Why use an ele?

ok i read a couple but then I got bored lol. So my opinions:

There's nothing wrong with eles. The problem is, despite GW attempt to get away from it, 90% of players retain the old MMO thing of "omg this is the best class, anything else is teh suxxor!"

For many months now, Rangers, Mesmers and Necros have been having problems getting into groups because "everyone knows that Warriors, Nukers and Healers are all we need". Which is total rubbish of course.

Recently it seems that its not the class people hate, its become builds. If you're not a prot bond monk, or an iway warrior, or an SS necro, you can go to hell. If you don't have x skill with you, I'm not interested *kick*

If you don't like playing a type of char, don't. If someone says you suck, go find someone NICE to party with. Whats the point of playing an ele? The same as any other character.

To have FUN.

I think this is where the real problem now lies: perceptions. People percieve that Fire Eles are no good, and of course before the patch the only good Ele was a Fire Ele, so.... Eles are now useless.

However, I disagree that Necros and Rangers are getting a short end of the deal. For every advertisement I see for a nuker, I see another for SS or MM Necroes, or perhaps Battery Necroes.

And Trapping Rangers are never without a group.

But I can't remember the last time I saw "GLF Mesmer" in the town local chat window, and so while I agree that there is a lot of build-hate going on, there's also a lot of people who are shunning some classes they consider "useless." Or, at least, not beneficial to their ends.

I mean, even my Mesmer *Nuker* has a hard time getting into and staying in a group - espcially after I tell them I'm not an Echo nuker. You should see their heads spin. Isn't there a modicum of trust anymore?

I dont belive this! What is it with you guys and the eles?
Just leave the poor guys alone!!!

yeah antialias, people now realise necros and rangers are good. But that was my point. First we were rubbish. Now we're good IF we're trappers, or SS, or battery... anything else and we're still rubbish With the ele, they WERE good, now they're all rubbish. or thats what people think.

I haven't really read most of the second page, but I noticed a lot of people on the first page saying that slowing enemies down in PvE wasn't effective. That the only reason you'd want to slow an enemy down would be so that you could run away or to prevent a warrior mob from chasing one of your teammates. Well, has anyone realized that slowing down an enemy also stops that enemy from running away from you?

What does the AoE nerf do? It makes enemies run away from you.

Let's all take a lesson from the Ice Imps in the lower shiverpeaks. They cast Mind Freeze on you, then while you can't move effectively, they cast an AoE interrupt spell: Maelstrom. Even if you start running the second they hit you with Freeze, you still get hit 2-3 times by the Maelstrom. PvE mobs don't start running until the AoE is in full swing.

So, if you cast an AoE slow spell like Deep Freeze before you cast that Meteor Storm, all the enemies on your tank are going to stick around for nearly the whole Storm. Now that sounds like the spell that we knew before the AoE nerf.

AoE DoT spells aren't dead and useless, you just have to be smart and use water magic too.

no its not. shield of judgement/signet of judgement knocks down at any range too.

What cast 2 spells to own a mob of level 24 monsters?

Don't be silly. I want it in 1 spell. Hell I want Eviscerate the entire mob, while the ranger use super elite Barrage + apply poison, while the monk does Word of Party Healing and Party Shield of Regen by the prot monk.

It's called intertia. The MS on a mob while they sit there was rather mindless. A simple water ele spike at the same time as yoru fire damage is extremely effective. But of course people just want their 2 fire nukers and pick up the IDS.

:/

Some downsides to MM. Gotta wait till they get enough corpses to become effective. Eles do a lot of dmg from the start. At the end of the battle you gotta wait till the MM finishes up using the corspes. And then you got those upsessive MMs who insist on not letting any of their minions die, so you stop every 10 seconds to heal. Or someone or the MM has to go afk and the minions die out and you have to start from scratch all over again.

Yep, at this point of GW for PvE the ele is NOT the most effective class. But for the majority of players (excluding UBER farmers) the ele is still effective enough to be included in groups. PvE is NOT insanely difficult. Not having the most effective combination of classes will not prevent you from completing any mission or quest in PvE.

Take heart all you eles I hear the next update focuses on making mob AI more responsive to AoE hexes. I can hear all the SS necros crying now

It's actually quite simple...if you're really a good innovative player, you'll find another way to efficiently kill mobs of enemies without mindlessly spamming Fire Storm, Echo, Meteor Shower etc. So for those who have trouble getting over the big bad AoE "nerf," go out there and experiment to find a way. To me, that is my favorite part of the game, experimenting with different skill builds. To help some of you out, here is what I prefer using for my Elementalist:

16 Fire(+4 from Sup Rune & Flame Eye)
12 Energy Storage(Minor Rune)
7-8 Water

1) Immolate
2) Fireball
3) Incendiary Bonds
4) Meteor
5) Glyph of Energy/Renewal(depending on situation)
6) Meteor Shower
7) Aura of Restoration
8) Fire Attunement

Yeah, you'll notice AoE panic if you do the usual spamming of skills that recharge quick. However, try this:
-before the battle, put up #7 & 8.
-Slap #3 on an enemy once they're grouped
-Cast #5, then #6...immediately followed by #4. Meteor knocks them down after the first Meteor Shower hit, long enough for the second hit to land.
They might run away on the third hit, but once they come back, hit 'em with #2 & 3 while your main damage dealers are recharging. Sometimes(depending on the situation) I like to make use of my second profession, and throw in skills like Conjure Phantasm, Phantom Pain, Sympathetic Visage, and other Illusion magic skills. Also another great skill to put in there is Deep Freeze, it'll slow them way down from running from your Meteor Shower.
That's about it, likely the enemies will be long gone at this point. Yeah, go ahead and critique the build, but I've had success with this build, and annoying my teammates with AoE panic has been minimal, so I like it.

So yeah, I agree ArenaNet did hurt the effectiveness of Eles in general, but that by no means they are useless. So instead of telling people how much you hate ArenaNet, go out and experiment with skill builds, and come up with something that works for you

[P.S. just wanted to add in that Mesmers totally rock in PvE groups, I have a build that I've came up with that is great for any situation, which targets the effectiveness of Attackers(W's and R's) and Casters(Mo's, E's, N's and Me's) So if you see me in War Camp spamming the typical LFG's, throw an invite over, you won't be disappointed! ] If you want me to give you my build, whisper me, and I'll gladly give it to ya

i made an ele a while ago. got it to level 15, and quit. it was pointless

I didn't read all postys, because some are just way too long. But I have an ele, and I mostly use fire. I switch back and forth between air and fire, and sometimes mix the two. If you get the arcane echo skill (i think that's what it's called?), and used meteor shower along with it, then dump fire storm on top of that, the monsters are being knocked down every few seconds. They can't exactly run away from it. Firestorm isn't that great anymore, but if used with meteor shower it does really well.

Rodgorts invocation is another good one. They can't "run" away from it. but maybe that's not even considered an aoe skill, but it hits up to 3 players.

Before people really consider eles "useless" I think they should do some research. No, they aren't as "cool" or whatever anymore, but they still do some heavy damage.

but that's just my opinion

I think having nearly twice more energy and better energy management skills than other casting classes are good enough reasons to be an elementalist primary.

Current popularized uses for E:

PvP
1. As a secondary <<reinforces your "why El?" point I guess>> W/E with gale is amazing
2. Earth El spike <<FTW in HOH>>
3. Have wards in Balanced builds, and generally good support.
4. Air spike <</vomit>>

PvE
1. As a fire dmg dealer. Mark of Rodgert + FDS, holy/smiting/etc. staves. Echo + Meteor Shower [even though it can still make mobs disengage]. immolate etc. <<usually discarded in favor of a curse or MM necro, but can be potent in large groups as SS doesn't stack>>


That's all the conventional uses for them, other than being a jerk and TKing your team with firestorm

every character can knockdown from a distance, you just need elem secondary
isnt the real reason why you want to play a specific class its primary attribute (and the skills that need it) and the class specific armor (with superior runes)?
if you need a very high energy pool or cant be effective with only 12 air/water/earth/fire magic, you need to make elementalist your primary class.

What is wrong with the above statement by the O.P. is the belief: "the main purpose of an ele is to nuke". Now, why is that? People have come to believe this because before the AOE patch, the nuking abilities of the E profession, in particular combined with arcane echo or other skills, was too powerful. And this mainly because the AI monsters would not run away from the extremely damaging AOE areas. It was the AOE patch that was supposed to fix this by making the nuking abilities of the elementalist less powerful. And in doing this, the AOE patch should have made GW players realize that the elementalist can do something else besides nuke!

Unfortunately, this is not the case. A lot of GW players still regard the Elementalist as a nuker and good for nothing else. And a lot of GW players can't think of anything else to do but complain about the AOE patch, claiming it ruined the game. And a lot of GW players out there still believe the only decent party is composed of 2 warriors to tank, two monks to heal the tanks, and two elementalists to nuke everyone.

It should be clear to the better PVE players of GW that the nuking abilities of the elementalist are not dead and gone. They just do less damage. The monsters will take some damage and then move away. Just like smart humans would. It should also be clear to the better players of GW that the elementalist is good for a lot more than nuking.

Long before the AOE patch I found using my elementalist as a fire nuker extremely boring, plus difficult due to the long cast times of the more powerful spells. So I switched to air elementalist with no nuking abilities and had a great time with this. Blinding, knocking down and weakening were the things I did most, and these were extremely helpful to my parties. And now I favor a combination of air and earth, using earth to help protect my party.

I must admit I don't play my elementalist very often, because I prefer mesmer and ranger. But when I do play elementalist, its as non-nuking air and earth.

You ever play a nuker in random arenas? You'll find that half the players still have no clue what to do if you drop a meteor shower on them.

You can still do more damage with fire than any of the other three in pve and most spells with aoe. Air may not be worthless, but its not the best choice by a long shot. You only play that if you want to go away from the rest of the crowd, not because you think its the most effective.

Earth is a different story. A LOT of things you can do as an earth ele that are very benificial to your party. But this is like smiting for monks, not the first thing you think of when you think of the profession but yet something they can do very well.

I kind of forgot about smiting but Signet of Judgement is an elite... and only knocks down one. Plus the recharge is pretty bad IMO.

Shield of judgement = remove enchant or just NOT attack...

Amen. Another air and earth user. Fire is not dead and not the only use of a elementalist.

/signed

after the aoe nerf I did TWO things.. caped SOJ on my monk and flat out deleted my ele.

since I didnt really like the build anyway ( standing there mindlessly spaming AOE spells, "Oh I guess I should ECHO M storm again..Doe de doe")
I decided I would find something that could do the same amount or better damage over time and could play a role akin to caster.

so the ranger caped every elite in game.. I found barrage with 16 marks was pretty nice and nasty... then found fav winds works with it.. ( seemed to anywho) and wow thats two skill slots for the "nuke" that "nukes" better than fire storm ever could ( much faster damage over time) now I have four slots to pretty much do anything with. insert savage shot, flame trap, barbed trap and since I got all this expertise so I can spam barrage day and night and never run low on ene I guess ill use light reflexes so the monk aint draining his ene when im targeted..

ta da my ranger became a fun charicter and ... actually got INVITED in groups!!! I could interrupt the crappy stuff like mark of prot but generally spam all day with barrage... IF there was still an ele who thought meteor was the only spell and had to cast it on everything I could toss down two traps and ask the monk to stand on them with me and we could watch in safety the ele get spiked..



since I had a free slot I made my second attempt at a necromancer.. ( my first became so frustrating to play since NO ONE needed a nec, I deleted it.. much to my surprise coming from diablo I was sure everyone wanted a mass of minions on theyre team..) since then ive been playing almost constantly with my MM using death nova and virulence combos on the melee minions and watching the ranger ones pull a ranger spike worthy of "power of my rangers" team in TOMBS.

Ive still not found much use for a mezmer in pve. I tried a domination mez and IW mez. et al. its just not a fun char to play for me for some reason.. I think it has something to do with my hatred of heretics outside SF and surrounding areas.

ele can tank so well you wont believe it. 16 earth. kinetic+armor of earth. 80 more 60+80 armor. 140 armor total. gg

i went in random arena with a mo/e with kinetic/armor of earth. i tanked 4 people form the toher team for 7 minutes after the rest of my team died(they got me cause i was typing ) 16attribute lightning orb was doing 27 damage to me. i couldn't win it though cause earth slowed my movement. but i swear if they hadn't kited me i could have wanded all 4 of them to death

a mesmer could have shut me down. but the warrior couldn't hit my armor of eath with his chop. backfire would have killed me.

I have an E/Me that uses Echo very effectively and she's still in high demand on farming runs. I've had many successful runs in FoW, the UW and in MS doing IDS farming. I've completed the game with 3 chars...a Warrior, a Necro and my Fire Ele. Yeah, my Warrior can stand there and get hit all day, but when it comes to dishing out damage, my Ele kicks her butt. Other than armor, I'd have to say she's the most powerful of the 3. If I could get her some better protection, I'd solo with her in a heartbeat and don't hesitate to do so in the lower level areas. And, hey, with a good Monk at my back I have done two man teams where I tank, dishing out massive damage and the Monk just keeps me alive.

Remember the Defend the Wall mission where you're supposed to rush back and tell them the Charr are coming? Just for fun, I soloed it at level 20 just to see how I'd do. I stood my ground and wiped out the entire Charr army...alone..no henchies...no help from anyone. Game over . You guys have to remember, Eles have more weapons than Firestorm (which I never use since it was nerfed) and Meteor Shower (which I do use and is still a powerful weapon). Rodgort's Invocation is a very, very effective weapon. I can cause HIGH damage to a group with that alone. That's my favorite first strike weapon because of the initial damage it causes and often times even kills several foes on the first strike...at the lower levels, such as Charr.

I have to agree with everyone that AoE nerfed isn't the end of the world. People need to start using different skills or tactics to take down mobs instead of the good old fashion (firestorm, and echo metors showers). I still can take down large group of enemies with my level 11 elementlist. Althoght i'm wanted to get a necro and see how fun it is to play as MM or SS. Althought AoE was nerfed because of abuse and to combat solo farming... SS isn't that far away from being a AoE spell. Who knows, maybe one day A-Net get bunch of complains about SS necros and decide to nerf it one day. That my friend would be end of the world!

On note of why using elementlist? Should i continue with my ele or delete her and start a necro again?

I'll take my ele against your ranger ANYDAY in pve. Unless you're running a multiple trapper team, you can't compare to my dmg output. Congrats on your barrage with favorable, but I have yet to see you come close to the dmg potential of a good fire ele.

Just to be fair and unbiased, my last two fissure groups have been in what seemed organized Guild groups. The first ran with 3 rangers, the second with 2 rangers and both times I was the only Ele. Both teams didn't complete the first quest. Granted this had as much to do with the horrible players as it did the damage output, or lack there of. Both groups I had to recast shower in the first mob which is a big deal since I don't use echo.

i just gave you an uber tank in the post above yours...
you won't believe how well it works

That sounds pretty dang sweet. I'm going to have to try that build.

With the AoE "nerf", I can't say that it has really affected gameplay all that much. I just wish the darn Mage henchies would stop casting firestorm .

I have always played a death MM necro since I began playing Guild Wars when it first came out... Finding groups was often quite difficult, and I found the underappreciation for necros discouraging, but it was kinda cool to be one of the few out there.

This new rush of SS and MM necros is good to show the versatility of the class, but now it is still hard for me to find a party because there are 5,000 other brandly new MM necros following the trend out there ^^.

I had an ele that I finished the game with, but got rid of her before this "nerf", just because I enjoyed my necro and monk so much more, but that is just my playstyle, and I respect those who can play the elementalist class well. I honestly don't think that SS necros beat out an ele in all situations, it just depends on the player really. SS necros have always been powerful, and ele's will always be great AoE damage dealers... I usually just grab whoever is available when making a party =D.

Elementalist is ruined. Without AoE, they're just crap. I still farm with the build, I just tweak it slightly. Got rid of Balthazar's Aura, put in an Arcane Echo and use Shield of Judgement twice. Uh oh, you failed at getting rid of solo faming, and succeded in screwing Elementalists. Thank you.

Do I ever play in random arenas? No, I tried PvP and I don't like it, and that might give a clue about what kind of GW player I am.

I agree that you can do more damage still as a fire nuker, particularly as an echo fire nuker E/Me. I witnessed this last night in an SF farming party with some friends.

However, how one decides to play an Elementalist really depends on what that person wants out of GW. I play GW for fun, to enjoy using the various skills of the various classes. I stick to PVE. I don't play GW hours on end for farming. And I find fire elementalist nuking extremely boring! I find it boring when I am doing it, and I find it boring when there is another in the party doing it. Just like I find it boring when there is a super minion master in the group. Yes, the kills are much much easier with a nuking fire elementalist. And that may be good if my goal is to farm as much money as possible per hour of game play. But that isn't my goal, and I find it much more fun and much more challenging when the party elementalists are playing air, or earth, or even water for that matter with all those nice slowing spells.

Unfortunately a lot of GW players are not of the same opinion, and it is not so nice to play as a non-nuking elementalist when everyone else in the party expects that you are a nuker.

In effect what I am saying is, yes, the fire nuker is a more powerful and deadly elementalist, but so what? Its boring!!!

I agree with Coolsti, i am the same, i don't like PvP/GvG either, and i am not intrested in how to get the most damage.
But unfortunatly there are not many people like that..most of em want the highest damage possible...

And i saw a couple of people saying that ele's don't get invited later in the game
Well i don't know where you are playing, but where ever i go ele's are asked.

I got an ele myself..but its not a char that i like very much
Me..more Warrior fan

Yes. But they usually learn about MS quite fast after dropping a few on their heads.

Read thru most of the posts - here's my 2 cents. Anet's 'nerf' if anything only allowed other classes to be included into groups. Good thing? Not really. The problem is that now everyone has the mindset that a ranger needs to be interupt. A mesmer has to be anti-caster. A Necro has to be a battery(probably the most demeaning term ever used. If you cant manage ur own energy why should i manage it for u?), ss/ mm. The biggest problem with GW community is that they CANT THINK OUT OF THE BOX as they cant mentally process a different means to play a specific class.

So what if there's a nerf? Nerfs happen in all games - changes are made to characters with over powered skills etc. Booo Hooo Anet screwed my fire ele so now i cant rain destruction with a single spell/click. If you whine about how anet or some other company nerfed a skillset which did not take much brain activity to make or use then u simply display the complete lack of ability to think. I've counted 2 posts that had builds in them - not quite neccessary but they prove a point - its not the class that defines the character, but the player that uses it.

I've played ALL the classes and the hardest to get into a pug would be ranger mes or necro. Now with the new update, u can get into groups if u adhere to what the groups want. If you think u got a new build or a build that works better form your OWN group or get ur guildies to come down. (BTW you should be interacting with ur guildies anyhow)

Can an ele dish out more dmg than a necro/me/ranger? People here have so far been only talkin about SS/MM which is very limiting. I havent seen a single post on things like Lingering Curse/ FoC desecreate enchantments etc. Would i be able to dish more dmg than an ele? Depends. At times i can because my spells cast quicker than say an echo + ms and the 2nd ms.

But does it really matter? The thing that matters is whether u can stop whining and actually come out with a build that *can* make use of the 'nerfs' and perhaps abuse them instead?

In the beginning, my ele was hanging around in pre searing while I was playing my ranger and Warr. Then I heard about the AoE nerf and actually STARTED playing my ele, and its been great fun. I just ascended him yesterday and I think I've changed my build every single time I've been in an outpost. With its high energy storage the Ele is really flexible.

As my first char was a ranger I was used to being highly adaptive and working "behind the scenes". I didnt care much for big numbers, which is what the ele seemed to be all about at that time.

At the moment I'm using a Earth/Illusion build based around the armor ignoring effects of Obs. Flame and Conjure Phan. Managing the exhaustion is a bit tricky, but I think I've got myself a steady rhythm which works. :-)

Here here! Good reply, all of it, not the bit I quoted here. I play mostly ranger and mesmer and I play them with the build that I want, and I don't have any problems getting into parties. Not because I play with my guildies, as there is only one other person in my guild. But because I play mostly with the friends that I have acquired over the past few months. And my friends list is increasing all the time, I am adding the people I randomly meet who play in a team-spirited, fun manner.

But building up and maintaining a nicely sized friends list to form parties with does take a bit of effort: you need to play the game in a manner that gets other people to want to play with you. And that means playing fairly, being friendly, and contributing some humor and livelyness to the group. You won't get very far (at least not with us) if you complain and argue and call people noobs, or for that matter if you just are silent (and boring) all the time.

And its not the group composition that makes the team, its the way people play. We have had great fun and easy going in SF and FOW with teams that had only one or no warriors and no fire nukers.

Reading comprehension is important before you respond. He was saying that people were dumb to think that firestorm is a good skill. It has always sucked, but many people never realized it. Chaos storm is far more useful for a comparable skill, but post change it is difficult to employ effectivly in pve. Even so, it wasnt that useful overal.

There is a huge difference between damage up front and damage per second. Against high hp and AL monsters, damage per second is far more important. In good groups, its not that uncommon to have the target die before the ele spell even finishes. This is probably why the aoe delivery was changed to still finish. This should be one of the biggest indications that some skill sets are out of place or have no real use when compared to other possibilities.

Considering that he would be someone supporting this change in order to have the possibility for change in the skill sets to be more viable in pvp, i think you are the one who is clueless here.

2 skills do not make a skill line good, nor does it reflect upon how many of the skills are very viable at low skill level and no not get much of a power increase at high skill levels. This is what he is talking about, in addition to considering them in more than just the pve setting. Many of them share some of the weaknessess that the elementalist lines have in terms of cost verus cast times and effect. I still wonder why blood has hexes, while curses do not have many one shot spells. It makes the titles of the skill lines misleading. Things like mark of subversion seem like they would belong better in the curse line, but whatever.

Also, depending on party composition, feast of corruption ranks a bit better than spiteful spirit in most situations. Especially when many of the hexes employed to amplify the damage serve a purpose outside of just amplifying the damage in most instances. Its part of the reason why people were able to run sucessful necromancer spike builds in tombs. Potentially over 170 armor ignoring damage that also heals is nothing to scoff at especially when its also AOE, doesnt cause exhaustion, is available every 20s and uses only 10e when cast. Many curses will last long enough for 1 recycle use of it as well.


Oh good waste more time and energy on a skill like deep freeze, that the effect you are striving for can be accomplished easier in a number of different ways. Also, the malestorm->mindfreeze is typically only really useful in short term spike setups. It has very poor rapid re-use and stay power and only good against a single caster at a time. You are better off with something like blackout or mark of subversion for that kind of effect since typically its the monks you are trying to disrupt more than offensive casters anyway and most offensive casters are easy to disable with a ranger or mesmer.

The majority of posts here are about advanced El builds/players...they talk in terms that only advanced players understand, and about skills that only lvl 20 can obtain (in the most part)...since the game has sold over million copies, there must be hundreds of thousands of players who do not know, or care to know, the intensely complicated structure of advanced char builds. The AoE nerf took away the main reason for the average player using an Elementalist, and replaced it with nothing.
My .02

Start a Necro! You get to raise undead servants, play with dead bodies, and cut yourself! Is there any question, really?

I need to print up some tee-shirts that say "Necros do it better!"

Its a game. Plain and simple.
I dont get why the really experienced players keep forgetting this...
I have an Ele. My first character. Guess what - She's FUN to play. Some ppl spend too much time on thinking why I should use this instead of that. You should use what you want because it smarter, true. But if you forget that its fun, than its not really a game, is it?

Eles do their job. Play them if its fun. Otherwise, don't, but saying "why play as Ele" is just pure crap. Im sorry, but it is.

Edit: Wasnt really intended at you Dr Wu, so dont take it personally ^^.

Well, there's a difference, here. I'm pretty sure the entire "Why Play an Ele" debate wasn't intended at people who pick a class to play for fun. It seems to have been more of an attempt to spark a "Bring back the old ways" chant by someone who is upset at the nerf - and it failed.

If you're playing PvE and you're having a good time, then it doesn't matter what anybody else says - stick with your class and skill line. Period. But if you're one of those twinks who cares about doing as much damage as possible, as efficiently as possible (which, I admit, I can be every so often), then this debate is, at least on the surface, worth minor consideration.

However, an Ele is still more than viable for lots of reasons. Earth Spiking/Wards, Air Spiking, Water Slowing, and Fire Nuking which - yes - is still an option. I mean, really, the debate exists only in PvE anyway, right? Because no ANet nerf ever nerfed human players.

In PvP, a real human player who isn't a moron will at least try to run out of a Firestorm, Chaos Storm, a Balthazaar's Aura. All ANet did was give the PvE environment a little more common sense. I still see Fire Nukers all the time in PvP as viable classes. This leads me to believe that it's also still viable in PvE as well.

Regardless of what conclusion this thread comes to, I still plan on using my Fire Nuking build in both PvE and PvP - first and foremost because, yes, it IS actually fun. Secondly, because it is also actually effective. I think that should be more than enough argument for anyone.

My two cents is that Ele's are not only fun, but still a very necessary component in most groups. I have no problem finding groups with my ele, and many times play a fire nuker for UW. It's all in managing agro, which unfortunatly most Ele's do not know how to do. That being said, try a meteor>>>rod's invocation>>>Fireball killshot combo for a lot of damage with minimum crazy agro (especially if you are good at the "nuke and run" tactic). Add in Mind Burn, which lately has been a favorite of min, to take down that first enemy, in conjunction with a meteor shower and rod's invocation and you're doing a LOT of damage to a many mobs quickly. The "trick" is to not drop an obscene amount of damage as quick as possible, but place well timed nukes in a way that the mobs aren't hit for direct damage more than once in 2-3 seconds. Very easy, but the problem, again, is the way Ele's are played.

Anyway, it is really dissapointing to see someone label a thread this way. Almost all of the better players realize the usefullness of the Ele primary class and use it, assuming they aren't trying to take part in a solo group or smaller farm group. I personally get bored with solo/small farm groups and really enjoy the 8 man UW run, and I know from my experience in ToW that many others do as well. So the Ele will continue to have a roll.

Those Ele's still bitching up a storm about the AoE patch, PLEASE learn to play. If you don't know what an agro circle is, or if you don't know how mobs are respond to your favorite nuke combo, you really need to learn. It'll be more enjoyable for you, more enjoyable for others to group with you, and will increase the overall value of the class.

PS - If you want to complain about a class that is under-appreciated, you should try playing an Me PvE. I have found some AMAZING skills that are WAY more efficient that an MM in SF; specifically the Me, SS, Prot, Heal, Tank combo. I'm not telling a soul, because it's actually nice to play a char that not everyone plays (>>snickers at recent necro population boom<<)

I don't know guys. I have both a SS/MM Necro and a Echo Nuker (as well as a uber-Tank). Still, when it comes to utter destruction, my Ele still dishes out more damage...even Post-Nerf. I love my Necro. I love playing with her and she's been in huge demand lately. But if I want to cause massive damage, I'm bringing my Ele.

You know, we should be upset because the patch was a mess and they simply left it there.

Lets not forget that many AoE skills were designed to work the way the did before, and they've done nothing about the energy costs or skills like Searing Heat which only does it's job if the mobs stand in it for the duration.

Players can adapt, but thats missing the point.