Why does everybody pick on Elementalists?

I seriously hope Anet doesn't nerf the current Ele skills just because a lot of players in the "supposedly superior" classes can't handle our new skills. If they are such good players, why can't they figure out a counter for SF, etc? Just like any other build, there are coutners to it...

Oh, and I have never had a problem getting in groups - ever... a good ele build is always appreciated (and not just fire btw), but I have always felt we were underpowered due to previous nerfs until NF came out.

Anet - pls don't nerf us again, we just got our equality back!

Elementalist was my very first character in Guild Wars from beta to the actual release and to this day I still play her no matter what anyone says. You have people that will say certain classes are crap only because they dont play it or tried to play it and never picked up the ability to play the class right so they went with a more easier class like a Warrior .

I always say stop listening to others and play what you want to play, if you like caster classes play a caster type if you want to play a melee class do that, but dont put down someone elses profession just because you never picked up the taste to play it. Stop screaming about nerf this and nerf that.

Every class one way or another becomes useful at one point and time and people are always scrambling to get them in a group, you just stick to your guns and keep playing what you want.

I've played all classes and I still think the Ele is the most powerful there is. Used properly they can wipe out a wide area of enemies in no time.

Exactly. Air is in no way slow to cast. I play Air 90% of the time...and got kicked from a group on one of the only occaisions I ventured into Urgoz Warren because of it:

"Are you fire?"
"No i'm Air atm."
*kick*

The fact I could have played as any element didn't seem to matter...

I usually do not go fire unless I am specially requested to...by a nice person. It's so boring and so samey. I much prefer Earth if I want to use AoE damage.

IMO eles are best on dealing alot of dmg from far that makes them powerful support class for tanks. when people think of sins they are too skeptical probably will think why would we need sins if they die faster than any class. if the person who plays sin dont know the how to play as sin will eventually die sooner in the group and thats the general concept of them. but i love my sin even though i died many times i learned from my mistakes and now i'm really good at it at playing and dealing alot of dmg to foes and staying alive.

Ah i hate it when people do that, They accept you in, ask what type u are atm, u say eg. Im Blood Spike or Im Water AoE, then *Kick*, they fail to ever give u the chance to tell them u have every skill unlocked for that profession and u are able to play any build if needed.

Air does more damage than fire. 25% AP basically means you do at least 50% listed even to the level28+ mobs. I regularly do 110's on Realm of Torment Mobs.

Tip: "Yup. You tried to hit me, and failed miserably. The lesson here is: never try."-Herta Earth Henchman

Ward vs Melee. Saves your behind.

DoA build: 4 ele, 3 monks, 1 necro
I haven't played my ele for almost half a year. The reason is there is no challange in playing ele especially fire one. 1-2-3, 1-2-3, Fire Attunment, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Booooring...

Mesmers are overpowered now, that's why lots of GvG teams have 3-5 mesmers. They have never been weak but Spiritual Pain and Wastrel's Demise gave them spiking capability. Mistrust is just awsome Getting groups is no longer a problem it seems as there are just not enough people playing.

Assassins are still underrated even though they have the best spiking capability in the game, plus Death Blossom, my favourite PvE skill If you play right you cannot be killed. It's not that easy to kill assassin in GvG. But the art of killing is not as popular as mass murdering :-/

Anyway my two favourite professions are assassin and mesmer. You have to care about targeting, positioning and using the right skills at the right time.

Okay, seriously. You can disagree with my opinion or agree on it. No problem, but get your facts right and don't just assume i'm "just another noob". Elementalists have slow casting since almost all of their spells take 1+ Seconds to be cast, you can look this up here: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Element...uick_reference

The earth part. Are you serious? Earth being a line that casts faster? Like seriously, are you serious? Ah, good. You're just kidding because otherwise... wow.
Now onto the Air Part, Air Spells are cast faster. Yes. But Airspells have an inherent weakness, they are mostly single target spells. And when it comes to single target damage, almost every other class outshines them tenfold. I'd rather take an Assassin than a Lightning Elementalist.

And on the "most people are too affraid". Hum, if you've got some time go and browse forums a bit. I have offered builds and hints for Elementalists before and if you look closely you can find even a note about the SQ/OF Elementalist before the builds became public. I have played many a two combinations on my Ele and that's simply why I dare to say that they suck in dealing damage.

Read carefully. They suck at dealing direct damage and that is as i've explained earlier, due to the PVE Enemies having superior AL and Hitpoints. Armor ignoring damage may seem weak when looked at but when the AL can seriously take out over 75% of your punch, those 60+ armor ignoring damage look awesome.
Once an elementalist has understood that the game forces him out of the "I'm a damage dealer!" mentality (Which is sadly proclaimed as his primary role in the manual) and joins the ranks of those that see the Elementalist as a SUPPORT Class. Then he is welcome in my teams. Eles have some powerful utilities, no doubt. And they synergize well with other classes (Paragon anyone?), if only the player wouldn't think he is a nuker - which he clearly is not.

And if I may say that, it's part of the reason why many many players can't beat DoA no matter how hard they try. It's because they're locked in the age old mentality of RPGs that AOE Damage > Single Target Damage and that casters > all.
That's not true in Guild Wars. Okay you can bash your head through the brickwall of the game by using this mentality. It can work if used with raw persistence but it makes the game so much harder and frustrating than it would really be.And you'd be surprised how much faster you would be if you would concentrate on single targets.

Amity's right. That's why people spike and call targets in PvP instead of trying to kill everyone at once.

Before Nightfall, I'd have agreed with this completely. There's little doubt that a necro could easily outdamage an ele even nuking. Especially at the higher levels of the AI. Now eles do have several good damage dealing spells. The aforementioned SF and Sandstorm as well as Savannah Heat and others can do good damage. Plus, ANet got away from the terrible cast times, energy costs, and exhaustion too.

Now eles can play as damage dealers. As it should be, imo. Eles can do support and utility, but even at that, they aren't as useful as a necro, imo. They should be able to do damage. And now they can. A necro may still be able to outdamage an ele against high level foes, but it's a lot closer now. There are certainly times now where you want to eliminate or account for the enemy eles first whereas before you could pretty much ignore them. My first toon was an ele, but I ended up deleting him because he kinda sucked at nuking. With NF, I rolled a new ele and enjoy playing her very much. Not as much as I enjoy my necro, but a lot. No nerf required, imo.

Been playing Keiko since factions came out, and i never had the feeling she was weaker then my other characters. I use earth only too.

Basically also what I said above, this scenario changed a bit with Nightfall. But it's just not enough. There are currently only a small handful of skills which are "okay", you could probably even fit them into one bar (if not for other reasons as, attributes, elite status etc).
Plus the players are allready crying for an Elementalist Nerf, especially when it comes to Searing Flames and Sandstorm. As I said earlier, some parts of the community seem to want the Elementalist as a Secondary Class Gas Station.

But basically, the last few posts have been mainly about my comment that they suck at dealing damage, right? Okay. I'll rephrase that, they possess very little means to actually do damage (very few skills are worthwile and those were mostly introduced with NF) and that from my point of view one of the main problems in PVE is: Too high Enemy AL, Too high Hitpoints. Partly something the Assassin also suffers from to a degree (see: Critical Hits).

No one should be offended by these words now. I think, if so, tell me and I will try to rephrase or provide a few numbers that might change my mind

I agree with you, fwiw. Prior to Nightfall, they sucked at doing damage. Now they are all right. They badly needed a buff and got one with NF. I don't think they should get a nerf any time soon. If anything, a little more buffing with some good skills in chapter 4 is called for.

I agree with you, fwiw. Prior to Nightfall, they sucked at doing damage. Now they are all right. They badly needed a buff and got one with NF. I don't think they should get a nerf any time soon. If anything, a little more buffing with some good skills in chapter 4 is called for.

The reason SF needs a nerf is due to the intensely high damage and spamability of it, not to mention it's an AoE attack. Plus it works hand in hand with GG, a energy returning skill.

Eles do not suck, people are just expecting the same from them, either a fire nuker or earth warder. Air and Water are just unknown to most non-eles sadly.

Same could be said of any class or person that tries to use a new build. Especially the Necro...

Necro gets in team
Leader: "u MM or SS"
Necro: "Neither, my own build, it"
Leader: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB"
Leader kicks necro.

That sorta thing.

Then we have the recent bout of anti-socialness that has kicked into PvE, back in Proph, people used to do quests with each other all the time, nowdays everyone just Hero/Henches them.

Horrible how it has changed, I'd love to see Anet remove henches for a day or two and watch the fireworks :3.

as a mesmer,
I was commonly *stuck* using henchies cuz no one wanted a mesmer


Mesmers are the least popular class in game if the Rune Trader is any indication
- all mesmer runes of any kind go for 100g

Sooooo Funny, yet so sad.... sad for the leader being so naive and ignorant. I give preps to People who think "outside the Box." It is those kinds of people that set/ develop the trend.

I think I know why people pick on eles.... it's because they are toooo sexy and the other professions are tooo ugly....They Simply envy you all Guessing

Elementalists are pretty much the Timmy class. This certainly isn't an inherently bad thing, and it's more than necessary; you just have to deal with the stigma of playing a Timmy class. Sorry.

You win this thread.

My elementalist, Ariana Carter, is a hydromancer. Ever try getting into a group with a hydromancer? It's like trying to resist Aaron Sorkin's mind control abilities; It doesn't happen.

Let's face it. People in Guild Wars love cookie-cutter builds. Everyone on Guru makes fun of people that copy and paste a build from GuildWiki or Guru, but the fact of the matter is that's exactly what the majority want in Guild Wars. If you try to be different and make your own build, you're shunned from the community in Guild Wars. If you make a cookie-cutter build, you're shunned from the Guru community and similar communities...

I, personally, don't understand it. Nor do I wish to. I'm going to continue using the builds I created myself, even if it means I rarely am accepted in the Guild Wars community.

Do what makes you feel happy. Don't try to impress others. That's how everything should be done.

I wouldn't say Eles get picked on I would say Warriors do well atleast around here anyway. I much prefer Air to fire anyday but most want Nukers meaning meteroer showers.there are other ways and Ele can help the team greatly through earth and wards even some water and on my bar i always use ward agianst melee.It is no differnent than of monks those out there moslty want healers not protection Monks and Necros being MM/Cursess as opposed to blood.

Timmy Class? o_O

It doesnt matter if they ;suck; (to me they dont) its all about what individual's want to play , nearly everyone uses hero's/henchmen so why listen to someone who spent all day adding up statistics for no real use ............ play it for fun.

To the above posts ; yes its true leaders want their team to run around their build choice but really ......... it is their choice if your partying with them , forget the idiots and hang with koss .

I never force people to run specific builds unless the mission calls for it, and even then, I only ask for 1 or 2 skills.

Never do I hold a gun at a Necro's head and say "OK YOU ARE MM OR U DIE!"

I do try to stray from such cookie cutter builds as they do my head in.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr258

Fascinating read, imo

Pretty spot-on, too.

Also I will never understand Guru's bizarre stance against "cookie-cutter" builds. Why is being efficient a bad thing again?

Cookie-Cutter != efficient

It's just working builds for dummies.

well for your information my ele was my first char AND in pre they could kill monsters in PVE faster than a W or any other proff AND i owned one of the officers from my guild. he was a necro (forgot second proff).

AND i only killed him in about 5 or 6 spells since it was 1v1

lol u know wat he said?
"you won coz yuor an ele"

So-called "cookie cutter" builds become so when they catch on and become popular--and to become popular, they have to be doing something right. Oftentimes, that right thing is that the build just works.

Do other builds work? Of course. Better? Maybe. But these builds are popular--cookie-cutter, if you will, though I abhor that phrase--because they work, and because they are easy to use. Ease of use is an incredibly important thing, as would you trust any Average Joe in GW to run his own "unique build"? While many people are more than capable of making their own successful skillsets, the vast, vast majority of players out there are complete idiots when it comes to buildmaking--which is why they latch onto "cookie-cutter" builds, and frankly, I'd rather have yet another Searing Flames ele in my group than some bizarre--and awful--Water Trident spammer or something.

It may work, but does it work *WELL*.

The SF build is incredibly easy to screw up in itself, all the monkey has to do is continue spamming without attuning to fire or hitting GG while the enemy isn't burning.

Energy will drop like a ROCK.

When it came to the crunch, I'd take someone with their own imagination and knowledge of their build than someone who just read it off a wikipage/copied it from observer.

Johnny, Timmy, Spike, Vorthos

MtG terms.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...m/daily/mr220b

all i know is that they dance like crap
they look fun to play with though.......(fake smile)

I love eles, but then I love all the proffesions

I also love creativity...and playing with 60%dp

When I want to experiment with a new build I play alone and have fun, when im helping others or just want a mission done with I'll use the best one for that mission. If that means a cookie cutter build or something that ive come up with that I know will work than so be it.

Those that don't give respect to any class and claim that Hero's can replace live people should try running a co-ordinated spike where they need to control 4 chars at once and with split second timing....


Live people>Heros>Hench

Since when do eles get picked on???? I did not get the memo, sorry. For all those saying that they are worthless damage-wise (we are talking PvE here), I find that eles speed up the process in missions, especially since I have recorded my fastest times running 2+ eles.

W/Mo, PvE Mesmers, Assassins, and in certain areas Rangers get picked on the most imo

My ele does all 4 elements. *sniff* yuup. XD

Just use SF+Glowing Gaze and that'll show them real good

I've seen Elementalists mess that up...(i.e. Elementalists who adds Liquid Flame and Meteor Shower to that build. Because they can.)

I've seen ele's echo Rodgort's Invocation in RA but w/e floats their boats

Quoted for Truth.

Like I said. I don't use the builds that are available here or on GuildWiki. But they work. A guild member of mine uses the Boon Prot build and is phenomenal. These so called "cookie-cutter" builds are what give standard players an option to be "efficient", as Kakumei said. But when put in the right hands, it can be so much more.

I like that article on Timmy, Johnny and Spike. It had a lot of truth to it.
Anyhoo, people can run cookie-cutter builds if they want to, but you know cookie-cutter builds don't fly out of the woodwork the second the game goes live. It takes some experimentation and determination to see the potential in a skill when combined with another. I've seen really awesome builds come out months and months after a campaign is released. Thank goodness for those that like to innovate and explore.
Back on topic, I think eles are fine. They have their own style of play and I think after some time when more varied builds are made more popular, people won't just see an ele as a 'glass cannon'. I don't think it's good to generalize anything in life and that can be said for something like professions in a game. It's best not to classify a profession as 1 thing and judge any skill that deviates from that as useless.