burning and bleeding. You'll see , tempest's overloads are very strong and imho super cool to use, especially the Earth one: just slide on your own mini mountain and watch them burn hehe. Plus this build is very easy to play. You can just alternate between fire and earth attunements  and you'll be more than fine.

 

When you get used to it, try some new builds, and don't get discouraged if it doesnt work well from the beginning, with some practice, you'll be fine.

 

Personally, I remember when I tried weaver at first, I thought it was horrible, but after a while even the Condi Weaver rotation just flows like water, when you get the grasp of it.

 

TLDR: dont get discouraged, Ele might seem hard to play and weak in the beginning, but once you get used to it, you'll be surprised of what it can achieve 🙂

[Sparrowspoo.8209]

I think ele puts a lot of people off when they read about learning rotations, this also put me off as I just wanted a game to relax and enjoy not to spend hours learning rotations. Mow I play necro and ranger and I'm loving it.

[Jski.6180]

Its just soo week for the work though that realty the scores of all of the disappointment for the game and the class is coming from. Ele use to be THE dps class but all of the dmg nerfs and over all bland-ing of classes dps for raids viability took a lot of the "fun" for high skill game play. There just no pay off for skill in gw2 any more.

[MarshallLaw.9260]

On 9/29/2021 at 12:44 PM, TheDarkness.6947 said:

 I’m honestly now kind of wishing I had chosen a different game and not spent money on this one

So you've enjoyed the game since at least May (possibly longer) and now choose to have buyers remorse.

Such a whiny post laced with self-pity and overall negative vibes.

 

Ele isn't for you, thanks for all your improvement suggestions, great contribution.

[TheDarkness.6947]

On 9/29/2021 at 10:43 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

If you're new, I recommend you take the salt on these forums...with a grain of salt.

Before we throw in the towel on ele, maybe tell us more about how you've been trying to play the class so far?  What builds have you tried? What type of content is your primary focus at this point?  Where do you find you struggle the most compared to other classes you've tried?

Thank you for always beings such an advocate for players that want to play ele!  I frequently see you offering to help other ele players, and I do really appreciate the offer here.  I think I need at least a break from ele right now, but if I decide to take another swing, I will try to take you (and others who have offered) up on your offer before I get to the point of frustration with it again.

On 9/29/2021 at 6:51 PM, Zaxx.8125 said:

A lot of people just automatically go full berserkers/vipers gear when they don't know the class very well and then get disappointed that they die too fast.

 

I recommend trying this tempest build with trailblazers gear

Thanks for this suggestion.  My experience was that when I reached level 80 on my first character (which happened to be an ele), Trailblazers was way out of my reach.  I think a full set at this writing is ~120g on the auction house.  I probably had around 30g when I hit 80.  Making up the difference by farming gold seems like a pretty daunting task when your character is always dying even to vets and trash mobs. 

So maybe this is why you see new players in zerk gear?  It's cheap!  If Trailblazers and a condi build is what makes ele playable for the average player who hasn't quite figured it all out yet, maybe Anet should consider giving out exotic trailblazers  as end rewards in the final personal story chapters.  I don't know if starter L80 gear is a revenue item for them, but in this case I would think it's better than losing players altogether because they think the game is too hard.

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Its just soo week for the work though that realty the scores of all of the disappointment for the game and the class is coming from. Ele use to be THE dps class but all of the dmg nerfs and over all bland-ing of classes dps for raids viability took a lot of the "fun" for high skill game play. There just no pay off for skill in gw2 any more.

In my ideal world, player skill would not be some kind of barrier to play a particular profession.  Rather I think they should all take about the same amount of skill / practice to get to a base level of proficiency, and they should all be deep enough that players who invest in developing skills with that class can shine.  Ideally to me profession would be a choice about play style, theme, and possibly role (although I know GW2 tries not to tie roles to professions). To your point though, it would be nice if the professions had a distinct identity if not a dedicated role. I'm not sure what ele's identity is.  I assumed it would be DPS, but I don't think it's currently that.

4 hours ago, MarshallLaw.9260 said:

So you've enjoyed the game since at least May (possibly longer) and now choose to have buyers remorse.

Such a whiny post laced with self-pity and overall negative vibes.

 

Ele isn't for you, thanks for all your improvement suggestions, great contribution.

Thanks for taking the time to write a condescending response that also adds nothing, I guess? My post wasn't directed at you, because, well, I don't know you.  I don't think I made any suggestions that would somehow make GW2 worse for you, or anyone for that matter.  And if reading my post was a waste of your time, I thought it was pretty clear from the post title what was going to follow, so you probably could have just skipped it.  I'll assume you're having a bad day and needed to find an opportunity to take it out on some stranger.

Anyway, I haven't asked for a refund or threatened to quit playing or spending money on the game.  I will just play a different class.  But when I find myself on youtube checking out what other games might be like, what I described above is really the reason for it.  I guess instead, I could just go away quietly without voicing that particular disappointment, and stop spending money on this game. I'm sure some people do just that.  I'm not really sure that approach is better for Anet though, even if it's better for you personally, for whatever unknown reason.

[AliamRationem.5172]

22 minutes ago, TheDarkness.6947 said:

Thank you for always beings such an advocate for players that want to play ele!  I frequently see you offering to help other ele players, and I do really appreciate the offer here.  I think I need at least a break from ele right now, but if I decide to take another swing, I will try to take you (and others who have offered) up on your offer before I get to the point of frustration with it again.

Thanks for this suggestion.  My experience was that when I reached level 80 on my first character (which happened to be an ele), Trailblazers was way out of my reach.  I think a full set at this writing is ~120g on the auction house.  I probably had around 30g when I hit 80.  Making up the difference by farming gold seems like a pretty daunting task when your character is always dying even to vets and trash mobs. 

So maybe this is why you see new players in zerk gear?  It's cheap!  If Trailblazers and a condi build is what makes ele playable for the average player who hasn't quite figured it all out yet, maybe Anet should consider giving out exotic trailblazers  as end rewards in the final personal story chapters.  I don't know if starter L80 gear is a revenue item for them, but in this case I would think it's better than losing players altogether because they think the game is too hard.

In my ideal world, player skill would not be some kind of barrier to play a particular profession.  Rather I think they should all take about the same amount of skill / practice to get to a base level of proficiency, and they should all be deep enough that players who invest in developing skills with that class can shine.  Ideally to me profession would be a choice about play style, theme, and possibly role (although I know GW2 tries not to tie roles to professions). To your point though, it would be nice if the professions had a distinct identity if not a dedicated role. I'm not sure what ele's identity is.  I assumed it would be DPS, but I don't think it's currently that.

Thanks for taking the time to write a condescending response that also adds nothing, I guess? My post wasn't directed at you, because, well, I don't know you.  I don't think I made any suggestions that would somehow make GW2 worse for you, or anyone for that matter.  And if reading my post was a waste of your time, I thought it was pretty clear from the post title what was going to follow, so you probably could have just skipped it.  I'll assume you're having a bad day and needed to find an opportunity to take it out on some stranger.

Anyway, I haven't asked for a refund or threatened to quit playing or spending money on the game.  I will just play a different class.  But when I find myself on youtube checking out what other games might be like, what I described above is really the reason for it.  I guess instead, I could just go away quietly without voicing that particular disappointment, and stop spending money on this game. I'm sure some people do just that.  I'm not really sure that approach is better for Anet though, even if it's better for you personally, for whatever unknown reason.

 

There is a cheapie version for the terminally short of gold.  Use Dire stats with Balthazar rune.

[TheDarkness.6947]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

There is a cheapie version for the terminally short of gold.  Use Dire stats with Balthazar rune.

 

Thanks for the tip!  I can actually afford trailblazer’s at this point but that might be a good way to take the build for a low risk test drive.

[Kuma.1503]

I play my Ele in PvE with full Cele gear and rune of elementalist. I still frequently top dps in T4 fractal PUG groups as weaver, and if we're struggling, I just have to equip a staff with a transference/water sigil on it and swap over to tempest. The burst heals are still enough to top up a group instantly, and you can contribute some dps on the side. 

The gear also doubles as good Open world/WvW roaming gear so I literally never have to change my set, and I don't have any issues with feeling squishy or taking too long to kill things solo (Cele fire weaver instamelts anything that isn't a champion mob)

I recommend giving cele a try if you want a more comfortable experience on ele. 

Zerker/viper is overrated unless you're running with good group with perma boon uptime. There's no point in it if you can't even maintain 25 might stacks and go down frequently. 

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[Jski.6180]

1 minute ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I play my Ele in PvE with full Cele gear and rune of elementalist. I still frequently top dps in T4 fractal PUG groups as weaver, and if we're struggling, I just have to equip a staff with a transference/water sigil on it and swap over to tempest. The burst heals are still enough to top up a group instantly, and you can contribute some dps on the side. 

The gear also doubles as good Open world/WvW roaming gear so I literally never have to change my set, and I don't have any issues with feeling squishy or taking too long to kill things solo (Cele fire weaver instamelts anything that isn't a champion mob)

I recommend giving cele a try if you want a more comfortable experience on ele. 

 

 

 

This is what ppl think till they start to get kicked from groups because they are not the right class or every one is running cele ele and there simply is not stab or quickness to make that cele build work.

Or even worst when ppl start watching your numbers (not you but other ppl) and they get a real ideal of what going on. Its a real shame because of 3ed party programed dont give the full ideal of what going on in a fight due to the lack of aura effect tracking as well as group healing. Only a anet made tracker will work to give a full info of a fight. The 3ed party trackers only give enofe info to tell ppl ele not good for a group.

Its a real mess of a state of game for the ele class.

[Kuma.1503]

8 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

This is what ppl think till they start to get kicked from groups because they are not the right class or every one is running cele ele and there simply is not stab or quickness to make that cele build work.

Or even worst when ppl start watching your numbers (not you but other ppl) and they get a real ideal of what going on. Its a real shame because of 3ed party programed dont give the full ideal of what going on in a fight due to the lack of aura effect tracking as well as group healing. Only a anet made tracker will work to give a full info of a fight. The 3ed party trackers only give enofe info to tell ppl ele not good for a group.

Its a real mess of a state of game for the ele class.

I haven't had that happen to me yet, and I do fractals/strikes daily. 

I still do my job as a weaver by blasting for might and outputting good dps. The only difference is the distinct lack of ele downstate meme (Meaning smoother faster clears than what one would assume on paper. Downstate/Death is the biggest dps loss). If people look on logs they usually see I'm 1st or 2nd so they have no reason to kick me. 

And I doubt they'd be able to tell by looking at my top skills because the top damaging skill for Power Weaver (full zerker) is still burning. 

Biggest issue I run into on ele is when every group under the sun is listed as "LF Alac/Quick/BS" because ele cannot fill any of those roles, but hey... That might change soon if Catalyst turns out better than it did in Beta. 

 

[Jski.6180]

3 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I haven't had that happen to me yet, and I do fractals/strikes daily. 

I still do my job as a weaver by blasting for might and outputting good dps. The only difference is the distinct lack of ele downstate meme (Meaning smoother faster clears than what one would assume on paper. Downstate/Death is the biggest dps loss). If people look on logs they usually see I'm 1st or 2nd so they have no reason to kick me. 

And I doubt they'd be able to tell by looking at my top skills because the top damaging skill for Power Weaver (full zerker) is still burning. 

Biggest issue I run into on ele is when every group under the sun is listed as "LF Alac/Quick/BS" because ele cannot fill any of those roles, but hey... That might change soon if Catalyst turns out better than it did in Beta. 

 

Sadly cata not going to fill that roll in its current state that well. That why a lot of this up-raw is from. Its a real shame tempest never did get a quickness shair or even an alac seeing how tempest is the support of ele not cata.

[Widmo.3186]

Lmao, people suggesting buying mouse with additional buttons or playing certain builds/stats. You know, its like saying to a guy with 30y old car - "hey, you should buy a new driving wheel, your driving comfort will be much better!". No, thats not the case, problem is with the engine, gearbox, turbine, everything, not the rather-cosmetic kind of things. 

You know what happend to >90% of old ele mains? They switched to something else, either in matter of class or game. And it makes me kinda laugh when I see people with few hundreds hours spent that are defending current state or the way ANet wants to "balance" ele. Maybe it would be wise to listen to ppl with at least 10x more experience that remember how this class looked like in vanilla and HoT and why direction is very bad (with few good aspects - such as Weaver design).  

Is it playable? Yes. Is it anywhere close to meta? Answer yourself.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Widmo.3186

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

This is what ppl think till they start to get kicked from groups because they are not the right class or every one is running cele ele and there simply is not stab or quickness to make that cele build work.

Or even worst when ppl start watching your numbers (not you but other ppl) and they get a real ideal of what going on. Its a real shame because of 3ed party programed dont give the full ideal of what going on in a fight due to the lack of aura effect tracking as well as group healing. Only a anet made tracker will work to give a full info of a fight. The 3ed party trackers only give enofe info to tell ppl ele not good for a group.

Its a real mess of a state of game for the ele class.

If you're routinely getting kicked from groups, it isn't because of your class.  Now maybe your build?  From your forum presence, I gather you're a big fan of staff and you seem to favor support/healing with DPS as a secondary focus?  I may be no expert, but that sounds like a bad build and it certainly isn't going to measure up against stacked builds like firebrand and renegade in a support role.  Maybe your problem is you refuse to play DPS?

I get the whole issue with these god tier classes that do everything at once like firebrand, renegade, and scourge.  But where are you finding these groups that kick you just for playing ele?  I may not be the biggest fractal expert, but I've done my share and I don't recall ever seeing this.

 

 

[Jski.6180]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If you're routinely getting kicked from groups, it isn't because of your class.  Now maybe your build?  From your forum presence, I gather you're a big fan of staff and you seem to favor support/healing with DPS as a secondary focus?  I may be no expert, but that sounds like a bad build and it certainly isn't going to measure up against stacked builds like firebrand and renegade in a support role.  Maybe your problem is you refuse to play DPS?

I get the whole issue with these god tier classes that do everything at once like firebrand, renegade, and scourge.  But where are you finding these groups that kick you just for playing ele?  I may not be the biggest fractal expert, but I've done my share and I don't recall ever seeing this.

 

 

Not every thing in this game is pve you may want to think beyond that point of view.

[Infusion.7149]

I've had a random celestial elementalist do 3K DPS in my group on T4s which is less DPS than I do on seraph healbrand... did I kick them? No. However it is more painful for your group if you have to put up with that kind of thing and slows you down considerably. In addition, if you raid with celestial be prepared to tank on any toughness tanking boss (VG, Gorseval, KC, Xera, Deimos, TL, Dhuum, Sabir, Adina) unless you prearrange it with your group. If you're playing power you're far better off with some marauder gear and that's even what the people at hardstuck use (see https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/elementalist/power-weaver-r8/). For strikes , even when they were at their most elitist I think it was "10K+ DPS or kick" for groups not asking for LI.

So no celestial elementalist is not a good choice for instanced PVE specifically, even top benchmarks are 23-30K or so with full buffs depending on if you're a weaver (30K , with near zero buffs to the group) or tempest (~23K).

There's no celestial stat in PVP anymore, it was nerfed due to core dagger+dagger elementalist as well ; conditions aren't an effective strategy outside of roaming in WVW.

[TheDarkness.6947]

Can anyone recommend a good staff build for conquest?  Doesn’t have to be meta - just good.  Any role is fine, but preferably tempest or core, not weaver.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

There's no celestial stat in PVP anymore, it was nerfed due to core dagger+dagger elementalist as well ; conditions aren't an effective strategy outside of roaming in WVW.

Just want to point out that Celestial got removed from PvP after season one due to Chrono and re-added a while longer which made Scourge stronger, Core D/D worked up until HoT was released, then with all the boon strips, it couldnt sit on all its boons it generated from Elemental Attunement.