Elementalists and Mesmers, extinct in PVE?

And by PVE i don't mean those campaign missions which can be beaten by henchies. I mean missions which are somewhat difficult.

Lets have a look at some of the places which are worth going to PVE wise.

UW: You can make tons of money and can be soloed. E/mo and Me/MO can also solo it but are much less effective than an invici Monk. Me/N? Sorry, i would rather take a N/Me for more efficiency.

FoW: Same as above, parts of it can be soloed and lots of money made in the process. Solo FoW as E or ME primary? Nop, not worth it. Roll a 55 MO instead

Tombs: Why in gods name bring any of these 2 classes when a B/P group can complete it in a much shorter and easier time. Warriors also have a damn hard time finding a group here as well. Why bring a warrior when necro minions are much better tanks, why bring an ele for "DPS" when rangers plow through and don't suffer from the AoE nerf. Half the damn ele skills aren't nearly as effective as they used to be. ALthough i do agree that having 10 mobs sit into a firestorm + meteor shower is kinda stupid, their new AI however makes Eles pointless. Mesmers.... eh...what are hey gonna do? Shut down those dryders?

SF: Again, same problem as above but to a lesser extent. Eles and Mes are the step child.

I seriously hope that Factions will have some more balanced PVE maps. I realise that Mesmer is a very situational class but damn... don't make that completely pointless in PVE.

PS: Eles and Mes kinda suck for solo farming as well, so all us who rolled an ele and mes have to get a ranger or necro going for some PVE action

That was, quite possibly, the most uninformed post I've ever read.

Elementalists and mesmers don't suck for solo farming, you just suck at solo farming with them. Both can be effective 55 builds. Elementalists can titan farm, which you can't do. Mesmers are exceedingly helpful in a FoW group. In fact, they're exceedingly useful everywhere. Elementalists are a bit gimped atm from the AoE nerf, but again, just because you cannot use an ele correctly does not mean that everyone else can't.

I wonder why i only see R/MO and N/MO in tombs?

55 build takes 99.9 advantage of monk skills. Don't throw that at me.

Eles can solo farm. Other classes do it better. Solo farming trolls != PVE

Also UW farming > Titan farming

PUG's is the reason...any good Guild with social members goes in there with a balanced group for fun. Those B/P groups are only there to farm, and as anyone who actually plays the game knows, farming isn't everything.

I can do tombs with a "balanced group". I however would rather to finish it in ~1h rather then 3.

This topic was in that Nerf the 55 monk thread too. Like I said there I've got a solo E/Me that I use to farm all kinds of things. He almost never takes a significant hit because of kinetic armor and magnetic aura. Then I just spread Degen and use echo'd knockdown. It ususally take only a couple of knockdown cycles to kill ettins a few more for trolls. I still have yet to figure out a good solo mesmer farming build. You've made a very short list of "places that are worth going to" You totally left out Ice Imps for IDS and you left out ettins. I can make more gold in ettin runs than I could spending the equivalent time in any of the places you mentioned in your post, particularly UW and FOW given the recent crash of the ecto and shard market.

Like I said, farming isn't everything. Getting a green in Tombs is not my goal, getting a ecto in Tombs is not my goal...having fun is my goal. I could give a rat's ass as to whether I get a green drop or not, as long as I had fun, I really don't care about the drops. With that said, good drops are nice, and I love everyone I get, but they are not my goal.

I'm going to repeat myself. Just because you limit yourself to only farming tobs with only barrage pet groups does not mean 1 million other players are incapable of playing their own characters. PVE is more than farming, and farming is more than just the very short list you mentioned. I consider my ele to be a much more enjoyable farmer and is capable of farming any area my 55 monk can, and then some. My mesmer makes groups fly through FoW, making more money than a solo farmer would, but for an entire group. There are unbelievably powerful elementalist skills that you are overlooking, obsidian flesh, kinetic armor and mist form to name a few. So please, remember that just because you fail miserably playing anything but the most common cookie cutter builds does not everyone else is just another idiot bashing away at protective spirit.

While I disagree with the OP of this thread, I disagree with you in this post in that you are turning the debate into something it isn't. I don't recall anyone questioning your motives to play this game, and yet you throw in the face of the OP that you are playing the game to have fun. It is redundant to say this, and widely assumed that all others are doing the same.

However, there are different degrees of "having fun". To some gamers, myself included, a game becomes easier for me to enjoy if it is balanced accordingly to the goals the game set out to accomplish from its inaugural appearance, all the way to its demise. Having Eles and Mesmers become almost obsolete at higher stages of PvE play would DEFINITELY be a big problem to a gamer trying to have fun with a balanced game. Although I disagree that there is a shortage of either class, having been playing a PvE Mesmer for quite some time now, and seeing many of the same (eles as well), I find that your argument is steering off towards a path not intended by the OP.

We know you want to have fun. But even if having fun is your goal, it doesn't mean that others can't have fun by expecting a balanced game from the devs.

I've seen many invinci Elementalistss team up with SS Necros in UW. I've also seen my fair share of Elementalists and Mesmers in balanced Fissure groups.

It's a bit odd to say that Elementalists and Mesmers are useless for PvE, when in fact in most situations like UW and FOW they are in fact more sought after than say a Ranger or a Warrior.


This just isn't true, there are many great solo Elementalist or Mesmer builds out there. At leats builds that can solo UW anyways. Necromancer or Ranger, actually have less going for them, because solo trapping is a bit tricky, and an Invinci Mesmer can go into UW alone, while an SS Necromancer needs a partner to tank.

And after reading your post, it looks like you are one of the people who's still pissed about about the AOE nerf, because flameburst,fireball, meteor shower, immolate, etc.. are still quite useful. In fact, most every group that goes into FOW has Elementalists or Mesmers. Most UW solo underworld groups only have Monks and Necromancers, and sometimes an Elementalist tanking. And B/P groups only use Rangers, Necromancers, and Monks.

So really it's not any one job that's better, it's just so happens with the current Metagames certain builds are popular for certain places that utilize certain jobs, but in no way is that they only type of party that can be successful int hose places.

Farming isn't PvE, that being said there are still plenty of farming builds out there for every class.

Every solo build is going to utilize Monk spells, because the Monk is a HEALING class. R/Mo imp farming, W/Mo Troll farming, E/Mo etting farming. So saying "I want a solo build that uses the skills I want to use" just isn't going to happen. I mean I hate Heal Area but I still use it for Imp farming.

Overall, there are tons of farming builds out there. And I can say from personal experience some of the best farming I've found doesn't involve Trolls, nor does it involve a Monk,Ranger,or Necromancer primary.

I disagree with you there.I run a solo farming build that is E/Me. I don't rely on self heals but instead on damage mitigation so that I kill them before they kill me. Then I just chill and regen and take the next group. Careful aggro managment will beat out the need for the monk self heals every time. Other than that, spot on.

Welcome, my friend, to the life of a pre-SF patch ranger.

I'm a warden ele. When I say that to people, 50% don't know what a warden is.

That's because they have never seen a Stone summit warden in SF use wards, the irony...

You sir, are a moron. Please refer to the Mesmer and Elementalists discussion areas for many builds. Solo or non. Gotta love ignorace.

To be fair to them, warden is perhaps not the most accurate word to describe what you mean:

1. The chief administrator official of a prison.
2. An official charged with the enforcement of certain laws and regulations
3. The chief executive of a borough in certain states
4. A churchwarden

You might have better luck with "warder"...

W/Me for imp farming. Monk spells are only useful if you are taking damage. With high enough armor, healing becomes obsolete since you are taking 0 damage.

Yes... it seems since us Mesmers don't share our builds and there is no FotM build for Mesmers that he is lost.

I like it that way.

As a Mesmer I went with a group... exploited the enemy and finished in 1 hour and 30 minutes... everyone was shocked... it was a balanced group too.

try harder next time.

easy solution: make SS and Barrage cause aoe effect (as they should)

edit: oh yes and prot spirit should not be castable on self

That will solve most (if not all) farming exploits and force people to play ballanced game.

o okay. My mistake :P

Farming is all that matters to some people, it appears.

I don't care if I'm one of a rare breed or not. Better than being one of a million Naruto-clones, er, I mean "assassins."

Quite frankly, we don't need another ele or mesmer bashing thread. Give it a rest already, and stop telling other people what you think they should play.

/yawn

My mesmer's solo farming build, which changes a bit to bit depending upon the area, but it never carries monk skills:


Suffice to say, mobs fall before him like kittens in a meatgrinder. Not a 55hp build either.

Lmfao. Yeah i know, lets remove the 2 best methods of farming in the game. Not only will we return the ranger to the backbench of never getting a group but we can send the damage dealing necro there too.
Make SS trigger AoE = People leaving

Barrage and SS are the only things they can get groups for, how often do you see 'LF 1 Blood Necro' and 'LF 1 Interrupt Ranger' in ToA? Never thats how often, Barrage/Interrupt yes, SS/BR yes, Battery yes.

Just because mesmers can't get groups for ToA regularly doesn't mean we can't. It generally means if Mesmers ARE in groups to UW or FoW the group know what they are doing (or at least the leader does), that or just random

You can not deny that both SS and Barrage are too powerful even compared to pre-aoe nerf ele spells. Fact that rangers werent used too much only meant that people are shortighted, and not that rangers suck.
How many eles left the game after that nerf? How many times we've been thrown "i dont stand under firestorm" argument in our face? Well guess what - I dont stand close to mates when they have SS on or attacked by Barrage either, so why do mobs do?

*Sigh* Ok, it seems like some people didn't ready what i wrote... so going at it again.

1. My point was mainly for the highend areas. And i specificially said that i don't consider Hell's Priciples to be one of them due to how easy it is to complete. (Hence i don't care if your water Ele can farm it, THATS NOT MY POINT)

2. Some people said how useful their Eles and Mes were in their UW group. Obviously this doesn't hold much water because Monks and Monk based characters can SOLO that place. And no, i do not consider a solo Elementalist who is exploiting the 55 build to be an elementalist since we all know what kind of skills that elementalist will have in the hotbar as well as the attribute distribution.

3. There is a difference between doing it and doing it effectively. Just because you can clear FoW or UW with your happy group, and also getting something out of it doesn't mean that its the most efficient way. In fact its far from it. It has been proven that solo or duo farming UW and FoW is MUCH more efficient profit wise. So again, read my first post carefully.

4. SF and tombs. A b/p , mm and SS build will find a party spot much faster then a Ele. Do you honestly believe that a group will drop a b/p ranger for an elementalist or Mesmer? I didn't think so. So again, we have two classes that get the shaft in PVE.

PS: Solo troll farming does NOT count

Barrage as an AoE? Ok then by that rationale Hundred blades and cyclone axe should also trigger the AoE nerf. Sorry that's just stupid. SS is not and never should be confused for an AoE. I also do not agree with SoJ being AoE just because of the definition of AoE. Area of Effect spells, that is they do damage to an area and anything inside said area. SoJ and SS do not do damage to an Area. They do damage to an enemy and, in the case of SS, nearby enemies as well. In my opinion they screwed up when they made SoJ trigger the AoE bolt but they got it right with SS and it should stay that way. If you nerf SS and Barrage though I'm just going to go with a riposte warrior or I'll go with an epidemic/poison/pet ranger. You can't close all the loopholes without nerfing the game into pointlessness. Good developers realize that the metagame is just as important as the game itself and these "exploits" are just people making good use of the metagame to their advantage. There is nothing wrong with that. The only people I notice really complain about these things are the people that can't seem to make them work for them, or who, because of some stubborn idea that playing without consideration of the metagame makes them better, refuse to play them. Ok fine don't play them but don't whine about them either. Personally I always find the metagame more exciting than the game itself. It's like a battle of wits between you and the developers. See they want to make this game as challenging as possible so they set all these rules and then you get to try to figure out ways to make the rules work for you. In fact I'd go so far as to say that for those of us who don't dig the whole PvP aspect of the game, the metagame is the only thing that keeps it interesting. The bottom line is that as soon as they "fix" things someone will just figure out something else for people to complain about.

Also making the mobs react like that to SS won't stop it from being the best damned damaging spell in the game. All it means is that killing a group with it will take slightly longer. You must not have played an SS necro before or you would realize that the point of it is to put Ss on as many mobs as possible. So you can run like hell all you want but you're still going to die you just won't die as fast. A good SS necro can keep SS on you indefinately. In fact the only change that would make in the build itself isn't a change persay but it would make this more standard. more SS necro's would start packing spinal shivers so they could consistently interrupt healing spells while still allowing SS to kick in when the target attacks or does a non-healing ability.

*snip*

What I got out of that is the only thing you care about is profit and, to you, the more "efficient" something is, the more profitable and better it is for you.

Have you heard about something called "fun"? It's when you don't give a damn about efficiency and just want to have a good time. Why do you care about what other people play, and how? Is fun such a totally alien concept to you?

I dont know if you aware, but AoE nerf was applied to spell that cause damage over time faster than every 2 seconds. Thus Barrage _is_ supposed to cause scattering, and so is SS, but not Hundred blades or cyclone axe.


SoJ? wth are you talking about?
As for SS: Firestorm also causes damage to target foe and adjacent foes... so your point is? I might have agreed if ele AoE spell were true AoE, i.e. castable on any location (ground) without needing the actual target (that would actually make them way more useful). Otherwise I fail to see the difference. And dont even start me on how freakin much armor ignoring damage SS does... For the hex spell that doesnt require your presense to trigger damage, cost 15 energy and 2 seconds cast time it is waaaaay overpowered.

... and that is why we got AoE nerf rendering half of ele spells utterly useless...


So basically you saying lets not try fixing things because if we do they might actually become little less broken


edit:
read list of characters under my avatar.

Please tell me the fun in running something for the 100th time. Exactly, there is none. Also *your* way of having fun is different from *mine*

The *fun* aspect is not my point of discussion. The only thing i have seen people post so far is either concearning the "fun" aspect, or how they can solo titans with their elementalists.

This means that my point stands.

i think having tombs represent the metagame of the entire PvE isnt a very good reference since B/P build much like any other area specific build seeks to maximize performance over time to reap the benefits of the area of interests but that is not to say B/P builds are good for every PvE area, but of course you already know that

As for Mesmers and more recently Elementalist, they are generally less visible in the public PvE due to reasons that not many know what to do with a mesmer and many feel Ele are gimped after AoE nerf, and those experienced mesmers and eles who play these two classes well are usually busy PvPing or farming some areas away from the normal PvE scene and prob have other toons like a necro/ranger/monk that would allow them to get into the group they wanted that run specific builds.

Apart from the above, its been mentioned before countless times that many mesmers either play through the PvE missions with a guild group or with Hencies and possibly more Eles are doing the same to spare themselves from PuGs that dont appreciate what they are doing.

So unless you only have a mesmer or a elementist PvE toon and would like to join farming grps, its best to do more reserach or even spend that extra time to roll another class that would be more widely accepted into farming groups for example: monk/ necro/ ranger and you will have a more pleasant gaming experience overall. Hope this helps since i am not saying anything new but merely putting things into perspective for the OP.

Remember that as a general rule of thumb: It is always eaiser to change myself to suit others than to expect others to change to suit my needs.

Edit addict here nothing to see...move along

Ok, two things I would like to point out ...

1) Solo farming ANYTHING is slower than taking a group, and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong ... even if it's a group of all the same build, it is still exponentially faster due to higher DPS, balance, etc. Yes, soloing nets you the highest profit, at the cost of time spent creeping about trying not to aggro too much and die, or using skills in a particular order.

and

2) Um, how many character slots do we have currently? 4? Roll another character already. If your retort to this is "but I don't like playing class X," that doesn't hold much water. "I really like to ride my bicycle, but they won't let me on the freeway with it." Well, sorry to say you can't drive your car through the bike paths in the middle of the park, either. Sometimes it's just not possible to have your cake and eat it too. You enjoy mesmers and eles? Great! I do as well, but I know their limitations and why it's hard to play in certain areas with them when another class is more suited to the monster type.

If you're dead-set on farming with your ele or mesmer: come up with a superb build to solo, or a way to add an ele or mes to an existing "cookie cutter" UW, FoW, SF, Tombs build ... then come back here and point fingers at us and laugh! Until you can though, don't be surprised if you get a bit of flaming

Please tell me the fun in doing a b/p run for the 100th time, with a PUG that falls apart at the second map?

If your point was to talk about the high end areas then you might want to use a different thread name next time cuz it seems that your saying that they are useless in all of PVE, which they are not.

All I got from your post is you only want to play with the best build and farm areas in the shortest amount of time possible. To me the people who do nothing but Farm and exploit builds are the ones who cause the nerfs and take fun out of the game. Games are for fun time. If I want to worry about efficiency or take less time to get a job done then I would just go to WORK!!

No what I'm saying is that people like you should start playing the metagame instead of whining about it. I swear there is always a post somewhere with someone crying about." Oh this is unfair, this should be changed, this should be like this." 90% of the time it's someone who has no clue about the metagame. So someone figured out how to use a skill to their advantage. According to ANet this game rewards skill so therefore they deserve to keep their advantage which they earned by utilizing the metagame and making the skill more effective. What you want is a dumbed down game that you don't have to think about where everything is sunshine and roses. My nephews have a few games you might be interested in if this is your cup of tea. Me I like the metagame. I like figuring out the best combinations of skills to do the most damage in the least amount of time. that's what this game is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about people figuring this stuff out and making it work. Instead of whining about nerf this and nerf that why don't you apply that brain power to figuring out your own super nifty combination of skills that owns everything. I am also well aware of the amount of armor ignoring damage that SS can do. I broke the math down in a post somewhere on here. I forget the exact numbers but I think it comes out to over 3k damage per mob in a 5 mob groupover the duration of the curse. You are only looking at that aspect and not at how it scales. It hands out huge amounts of whoopass in a larger mob group but not so much in smaller groups. Basically it works best when it is needed the most. I don't see how that's overpowered.

What it comes down to is that you people want to "fix" an aspect of the game that was never broken to begin with. Everytime someone makes good use of the metagame you assume it is broken. It's not. That's what happened with the AoE nerf. Someone figured out an aspect of the metagame and someone like you whined enough so they "fixed" something that wasn't broken to begin with just to shut the whiners up I suspect. How many times did ANet say that this game was about skill? I know I lost count. Part of the skill involved is understanding the metagame in fact I'd go so far as to say the only skill involved is understanding the metagame unless you count hitting keys as a skill. So sure let's "fix" the metagame and destroy Guild Wars.

regardless of fun OP's point holds. Rock-paper-scissors rule doesnt work in GW. There is only rock, that breaks the scissors and tears apart paper.


Edit:
thats just a nice wording for an ugly thing.
Once again - apparently elementalist AoE skills were broken. I fail to see fundamental difference between elementalists AoE and either Barrage or SS. Thus later are broken as well. This logic is as basic as it ever gets.

As for skill: Thats a worst piece of bull i ever heard.
Oh yes, repeatedly clickin barrage button requires alot of skill... Putting up two hexes and goin to get coffee while mobs wacking themselves to death apparently does to
I bet you never played nuker in places like FoW and have no idea how much micromanagement required to avoid being interrupted in the middle of 5 seconds spell, to keep covering up attunement, to time spells properly, to avoid being murdered by melee when some moron broke aggro, to manage energy... and all that for barely half effectiveness of your "skilled" players. Dont even start me on interrupt mesmers - that profession is all about skill.

Of course it doesn't work because that is not the point of the game. The point of the game is you get handed a rock, some paper and some scissors and you have to figure out how to make that paper slice through a rock and shatter the scissors. Once you figure that out then your next task is figuring out how to make the scissors stab through the rock and how to make the rock punch through the paper. That's the skill aspect of the game. If everything was hard and fast that this beats this and this beats that and then this beats that then there is no skill it's just a matter of guessing what your opponent is bringing to the table and hoping that you get your counter right.

Is it me, or is it that the OP is just trolling for flames?

It's like saying something like "OMG, monk totally sucks because they aren't all that great in presearing. And since presearing is the very beginning of the game it must be more important than the rest of the game since it's the FIRST place. Monks are like totally inefficient in pre-searing... blah blah..."

Incidentally, yes, I have now beaten the game 5 times with five different primary professions. The last one (which I am working on) is elementalist. I think A.net did a fine job with balancing, as playing each profession feels different enough that I actually did enjoy going through the game the 5.5 times.

The OP's criteria for what consitutes a good profession is so narrow that probably 99% of the player base don't care for it. Take myself -- I play the game to relax, not to work to make virtual gold. I do that in a real-world job already.

ITYM:

Please tell me the fun in doing a b/p run.

HTH, HAND

Im not sure if you noticed but you have just totaly supported my point. If I want to enjoy the game I have to forget about ele and make myself necro or whatever (which i in fact did). That does prove that eles and mesmers are broken in the first place.