Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

THe Elementalist seems like a very very versatile class, but..

 

WIll they allways be glass canons? Or can i build them as defensive as a Necro by suffering DPS?

Traiting into Water and Earth makes them defensive, focusing on healing and defense respectively.

The can summon some nice mellee weapons, but will they themselves be able to wield them efficiently?

The weapon summons replace your weapon skills hotbar and have a number of uses. They tend to be powerful elemental attacks based on the weapon type. Axe and Greatsword are fire based damage (AE focus), the Bow is ice / water based damage (healing / crowd control focus), Hammer is lightning / air based damage (single target DPS / stun focus) and the Shield is earth based damage (defensive focus). These skills can help balance out things you didnt spec for in traits to add extra versatility. For instance if you focused mostly on damage in your trait spec, you might want to take the earth shield to gain invulnerability in a tight spot, or an ice bow for crowd control.

They wear cloth armor, but do they have to wear those stupid robes in structured PvP? and how about PvE, will there be a lot nonrobe clothgear for clothcasters?

Guild Wars has a strong tradition of uh... lets say non robe looking light armor. Others might say slutty outfits. With the ability to transmute gears appearance with transmutation stones, I'm sure you can find a light armor piece which has a look you like.

People are talking about Elementalist pets, but it seems they are only temporary pets? are they summon and forget?

They are temporary but have decent duration, they will assist you on your target. There is an elite and a non-elite version and the type is based on your attunement at the time of the summon, meaning you can pull out a healing one with water attunement then switch to a fire / lightning attunement.

 

Anyone toyed around with the character builder tools and found some nice things about the Ele?

 

 

 

Originally posted by Fir3line

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Originally posted by boydous

to the original poster. first of all, you say that elementalist are versatile. which they are..THEN you say can they be defensive. you directly contradict what you just claimed. wtf?

 

Ellementalists can be damage and support and they have a lot of controll abilities, which makes them versatile, but for that versatillity they pay in durabillity and survivabillity.

 

They dont really. They can switch between water and earth attunements to be just as durable and have equal survivability to any other class.

All classes are versatile. Elementalist do it through attunements, other classes do it with weapon switching and toolkits. If anything Elementalists are just more idiot proof - because they will always have defensive and offensive attunements, whereas someone else could pick two weapon sets that are both support or both damage and therefore lose some versatility.

that actually makes a lot of sense, and its true aswell tbh.

 

Also, dont get that mindset that "Fire is for aoe damage, air is for single target burst" it's just not true.

Fire is more of an noob stomper, because only idiots stand in AoE, specially when it takes like 3 secconds to do damage, unless you have someone immobilzing targets for you, fire is very useless. And air attunment doesnt just do a lot of damage, like, secpter+focus has 1 skill that does damage on a 10 sec cooldown that does a lot of damage, want to see you use that for a lot of burst.

 

Just see it as everything has its place and situation to use

Oh I wouldnt say that Air is spike damage at all, in fact I think they have avoided spike damage in general for this game since there are no healers. But it definitely does more damage to single targets, with a few AE abilities there too (chain lightning etc), but they arent as powerful at AE as fire, thats for sure. Air is a bit of a hybrid between fire and water, having decent damage with some crowd control thrown in (stuns, blinds etc).

I think air will probably be the most popular attunement for damage in PvP, rather than fire. Fire seems more useful in PvE.

From what I have seen they cannot be made as tanky as a necro, but are not frails.  However they can be much more mobile than a necro which is its own kind of defense.  Also they have some active defenses like Mist form

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Originally posted by boydous

to the original poster. first of all, you say that elementalist are versatile. which they are..THEN you say can they be defensive. you directly contradict what you just claimed. wtf?

 

 

 

 

 

Ellementalists can be damage and support and they have a lot of controll abilities, which makes them versatile, but for that versatillity they pay in durabillity and survivabillity.

learn the game before you correct people son.

This build could be fun for those who like to fully utilize the dodge skill. The build is pretty versatile to begin with, but the traits allow you to remove a condition and create a random spell based on your attunement everytime you dodge. Frequent use of Phoenix will benefit endurance (the energy pool used by dodging), by doubling the endurance regen rate for 10 seconds.

Good DPS and a lot of utility and survivability. You could go with staff instead, losing Phoenix and some damage mitigation for more healing.

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3222206vap2a2blm00a0kkk0g0t0v13181df0

Let me note that survivability in GW2, even for the heavy armor professions, is much more about active mitigation, boons, conditions, crowd control and dodging than about standing toe to toe and relying on passive mitigation from armor or high health pools. Some builds for some professions may rely more on inate toughness or armor mitigation than others, but build choice for any profession can have a major impact on survivability.

Ele is one of the classes I've been watching not because I wanted to play one, but because I wanted to see how well Anet kept their promises.

The ele more or less resembles the traditional MMO Mage in many aspects: cloth wearer, magic-based damage, etc. But Anet told us all classes would be able to fulfill all roles; or more accurately, woudl HAVE to be able to handle all roles to some degree to adapt to the chaos of the battlefield. This meant one of three things:

1) They were lying

2) Everyone ends up uber tankmages

3) By some miracle they find a decent balance between the glass cannon and tankmage.

From what I've seen in the videos, it might be number 3. The mage is STILL weak defensively and strong offensively, but only in a toe-to-toe scenario. They have an amazing number of mobility/evasion skills, strong heals in the water tree, etc to get them out of a jam.

Here is a more offensive build that would rely more on mobility and quicker kills for survivability. Even though Fire and Air are maxed and there are no trait points in Earth or Water, remember that those other attunements can still be very valuable situationally.

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3210606v2faolhlm00uu00a0g0h0me6e8eaf0

Originally posted by terrant

Ele is one of the classes I've been watching not because I wanted to play one, but because I wanted to see how well Anet kept their promises.

 

The ele more or less resembles the traditional MMO Mage in many aspects: cloth wearer, magic-based damage, etc. But Anet told us all classes would be able to fulfill all roles; or more accurately, woudl HAVE to be able to handle all roles to some degree to adapt to the chaos of the battlefield. This meant one of three things:

 

1) They were lying

2) Everyone ends up uber tankmages

3) By some miracle they find a decent balance between the glass cannon and tankmage.

 

From what I've seen in the videos, it might be number 3. The mage is STILL weak defensively and strong offensively, but only in a toe-to-toe scenario. They have an amazing number of mobility/evasion skills, strong heals in the water tree, etc to get them out of a jam.

Well elementalist have the lowest hp and armor, but have some of the best defensive utilities and traits. The earth attunement has skills to increases your defenses and enables you to cripple your enemies. Or you can go the other way around with air attunement and be able to move faster than anyone or knockback enemies that get close.  

Those are just the things that all elelementalist can do. If you go into to trait lines, elementalists are one of the 2 professions that has multiple ways to get protection(33% reduce dmg). Earth/arcane builds should have proctection up the majority of the time. Glyph of Elemental harmony give you protection every 20sec if you are attune to earth when you heal, elemental attunement(arcane trait) give you protection when swapping to earth, and you can even use auras(earth trait) to give you protection every 20second.

From all of the videos I have watched tanking is more about controling the enemies. Debuffing enemies to reduce/stop damage or buffing yourself to negate damage. Also class well be able to kite enemies by crippling them or casting swiftness on yourself. 

Curious why people like the french skill tool instead of the english one(yes I know your browser can translate the text)? Is it just that it was the first one everyone found?  or you link that website?

Originally posted by aguliondew

Originally posted by terrant

Ele is one of the classes I've been watching not because I wanted to play one, but because I wanted to see how well Anet kept their promises.

 

The ele more or less resembles the traditional MMO Mage in many aspects: cloth wearer, magic-based damage, etc. But Anet told us all classes would be able to fulfill all roles; or more accurately, woudl HAVE to be able to handle all roles to some degree to adapt to the chaos of the battlefield. This meant one of three things:

 

1) They were lying

2) Everyone ends up uber tankmages

3) By some miracle they find a decent balance between the glass cannon and tankmage.

 

From what I've seen in the videos, it might be number 3. The mage is STILL weak defensively and strong offensively, but only in a toe-to-toe scenario. They have an amazing number of mobility/evasion skills, strong heals in the water tree, etc to get them out of a jam.

 

Curious why people like the french skill tool instead of the english one(yes I know your browser can translate the text)? Is it just that it was the first one everyone found?  or you link that website?

It was the first one to show up on the web, more than a year ago, besides u can switch the language of the website to english

I dont see the elem as a mage or glass cannon type, but more of a support.

Actually, that class will probably be the best support class in game, I can see most group builds having at least one. No focus on dps, just pure support.

At this point, ele's have the best skill bars but probably the worst trait skill enhancments of any class. Back in Jan, they were the OP class. Now they are the best support class. My guess is they went overboard bringing the Ele back into line. Or just ran out of good ideas for their trait trees.

Originally posted by Bunks

At this point, ele's have the best skill bars but probably the worst trait skill enhancments of any class. Back in Jan, they were the OP class. Now they are the best support class. My guess is they went overboard bringing the Ele back into line. Or just ran out of good ideas for their trait trees.

So A-nets already nerf-ruining classes before the game even launches? Cripes.

Originally posted by Bunks

At this point, ele's have the best skill bars but probably the worst trait skill enhancments of any class. Back in Jan, they were the OP class. Now they are the best support class. My guess is they went overboard bringing the Ele back into line. Or just ran out of good ideas for their trait trees.

speak for yourself the traits are good. The only bad thing about the ele is the fact their HP is too low for a class that can be on the front line.

One thing I certainly noticed in the vids is their ability to get the frack away from things fast. So far they seem to be the uber kite class.

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by Bunks

At this point, ele's have the best skill bars but probably the worst trait skill enhancments of any class. Back in Jan, they were the OP class. Now they are the best support class. My guess is they went overboard bringing the Ele back into line. Or just ran out of good ideas for their trait trees.

So A-nets already nerf-ruining classes before the game even launches? Cripes.

Everything pre-release is about developement. There is no such thing as a nerf in beta.

When they make the classes and go through the thousands of changes in all areas of the game each build do you honestly think that each class is perfect right out the door?

There is also never enough beta time for any game to test all elements of group combat and pvp to discover all avenues of scaling in each area of the game. Months of end game pvp testing could occur yet the game still could need serious changes over the months after release.

If players could understand this and contribute feedback without the rage whines so rampant on todays game boards we could actually see strong communities formed instead of the mob mentality that dominates discussion.

That being said let's hope that this developer is the one that can avoid the post release core rebuild to balance that so many others could not. As we all know this can be marketing suicide.

Can I offer this up as some evidence of what they saw earlier.

Karl, by no means, was an exceptional player in pvp. But did own in pvp with an Ele. This video was prior to the trait lines fyi.

http://youtu.be/zNAITjKJusw

The trait lines have change things quite alot since. The balance of the classes have been skewed since then. Which is why it scares me how much longer this is going to take, testing wise, than first anticipated.

Originally posted by Tamanous

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by Bunks

At this point, ele's have the best skill bars but probably the worst trait skill enhancments of any class. Back in Jan, they were the OP class. Now they are the best support class. My guess is they went overboard bringing the Ele back into line. Or just ran out of good ideas for their trait trees.

So A-nets already nerf-ruining classes before the game even launches? Cripes.

Everything pre-release is about developement. There is no such thing as a nerf in beta.

 

When they make the classes and go through the thousands of changes in all areas of the game each build do you honestly think that each class is perfect right out the door?

 

There is also never enough beta time for any game to test all elements of group combat and pvp to discover all avenues of scaling in each area of the game. Months of end game pvp testing could occur yet the game still could need serious changes over the months after release.

 

If players could understand this and contribute feedback without the rage whines so rampant on todays game boards we could actually see strong communities formed instead of the mob mentality that dominates discussion.

 

That being said let's hope that this developer is the one that can avoid the post release core rebuild to balance that so many others could not. As we all know this can be marketing suicide.

Oh I know. I was just acting the part of the hysterical gamer where every little balance change is instant doom for said class.