Guild Wars 2

Haha true true :p I also think that lag and unbalance dungeon encounters for light armor hero's are still a bit to blame.

I really wish ANet would just sit back and look at rebalancing the ele a bit - like many have said already, they're jack of all trades, but master of none.

We can't CC effectively, because the durations are too short. Our DPS is minimal, even with glass cannon builds, and as soon as an enemy focuses us we go down quickly - you can only evade so many times. Our healing ability - especially self-healing - is pathetic, especially considering our low HP pool; the reason a low HP pool works on Guardian is the additional armor, and the fact that Guardians can outheal pretty much anything else.

You pretty much need to be a pro player to handle ele's effectively - and I don't see why I need to be pro, I just want to be able to enjoy my favourite class. People keep talking about learning the attunement dance, but I really think they need to reconsider - maybe call it the attunement tango.
 
I really wish ANet would just sit back and look at rebalancing the ele a bit - like many have said already, they're jack of all trades, but master of none.

We can't CC effectively, because the durations are too short. Our DPS is minimal, even with glass cannon builds, and as soon as an enemy focuses us we go down quickly - you can only evade so many times. Our healing ability - especially self-healing - is pathetic, especially considering our low HP pool; the reason a low HP pool works on Guardian is the additional armor, and the fact that Guardians can outheal pretty much anything else.

You pretty much need to be a pro player to handle ele's effectively - and I don't see why I need to be pro, I just want to be able to enjoy my favourite class. People keep talking about learning the attunement dance, but I really think they need to reconsider - maybe call it the attunement tango.

Yeah playing the ele means you need to be at 110% focus all the time, especially in dungeons and it can be extremely taxing over the 30 minutes to an hour a dungeon can take.

This is why I keep saying playing Ele is so stressful compared to playing Guardian. I'd rather the pressure of tanking as a Guardian than that of just surviving and switching attunements as an Ele.
 
Yeah playing the ele means you need to be at 110% focus all the time, especially in dungeons and it can be extremely taxing over the 30 minutes to an hour a dungeon can take.

This is why I keep saying playing Ele is so stressful compared to playing Guardian. I'd rather the pressure of tanking as a Guardian than that of just surviving and switching attunements as an Ele.

But beyond that, I still just really love playing as an Elementalist. I've played every other class in the game now (obviously not all the way up to 80), and while it can at times be an incredibly frustrating class to play with, it's also the most fun. Still just gets depressing when someone auto-attacks me and does 2k damage when I drop dragon's tooth on them for a measly 800. That is, of course, if they don't just walk out of the drop zone - seriously, for a lot of ele skills you don't even need to evade. Just "Oh look, something in the sky above me - we'll just take a step to the left then, shall we?"

And of course, Meteor Shower - which arguably should be the highest damage skill an ele has - you can actually wander through the drop zone in a daze without getting hit once.

One thing I would love to see change on Elementalists (apart from an out of combat weapon swap) - they should make the elementals permanent instead of only a 60 second presence. Rangers have their pets, Necros have their minions - having an elemental up has saved my ass on any number of occasions, especially while running around Orr. Except for those times where it just decides it's had enough and falls apart on me, and suddenly I have a gallery of very interested undead looking at me.
 
But beyond that, I still just really love playing as an Elementalist. I've played every other class in the game now (obviously not all the way up to 80), and while it can at times be an incredibly frustrating class to play with, it's also the most fun. Still just gets depressing when someone auto-attacks me and does 2k damage when I drop dragon's tooth on them for a measly 800. That is, of course, if they don't just walk out of the drop zone - seriously, for a lot of ele skills you don't even need to evade. Just "Oh look, something in the sky above me - we'll just take a step to the left then, shall we?"

And of course, Meteor Shower - which arguably should be the highest damage skill an ele has - you can actually wander through the drop zone in a daze without getting hit once.

One thing I would love to see change on Elementalists (apart from an out of combat weapon swap) - they should make the elementals permanent instead of only a 60 second presence. Rangers have their pets, Necros have their minions - having an elemental up has saved my ass on any number of occasions, especially while running around Orr. Except for those times where it just decides it's had enough and falls apart on me, and suddenly I have a gallery of very interested undead looking at me.

Definitely one of the most fun professions in the game, but you certainly pay a steep price. I do agree that the earth elemental is probably the best defensive mechanic the Ele has and it would be nice if they were permanent summons.

ATM I'm just having way more fun playing Guardian, it suits my play-style more (support + dps with a bit of tanking). :)
 
Definitely one of the most fun professions in the game, but you certainly pay a steep price. I do agree that the earth elemental is probably the best defensive mechanic the Ele has and it would be nice if they were permanent summons.

ATM I'm just having way more fun playing Guardian, it suits my play-style more (support + dps with a bit of tanking). :)

All I think whenever I play with my Guardian is that I'm running around with a plate-armored Ele :p
 
The problem I've experienced with the elementalist is that their way of survival doesn't help shit in dungeons when the bosses have defiance stacks on them. I mean it's obvious ele's aren't the only class that has the durability of paper. Thieves die instantly as well, but we can flank and blind people constantly to stay alive. Mesmers have invis as well and clones to take the aggro off of themselves if need be, but ele's can't use cc or healing when something hits you for 1/2 your hp pool and shrugs off you stuns.
 
The problem I've experienced with the elementalist is that their way of survival doesn't help shit in dungeons when the bosses have defiance stacks on them. I mean it's obvious ele's aren't the only class that has the durability of paper. Thieves die instantly as well, but we can flank and blind people constantly to stay alive. Mesmers have invis as well and clones to take the aggro off of themselves if need be, but ele's can't use cc or healing when something hits you for 1/2 your hp pool and shrugs off you stuns.

That's why I think having our elementals should be perma summons - they're very good at keeping aggro off us - I'm happy if they don't do damage, but it's annoying to see an earth elemental with 70% of its HP fall over because its 60 seconds are up, and then we have a 2 min CD to run around and panic with. I mean ... take a look at necros, those guys have little armies following them around, without insane CDs, if a minion gets taken down it's a relatively quick job to get new ones going, because there 3 or 4 others that the NPC needs to get off its back.

And, not having had a high level necro yet, I can't confirm, but those flesh golems seem to do some nasty damage.
 
That's why I think having our elementals should be perma summons - they're very good at keeping aggro off us - I'm happy if they don't do damage, but it's annoying to see an earth elemental with 70% of its HP fall over because its 60 seconds are up, and then we have a 2 min CD to run around and panic with. I mean ... take a look at necros, those guys have little armies following them around, without insane CDs, if a minion gets taken down it's a relatively quick job to get new ones going, because there 3 or 4 others that the NPC needs to get off its back.

And, not having had a high level necro yet, I can't confirm, but those flesh golems seem to do some nasty damage.

Even if it doesn't do damage, the fact that it can soak up quite a bit of damage, makes it really reliable when you do PvE, especially when fighting veterans. I think the Ele is the only profession who can't solo veterans.
Well they can, but with extreme difficulty.
 
Even if it doesn't do damage, the fact that it can soak up quite a bit of damage, makes it really reliable when you do PvE, especially when fighting veterans. I think the Ele is the only profession who can't solo veterans.
Well they can, but with extreme difficulty.

Oh ... we definitely can ... as long as we do that attunement tango I mentioned earlier. Problem is, once you get to Orr, with its ridiculous respawn rates, it's still a case of click-and-pray. I had to fight a veteran at a skill-point yesterday - he had a bunch of trash-mobs around him which I cleared - problem is I had him down to about 50% when all 6 or 7 of them respawned. Trash they might be, but level 80 mobs surrounding an ele isn't fun. And I couldn't switch targets, because the elemental goes for whatever I target, which means the veteran became interested in me again.

I think I went into a downed state 3 times before I managed to finish him off - I'm seriously happy I started stacking conditions, because that's where most of my damage comes from now.

I wouldn't try taking on any champs though.
 
I wouldn't try taking on any champs though.

Hahaha, I wouldn't even think about solo'ing champs with my warrior, much less a bloody light armoured character. That would be considered suicide.

Oh ... we definitely can ... as long as we do that attunement tango I mentioned earlier. Problem is, once you get to Orr, with its ridiculous respawn rates, it's still a case of click-and-pray. I had to fight a veteran at a skill-point yesterday - he had a bunch of trash-mobs around him which I cleared - problem is I had him down to about 50% when all 6 or 7 of them respawned. Trash they might be, but level 80 mobs surrounding an ele isn't fun. And I couldn't switch targets, because the elemental goes for whatever I target, which means the veteran became interested in me again.

I think I went into a downed state 3 times before I managed to finish him off - I'm seriously happy I started stacking conditions, because that's where most of my damage comes from now.

Like I said the ele has a harder time from what I've experienced. Provided i only have a level 38 ele with crap gear atm, but in the situation you described with the veteran, my warrior could take them out without downing once and same with my thief. Though with my thief i would much rather just cast shadow refuge around the skill point and get it while i'm invis.
 
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Isengard, Waco, it's about time we did the Eternal Battleground puzzle a bit more. Found a rich ori Vein today.

[EDIT] Nevermind. For future reference, it only gives 4 ore...
 
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It looks like the patch is only going to go live after 10 tonight, at least it gives me one more day to focus on AC3. See you all tomorrow! :D
 
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