Returning Ele Main Asks:

[funkychikin.2659]

Is this profession really as bad as the forums make it out to be?

Okay, okay - there's a million threads asking the exact same question. But I'm coming back to GW2 from WoW, mainly because WoW's gameplay has lost all appeal and because the new expansion seemed like a good time for reentry.

My GW2 main, from way back when, is an Ele. My GW1 main, from back in high school, was an Ele. Judging from the general sense of doom and dismay that I've read in several posts over the last several hours, Ele is fundamentally broken. But, from my perspective getting back into open-world and story content, any profession is perfectly viable. So again, see the question above.

As far as I can tell, most of the discussion revolves around Ele's apparently poor performance in PvP and WvW, as well as its complex gameplay. I have absolutely no interest in either PvP or WvW, and none of the GW2 professions are "too complex" to me, compared to the average WoW DPS rotation. I am, however, interested in strikes and fractals, and am wondering if playing my favorite profession will lock me out because "the meta."

What says the forum? Does Ele = clown class or not?

[PelloJello.8241]

Every class is the worst class in the game if you go by the forums 😛

[Atoclone.4810]

I play an ele in wvw, SPVP, Raid, fractals whilst there are times I do feel im doing 10 things to my friends I don't ever feel like im  holding them back. you dont need the uber meta build to complete content, you just need a fun charactor and friends

[funkychikin.2659]

10 minutes ago, PelloJello.8241 said:

Every class is the worst class in the game if you go by the forums 😛

It's sad but apparently true, just as it was true of the WoW class forums. Initially, I came to the profession forums hoping to discover what had changed in my 5 year absence and maybe pick up some helpful pointers. Imagine my surprise to discover that I should apparently just learn to play another profession - except that they're in the crapper, too, apparently.

Edited January 16 by funkychikin.2659

[PelloJello.8241]

You may get a better feel of how things are by checking out all the silly tier list videos on youtube.  I can't speak to the state of pve, but wvw elementalist is still great.  Support tempest is great, dps weaver/cata is great, slap some cele on cata and it roams great.

Its my opinion that a properly played dps catalyst, breaks a lot of wvw with how much damage they can yeet into a zerg lol

Edited January 16 by PelloJello.8241

[funkychikin.2659]

I dunno, I watched three separate tier list videos from 2 months ago (was there a major patch then?), and each video came up with wildly disparate conclusions. Besides, from my experience with WoW, tier lists are often unhelpful and actively detract from the health of a gaming community. See: the comments on the latest DPS tier list from WoWhead.

Like I said, I'm only here for PvE and have never had any interest in PvP or WvW, but I could potentially give WvW a try, if only to finally acquire the Warclaw.

[draxynnic.3719]

It's pretty good in open world, and I think it actually does fairly well in competitive, but it's been a while.

It does really suffer in group PvE content like strikes, fractals, and raids, though - the conditions in those environments seem almost custom-designed to expose elementalist weaknesses while inconsequentialising their strengths.

Part of the doom and gloom is also that it feels like Arenanet is pushing elementalist into being a melee profession, although scepter is pretty decent nowadays.

[AliamRationem.5172]

5 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

Is this profession really as bad as the forums make it out to be?

Okay, okay - there's a million threads asking the exact same question. But I'm coming back to GW2 from WoW, mainly because WoW's gameplay has lost all appeal and because the new expansion seemed like a good time for reentry.

My GW2 main, from way back when, is an Ele. My GW1 main, from back in high school, was an Ele. Judging from the general sense of doom and dismay that I've read in several posts over the last several hours, Ele is fundamentally broken. But, from my perspective getting back into open-world and story content, any profession is perfectly viable. So again, see the question above.

As far as I can tell, most of the discussion revolves around Ele's apparently poor performance in PvP and WvW, as well as its complex gameplay. I have absolutely no interest in either PvP or WvW, and none of the GW2 professions are "too complex" to me, compared to the average WoW DPS rotation. I am, however, interested in strikes and fractals, and am wondering if playing my favorite profession will lock me out because "the meta."

What says the forum? Does Ele = clown class or not?

You have to understand some of the nuance here.  Ele is not a bad class.  There are just some things about it that don't make a lot of sense given the way classes are designed since EoD.  For example, weaver.  It was designed at a time when the devs wanted to run with this idea that classes should have tradeoffs.  But they've long since discarded that notion.  But weaver remains with no boons, no utility, and a tricky rotation that leaves it locked out of accessing CC and other important skills in a timely fashion.  For that you would expect it to have some advantage, but that isn't the case.  It's still a top tier DPS, but other classes with none of these limitations do just as much damage.

As for open world/story content, as you say any class is perfectly viable and ele is no exception.  Here's a sample clip of the weaver build I like for solo play.  While I'd love to see some of the issues with this class addressed, I still find it fun and effective.    

[funkychikin.2659]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It does really suffer in group PvE content like strikes, fractals, and raids, though - the conditions in those environments seem almost custom-designed to expose elementalist weaknesses while inconsequentialising their strengths.

 

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 It's still a top tier DPS, but other classes with none of these limitations do just as much damage.

 

Thank you both for well-put answers. I guess these are part of the point, for me? The way I'm hearing/reading things, my ele will be my "story main," and I'll "have to" [read: would be better off to] pick a different profession for end-game PvE content. I say this because my ele has the most story progression from when I left off playing back in 2019-ish.

This does suck, but I understand the situation better now. Granted, I could just find a good guild, or else just tough it out. I've been enjoying Tempest and am working on Catalyst; I find that I don't enjoy Weaver at all, for many of the reasons you mentioned.

Either way, I suppose I'll keep the Ele but see if Necromancer or Mesmer feel good/fun nowadays.

[CafPow.1542]

7 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

 

Is this profession really as bad as the forums make it out to be?

 

Nothing is as bad as this salt mine of a forum makes it to be.

nothing.

[Dadnir.5038]

8 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

Is this profession really as bad as the forums make it out to be?

Not even close.

What drive those "bad reviews" is mainly that it isn't easy to unearth the maximum potential of the profession in real fight. Elementalist can perform really well at low input but the elementalist's community only seek excellence. Unfortunately, excellence is built upon a layer of complexity that create weaknesses in the gameplay that are dire enough to be perceived as crippling.

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

 

 

Thank you both for well-put answers. I guess these are part of the point, for me? The way I'm hearing/reading things, my ele will be my "story main," and I'll "have to" [read: would be better off to] pick a different profession for end-game PvE content. I say this because my ele has the most story progression from when I left off playing back in 2019-ish.

This does suck, but I understand the situation better now. Granted, I could just find a good guild, or else just tough it out. I've been enjoying Tempest and am working on Catalyst; I find that I don't enjoy Weaver at all, for many of the reasons you mentioned.

Either way, I suppose I'll keep the Ele but see if Necromancer or Mesmer feel good/fun nowadays.

It's doable, but you'll face a steeper learning curve and people might have concerns about having an elementalist in their group for anything other than DPS. Tempests are dependent on overloads to provide alacrity, so are vulnerable to being disrupted, and have a tight application radius. Catalysts, meanwhile, have to deal with an awkward adrenaline-like mechanic combined with attunement-switches to maintain quickness. Elementalist in general also tends to have more complex rotations than other professions, which can make it a bit harder to pay attention to mechanics.

Elementalist also tends to rely on self-healing and defensive buffs to counteract the lower base health and armour, but in group instanced PvE you usually have a healer covering that, so those strengths don't really matter but the lower health and armour often do.

Now, none of this necessarily matters if you play perfectly, but the learning curve is certainly on the steeper end.

[funkychikin.2659]

Learning curves don't really scare me all that much. I played Mage in WoW; that's a learning curve, imo. But GW2 is a different game, and the fight mechanics are built differently - and the boon/condition system is much, much more important here. Which makes the issue of alacrity application and quickness maintenance all the more pressing.

Which, in turn, leads me to my point. I have no problem playing the profession; my problem, I worry, will be the community's perception of the profession, both within Ele circles and beyond. The learning curve is manageable, esp. w/o weapon swapping. What I find less manageable is the often arduous, frequently tedious, uphill struggle of getting some rando pug leader not to kick me on principle for playing Ele.

My question from before being, is Ele really in a bad state, or is it just the community? The answer seems to be that Ele is in an okay state, but could benefit from some love from the devs and a potential rework. As concerns the community, the consensus seems to be, why would you even bother when there's other professions, esp. w/ Necro's tankiness and Mesmer's utility.

So idk, I'll give it a fair shot and see how far I can get, but I'm not gonna take or give grief over playing what I like.

Edit: thankfully GW2 is much friendlier to alts, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Edited January 17 by funkychikin.2659

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

Which, in turn, leads me to my point. I have no problem playing the profession; my problem, I worry, will be the community's perception of the profession, both within Ele circles and beyond. The learning curve is manageable, esp. w/o weapon swapping. What I find less manageable is the often arduous, frequently tedious, uphill struggle of getting some rando pug leader not to kick me on principle for playing Ele.

I think that's a valid concern. I have run into a few people who would rather take any of a wide range of professions over an alactempest or quickcata, and I can't say it's unwarranted due to issues mentioned above (some of which require other players to adjust their behaviour as well, such as remaining within the small application range of alactempest, especially if the instance might call for a fair amount of dodging). I don't think I've ever seen an alactempest actually kicked, but you might find that group leaders would rather assign almost anything else to the role. As for quickcatas... I'm not sure I've ever been in a PUG with a quickcata. It's possible that I have and I've forgotten (and my tendency to play quickness builds myself probably creates a sample bias), but I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to a low play rate.

2 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

My question from before being, is Ele really in a bad state, or is it just the community? The answer seems to be that Ele is in an okay state, but could benefit from some love from the devs and a potential rework. As concerns the community, the consensus seems to be, why would you even bother when there's other professions, esp. w/ Necro's tankiness and Mesmer's utility.

I do recall the previous discussion about how you'll find claims on every profession subforum that their profession is hated... but there are differences in how that's expressed that speak volumes. Some forums are pretty much all doom and gloom, while others you get the occasional crazy and threads about specific problems, but the overall mood is more "We like how things are, there are just these things that annoy us" rather than "here's this long list of major issues".

From my own perspective - I play a bit of everything, albeit not at the same rates, so I think I can maintain the conceit that I'm at least somewhat resistant to the tendency to overstate the issues with my main (I don't really consider myself to have a main, and if I did, it'd be a coin-flip between guardian and mesmer, and while both have issues I'd say that both are actually in a fairly good state in PvE). With that context, I'd be fairly confident in saying that elementalist is definitely in the bottom third in terms of utility in an instanced group PvE context. It's functional, but it's still a bit of a learning curve to climb to still be near the back of the pack. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, funkychikin.2659 said:

Learning curves don't really scare me all that much. I played Mage in WoW; that's a learning curve, imo. But GW2 is a different game, and the fight mechanics are built differently - and the boon/condition system is much, much more important here. Which makes the issue of alacrity application and quickness maintenance all the more pressing.

Which, in turn, leads me to my point. I have no problem playing the profession; my problem, I worry, will be the community's perception of the profession, both within Ele circles and beyond. The learning curve is manageable, esp. w/o weapon swapping. What I find less manageable is the often arduous, frequently tedious, uphill struggle of getting some rando pug leader not to kick me on principle for playing Ele.

My question from before being, is Ele really in a bad state, or is it just the community? The answer seems to be that Ele is in an okay state, but could benefit from some love from the devs and a potential rework. As concerns the community, the consensus seems to be, why would you even bother when there's other professions, esp. w/ Necro's tankiness and Mesmer's utility.

So idk, I'll give it a fair shot and see how far I can get, but I'm not gonna take or give grief over playing what I like.

Edit: thankfully GW2 is much friendlier to alts, so it's not all doom and gloom.

In my experience, playing ele isn't a problem that way.  Pickup groups ask for specific roles, not specific classes generally.  As long as you can perform adequately (as determined by their standard), you'll be fine playing whatever class you like.  The problems with ele are more like "Why I gotta sweat and have all these limitations when those guys just roll their face across the keyboard to do the same thing with all sorts of utility safety nets?" 

[Jski.6180]

In wvw the class is kind of being replaced by other classes who have been power creeped in an very specialized way. Durid and chorn has replaced tempest and bezerker and eng have replaced weaver. You can still play it sure but you can say the same for any class with any build but the ideal of ele in the wvw environment has kind of fall apart.

After the update where ranger going to get ammo for its barrages in wvw the ranger L bow will become the best ranged aoe dps chose. Over all the ranger class may fill that "mage" type but with no magic animation hehe.

[luigrein.8514]

5 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think that's a valid concern. I have run into a few people who would rather take any of a wide range of professions over an alactempest or quickcata, and I can't say it's unwarranted due to issues mentioned above (some of which require other players to adjust their behaviour as well, such as remaining within the small application range of alactempest, especially if the instance might call for a fair amount of dodging). I don't think I've ever seen an alactempest actually kicked, but you might find that group leaders would rather assign almost anything else to the role. As for quickcatas... I'm not sure I've ever been in a PUG with a quickcata. It's possible that I have and I've forgotten (and my tendency to play quickness builds myself probably creates a sample bias), but I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to a low play rate.

For whatever it's worth, I've been quick-tank cata for a lot of our guilds fights against Deimos and it's worked pretty well for us.  If I'd git gud I could probably swing heal-quick-tank but I wasn't confident in my ability to generate enough energy on staff. A nice plus is that it can apply boons from off stack, as long as you can generate enough energy from there (and don't mind that meaning you personally don't get them.)

[CafPow.1542]

10 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

In my experience, playing ele isn't a problem that way.  Pickup groups ask for specific roles, not specific classes generally.  As long as you can perform adequately (as determined by their standard), you'll be fine playing whatever class you like.  The problems with ele are more like "Why I gotta sweat and have all these limitations when those guys just roll their face across the keyboard to do the same thing with all sorts of utility safety nets?" 

But…. (And maybe i misinterpreted you now)

isn‘t that a „personal flavour“ thing?

as long as everything works out and you do your job, the group doesn’t care. If you wanna do „more“ for the same result, it’s up to you.

that‘s i think elementalist. You know you have to do a bit more for the same outcome than other classes but that’s what you want.

simplifying ele would destroy that. I main necro and ele, like the easiest and hardest class (yeah I’m only semi serious) and i enjoy both for what they are. I wouldn’t want ele to be easier because i enjoy the possibilities that ele brings to the table, and i enjoy the complexity. I wouldn’t want necro to be as „complex“ and i wouldn’t want ele to be as simple…

i hope i was able to make my point. It’s still early in the morning hehe.

[AliamRationem.5172]

35 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

But…. (And maybe i misinterpreted you now)

isn‘t that a „personal flavour“ thing?

as long as everything works out and you do your job, the group doesn’t care. If you wanna do „more“ for the same result, it’s up to you.

that‘s i think elementalist. You know you have to do a bit more for the same outcome than other classes but that’s what you want.

simplifying ele would destroy that. I main necro and ele, like the easiest and hardest class (yeah I’m only semi serious) and i enjoy both for what they are. I wouldn’t want ele to be easier because i enjoy the possibilities that ele brings to the table, and i enjoy the complexity. I wouldn’t want necro to be as „complex“ and i wouldn’t want ele to be as simple…

i hope i was able to make my point. It’s still early in the morning hehe.

I definitely wouldn't want to see it simplified.  My issue is the unnecessary limitations.  For example, I'd like to see unravel as an F5 on weaver so that if I need CC or utility skill on 4 or 5 now and not 4 or 8 seconds from now, I have a cooldown that allows me to do that.  Another example is the lack of boons on weaver.  If it had better DPS than classes that have access to boons, then I'd be fine with it.  It's just one more unnecessary limitation that doesn't make sense the way the game is designed today.

[CafPow.1542]

3 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I definitely wouldn't want to see it simplified.  My issue is the unnecessary limitations.  For example, I'd like to see unravel as an F5 on weaver so that if I need CC or utility skill on 4 or 5 now and not 4 or 8 seconds from now, I have a cooldown that allows me to do that.  Another example is the lack of boons on weaver.  If it had better DPS than classes that have access to boons, then I'd be fine with it.  It's just one more unnecessary limitation that doesn't make sense the way the game is designed today.

Yeah sure i think we are on the same page. The complexity is fine. But some CD limit your acces to it.

like it’s fine to have a CC in earth but if you need CC now and can’t acces earth cause CD, you have a problem. It’s not complexity, it’s accessability. And i agree there.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/18/2024 at 8:10 AM, luigrein.8514 said:

For whatever it's worth, I've been quick-tank cata for a lot of our guilds fights against Deimos and it's worked pretty well for us.  If I'd git gud I could probably swing heal-quick-tank but I wasn't confident in my ability to generate enough energy on staff. A nice plus is that it can apply boons from off stack, as long as you can generate enough energy from there (and don't mind that meaning you personally don't get them.)

Yeah, I know they exist, they just seem to be rare enough in PUGs that I don't recall if I've had one. By the same token, though, this implies that if I have and I've forgetten, there weren't any issues that caused it to stick in long-term memory.

[zeyeti.8347]

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity it's fine to say ele is alright and everything , but explain those  numbers to me , no ele is not ok , this class is designed for wvw and pvp mostly , because of his versatility who is incredible in those two gamemode , but pve endgame don't want a half baked dps, healer ,booner, support , nobody cares about ele healing 1.5 k every 20 secs attuning to water. I have recently a guildmate who completely letdown the ele after seeing they gonna nerf the hammer and made a necro as healscourge to see if it compete with his healtempest "it's day and night , i have 2 times less thing to do , i have 2x more hp , i can boon without having to cast neverending spells , and i am as effecient if not more than my htemp" quote and that's from a player who stick to his ele for 2 years , and i personnaly have 5000 hours on my ele (who is now in the garbage can , just used on sabir raid encounter once a week because ppl are too lazy to escape tornados).

Ele is ok if you go open world , while if you play a full damage dealer as herald or reaper you can simply burn trough 80% of the content while mobs don't have even 1 sec to reach you.

play whatever you want and how you want . But have in mind that ele require a lot of work to be as much efficient as many other specs and with not any kind of reward being more effective in damage or in support , and error is not allowed ! you don't have the hp pool to allow any mistake, yes go on vitality and burn up a characteristic slot that could have been more boon duration or power or condition damage, while other class are either +4000 hp or +8000 hp above you , or have medium and heavy armor , who is flat -7 and -15 % strike damage taken. 

Ele is sufficient in many situation , but the others do the same , with less complication and as much , if not more , efficiency. But the design is somewhat well done , the attunement switch make you feel like a real elementalist on "paper", you also made of paper ofc.

Edited January 19 by zeyeti.8347

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The rep that Ele has comes from historical problems.  Back when I was raiding, Ele didn't have a quickness or an alacrity build.  Heal Tempest had high healing and might, but nothing else, Scepter required manually aiming dragon's tooth, etc. and so on.  In the run up to and release of End of Dragons, ele received several things that made it far better for structured PVE.  Tempest have alacrity, increased defenses via Hardy Conduit, and received many damage bonuses.  Weavers gained greater AoE barrier and condition damage, and their healing stance has been buffed for more group heals.  Catalysts received the best (for awhile) quickness build in the game, as well as global stat boosts with Elemental Empowerment.  In the past few years, Ele went from an awkward sort that had no real role to being capable of doing nearly anything quite well.  The rotations are easier, too, for they are much less reliant on Conjure chaining than they once were.  

I can't speak much for PVP, but in WvW ele can be quite the monster.  It's a celestial meta right now, and Ele capitalizes on every one of those stats.  I run a Weaver myself for roaming, but the ability to share magnetic + shocking aura makes Catalyst and Tempest powerful group support, and they throw out boons like Halloween Candy.  

[Bladestrom.6425]

17 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity it's fine to say ele is alright and everything , but explain those  numbers to me , no ele is not ok , this class is designed for wvw and pvp mostly , because of his versatility who is incredible in those two gamemode , but pve endgame don't want a half baked dps...

Unless your a dps meter watcher ele is perfectly fine in pve and outputs numbers that are ample to kill everything apart from highly tuned raid bosses.

[noneHotBuildTest.7251]

Elementalist always been underprivileged groups in Guild Wars 2 class.
Look at elementalist, we have the big 3 tradeoff: no hp / no armor / weapon swapping.
Just to begin with we have gameplay dificulty, survivability, rotation maintance, team composition, utility and build variety. 
With eles, we have a big road to reach some of that in balance, and engineer got all of them.
Engineer have good utilities skills, boon strip, useful and fast grounp stability and permanent grounp supperspeed. 
I mean we don't need to talk about Mechanists, Engineer just win at the starting line.
I am convinced that Anet devs cannot name a single piece of Guild Wars 2 content where elementalist is currently the best at doing anything.
I've been playing elementalist as my main and it really does feel like choosing elementalist is just playing Guild Wars 2 on hard mode for no benefit. 
It seems that Anet is determined to make Elementalist players give up on their class and play Engineer.