Diversity of Elementalist

Versatility

In GW2 every class is allowed to use different weapons with a different set of skills. Elementalist can not only switch weapons, but their elemental attunements (Earth, Air, Fire, and water) makes them the most diverse class in GW2. With new weapons comes new skills, then with new atturnements comes another set of skills. So at any time an Elementalist can have 20 weapon skills available, which is twice the amount of other classes. Also, switching out of combat gives you even more options to choose from.

All the variety of skills supports a number of different playstyles, usually within a single weapon set. Fire tends to do the best AoE damage, air/lightning is good for single-target DPS, water is best for support/healing, and earth is a primarily defensive element. Every elementalist has all of these skills available, regardless of what weapon they are wielding.

Naturally, it takes a while to unlock all of those (spam skills to unlock new ones) but hey, there’s got to be some mild downside. Since the elementalist has relatively few weapons overall, I had all of them available by the time I reached level 20.

Weapons

That being said, many players insist that the staff is the best weapon for the elementalist. With the greatest range of all ele weapons (1200) and a solid mix of skills across all four attunements, it’s definitely the weapon of choice in WvW, and you might find yourself leaning toward it in other situations too. In my opinion and through my experience I find that daggers were the most destructive and deadly, but the downside to them is that they lack range, which the staff has.

In WvW, the combination of range and firepower makes the staff a must-have. You can rack up a lot of damage from the top walls of a keep by raining down multiple fire AoE skills on tightly-packed enemies and quickly shift to a water attunement to heal if the battle’s going poorly for your teammates. Changing from fire, water, or earth into Air/lightning will help you escape if necessary.

The fourth and fifth air skills are also not to be overlooked. Windborne Speed grants you and your nearby allies swiftness, while Static Field creates a stunning ball of lightning. I can’t tell you how many players have tried to escape me and my comrades only to fall prey to this vicious one-two punch.

Sharing is Caring

It’s questionable as to how good the “weapon creation” utility skills: Conjure Earth Shield, Conjure Flame Axe, Conjure Frost Bow, and Conjure Lightning Hammer really are.

These weapons are made and thrown on the ground and any player could use them. They have ridiculous damage, but the downside is that they have a use duration. You could only hit mobs or enemies for an X amount before the created weapon disappears. I had a chance to play with the Flame Axe and Frost bow. Let me tell you they were really fun. The axe has this aoe skill that does not only like like the coolest thing ever, but does a ton of damage to mobs around. The Ice bow slows enemies and has an Ashe (from LoL) ulti type of skill which stuns enemies. Overall they help a little bit. A guardian could use bows, and archers could use axes.

Elementalist could also use skills that benefits not only them but other classes as well. Such as healing from the water attunement. The use fire skills and lightning skills could be used with archer arrows or with guns. When they shoot through them the effect carries on with arrow or bullet. This becomes useful because the enemy could burn or be slowed, depending on the element you are shooting through.

These are my takes on the Elementalist class. If you played elementalist what do you think of the class? If you plan on playing one what do you expect? Would love your feed back :)

Well I tried it during beta and liked it as a big air/lightning element fan.But not gonna play one though as it felt way too squishy for my taste lol

Elementalist were very squishy. I mean don't get me wrong they have sooooooo much burst potential and skills, but at the end of the battle they are the ones dead. One thing i disliked about Elementalist was that in a big WvW battle they were the ones left defending and healing everyone. :(

hey guys, anyone know if the old "Earth Magic Tank Elementalist" is going to be in GW2... I remember pulling some nice tanking builds in GW1 using an elementalist...

Haven't researched about elementalist that much but prolly should be some sort of tanky ones. But not main tanks I suppose? As GW 2 took off the trinity so more tank,healer roles o.o. Or that's what my experience tells me, haven't dug deep enough in the game yet, just waiting for it to get released