Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing several classes at low levels to better understand game mechanics before choosing a main character. I like Ele but it seems a bit clunky and underpowered.

I have a suggestion to improve Elementalist by respecifying which Staff skills are Combo Fields and which are Combo Finishers. Staff is a widely used weapon by the class, and successful changes here could also prompt changes to other weapons.

When using Staff, currently Water seems to have 3 Combo Fields and no Finishers, while Earth has no Fields but 3 Finishers. Switching attunements just to access a Finisher can take longer than the duration of the Combo Field, leading to over-reliance on skills #7-9 (eg Aura Blast). At least at low levels, which is when people form their first impressions of the class.

A simple way to change this would be to add Projectile Finisher attribute to #1 skills in Fire, Water and Lightning (Fireball, Water Blast, Chain Lightning). In Earth attunement, skill #2 (Eruption) could also be switched from Combo Finisher: Blast to Combo Field: Earth.

This would allow Elementalists to more easily self-combo, increasing their flexibility when soloing and allowing them to better help the group when in Dungeons.

I’ve only been playing Ele a short while and its potential for flexibility seems very fun, but right now it’s not living up to its potential.

Play Ele in WvW, staff is powerful, and amazingly versatile. Not required.

I think it would help. At the very least it would introduce players new to the class to the idea of self-Combo. As they get better, they can then learn to cross-attunement Combo, adding depth to their play. Right now many seem to miss the potential flexibility of the class.

I thought about that also when I first played them but they didn’t make many combo finishers on eles for a reason. If they had more finishers it would tear the fabric of time and space, people would forget all about thieves heartseeker and quit in drones because of the army of unstoppable elementalist owning face.

Staff is the elementalist’s most powerful weapon. Fire attuned staff wielders are devastatingly powerful. Water attuned has some great healing, air great cc, earth fun defensive abilities and AoE bleeds. Staff is just fine imo. It’s the other weapons that could use some boosting.