Guild Wars 2

DXIEdge.2789:

I’ll let CMC post a video/guide when he’s ready. I just wanted to let people know that although spirit ranger and necro are still op, Ele is not “Dead”

Its not as viable as other classes, no. However this build is insanely viable and is actually very strong.

That’s a funny way of describing it. Not as viable as other classes, but still insanely viable. I don’t know this person, but I don’t doubt that he does reasonably well with staff. It’s been underrated since the EA nerfs when everyone decided all of a sudden it was a useless weapon. But still, not as viable as other classes.

Read that again, realised I cant speak English.

Elementalist as a whole, is deemed not as viable as other classes in this meta, and it very well might not be. However, the build CMC is running is more than viable, in fact its actually very strong.

And its not staff.

I’d like to point out, Necro OP is a glass cannon, no defense, no group buffs/support, condi machine.

Team of 4 spent over 10mins trying to kill a high defense/escape Ele, before actually getting a stomp.
They may not be top damage, but they suck it up/escape & buff/support others in a way necro’s & rangers can’t.

Actually tornado does do damage. o.O

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tornado
Damage: 122 (0.35671)?

Could be the dmg skill with the lowest dmg in the entire game. Not quite sure about that. I don’t count 200-300 dmg per hit as dmg, not on an elite. Especially not, as you throw your foes away and can’t dmg them then.

I’d like to point out, Necro OP is a glass cannon, no defense, no group buffs/support, condi machine.

Team of 4 spent over 10mins trying to kill a high defense/escape Ele, before actually getting a stomp.
They may not be top damage, but they suck it up/escape & buff/support others in a way necro’s & rangers can’t.

What a b u l l s h i c e, no other way to describe this stupidity. Necro has one of the highest base hp pool (above 20k), an extremly strong DS and tons of soft cc with conditions like cripple, chill and weakness. That is not even close to squishy and definitly the opposite of being non supportive for a team. Support doesn’t only consist of spamming buffs.
If it takes you 10 minutes to kill an ele, as 4 people, no matter how much bunkery he is, then I’ve only one thing to say: You are incredibly bad.

up/escape & buff/support others in a way necro’s & rangers can’t.

You obviously don’t play this game, so get out of the forums. Rangers no escape, no buffs and teamsupport? Get brain.

So which class is next on the ’we’re useless now!’ list?

Basically ele is the biggest design flop in this game and why is that?

Elementalist must pay 3x the price for this so called versatility

- 1x lowest base HP pool and armor
- 2x only active defense is..healing, the effectiveness of this healing based on a water trait line
- 3x You must invest 30 trait pts in arcana to actually used this supposed “versatility”

And the end result of this versatility is rather ..meh, very low dmg on auto-attack, very high CD on the majority of skills, can be countered by anything and every profession with no specialized build.

Design flop? I’d say that the elementalist is one of the most well designed classes in this game, just one of the hardest to balance. Many issues with the elementalists now are balance issues, although there’s certainly a few contradictory design decisions for traits. Elementalists aren’t spamming clones, they aren’t spamming stealth and transforming the game into a “fight-the-tab-key” esport, they aren’t spamming skills without cooldown over and over, they don’t rely on passive playing and pet armies, etc. I’d say that elementalists and warriors are the most well designed classes in this game, with guardians close, and I only didn’t put Guardians up there, because I feel their virtue system’s is sometimes a bit more spammable than it should, or sometimes lacking some impact or just plain unexciting (passive aegis every 40s). (I don’t know enough about engineers or necromancers to talk about them.)

@DiogoSilva

Right now playing an ele is like joining a car race with a family car..where instead everybody else uses a ferrari

That’s more of a balance issue, though.

Fun fact: my entire hurl > air burst, with full hp and without any blocking or evading, just took out 1/3 of a warrior’s HP. Because dragon tooth and fire grab are luck-driven, phoenix and fire circle didn’t even drop the warrior’s HP to half.

I can’t kill squishy thieves with this build (they take over half of my hp before I even seen them), I can’t go into a crowded area (aoe spamfest and stealth bursts destroy me before I can even react), and I can can barely take on a spirit ranger or an engineer 1v1.

Maybe I’m getting worse as a player, but I’ll just have to try a new build. Now, which one should I go for?

I’ve discovered a way to work around the current state of the elementalist.

The solution you’ve all been waiting for is here, again, it’s dusting that dirt of your thieves. But this time you actually need to press number 3, to be as effective as possible, instead of number 2.

You’re welcome.

Haha : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

Good old days

Just started to mess around with engy, the amount of viable traits, builds and skills..is insane, that extra 5K base HP is sublime, possibly will make it my new main

Then quit whining.

Please people, quit making these threads saying “This isnt viable”

Ele is still in a hard spot, but if condi meta disappears Ele is OP, and right now a strong build exists.

DXIEdge.2789:

Then quit whining.

Please people, quit making these threads saying “This isnt viable”

Ele is still in a hard spot, but if condi meta disappears Ele is OP, and right now a strong build exists.

Stop marketing that build, or whatever you think you’re doing. Either you show it, or you shut your mouth about it.
You are just making yourself look like a kid bragging about his new toy to his friends, while saying they cant see it because its secret.

DXIEdge.2789:

Then quit whining.

Please people, quit making these threads saying “This isnt viable”

Ele is still in a hard spot, but if condi meta disappears Ele is OP, and right now a strong build exists.

So, if the entire balance of the game shifts with most of the other classes getting nerfed, ele will be in a good spot again? Well, if that’s all it takes, we should let the devs know. Do you want to send them a pm or should I? They can probably hotfix that in before lunch. Oh but it’s the weekend. Well, we can do it on Monday.

Oh god..just what we needed another “hurr durr LMAO ROFL” hotjoin hero with his pawnage god build that comes without any build link or video.
I’m sick tired of your kind…just post a godkitten video of your amazing and godly skills, can’t wait for you to post a hotjoin video of you burning speed on a point with a 0/0/10/30/30 soldier build…maybe you’ll redirect us to one of @Mogvow videos, like the one where he get stealthed by @Lady nag nag and one-shot a glass cannon mesmer…

Ha wait ..he’s the same guy who was talking about his friend and his staff build….a 0/0/10/30/30 soldier staff build lmao…….pls dude just go back to the ranger forum

Design flop? I’d say that the elementalist is one of the most well designed classes in this game, just one of the hardest to balance. Many issues with the elementalists now are balance issues, although there’s certainly a few contradictory design decisions for traits. Elementalists aren’t spamming clones, they aren’t spamming stealth and transforming the game into a “fight-the-tab-key” esport, they aren’t spamming skills without cooldown over and over, they don’t rely on passive playing and pet armies, etc. I’d say that elementalists and warriors are the most well designed classes in this game, with guardians close, and I only didn’t put Guardians up there, because I feel their virtue system’s is sometimes a bit more spammable than it should, or sometimes lacking some impact or just plain unexciting (passive aegis every 40s). (I don’t know enough about engineers or necromancers to talk about them.)

Gameplay Design <> Class Design
Both belong together, but you still have to differ between them.
I agree, that the elementalist has a pretty fluent and dynamic game play – well, at least on D/D and due to the recent changes on S also on S/D, staff and focus are rather… meh. Among all classes he probably has the best skill:reward ratio. But other classes have this as well, others probably like Mesmers more or engineers, both have equally fluent gameplay styles as well. Basically every class has the possibility to have a dynamic gameplay and challenging gameplay, that belongs mainly to their weapons and traits.

But the class design is something else. And there the elementalist isn’t just a little bit contradictory. There are not just some few mistakes, that can be solved with tweaking some numbers for balance, the design shows huge failures. After just a little bit of time and comparing the elementalist with other class designs, with other trait designs and weapon designs and utility designs, you notice immediatly, that he was definitly one of the classes that were created firstly.
And as long as these design mistakes consist, it won’t be possible to balance the elementalist.
To explain to you the consequences of all the design mistakes the elementalist currently has (so see which design mistakes are meant, just take a look at page 2):

- as long as water and arcana are mandatory and everything else is bad, there won’t ever be build diversity
- as long as the elementalist doesn’t have a possibility to specialize, there won’t be build diversity (only jack of all trades)
- as long as the elementalist is forced into melee range with low armor, hp, protection, cc and dmg, his only real possibility is to go partially bunker
- as long as the elementalist is forced to go for bunker and is still pushed into the jack-of-all-trades-direction, it becomes impossible to get him balanced —> he will always be either op or up, because he either has everything or nothing
- as long as other classes are by far better in absolutly everything than the elementalist, there won’t ever be a role in any group for him
- as long as content doesn’t require supportive characters, as long as boons are so spammable like now and so not something rare, special and situational, as long as cc isn’t needed (nor possible) there won’t be a role for the current elementalist
- as long as he only has 2 conditions that are spammable by every class, there won’t be the possibilty to go for a condition elementalist
- as long as the bugs he has eversince aren’t fix’d, most traits and skills remain useless

Elementalist doesn’t need just some nerfs and buffs for balance. He needs reworks, not just a few of them, he needs several major ones. Currently 70% of the elementalist is crap. Focus is crap, staff is crap, conjured weapons are crap, utilities either don’t work or aren’t useful either, fire traitline is useless, earth traitline is weak and every elementalist build needs points in arcana and water. That hasn’t been addressed since beta. And that makes me sad, because as far as I know ArenaNet, they will just nerf the mandatory traitlines like arcana and water instead of giving the elementalist the desperatly needed buffs on other traits and the reworks and bugfixes. And then the elementalist will be completly destroyed.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

DXIEdge.2789:

Then quit whining.

Please people, quit making these threads saying “This isnt viable”

Ele is still in a hard spot, but if condi meta disappears Ele is OP, and right now a strong build exists.

Stop marketing that build, or whatever you think you’re doing. Either you show it, or you shut your mouth about it.
You are just making yourself look like a kid bragging about his new toy to his friends, while saying they cant see it because its secret.

And your making yourself look like an kitten …

No, I’m trying to let the non-whiners realize if you actually try and go against the meta, you would just fall over and die. Spirit Rangers started the same way, FYI.

CMC is making a guide. It’s not my build, so I’m not showcasing it. It’s not fair to him if I showcase it, he deserves the hype.

And Arheundel how many times do I have to say its not a 0/0/10/30/30 soldiers build. Would you come your kitten and quit acting like a pompous know it all? Go back to the engineer forums if that’s your new main.

If you guys wants proof go check out Hegemony’s stream. /dtdhegemony I think? Yesterday’s vod start at like 5:30:00 or something.

@dreztina you knew exactly what I meant. I’m saying if you guys keep crying about spirit rangers and necros and they get nerfed, you’ll go right back to kittening about ele’s being. OP again.

The traits are 0/20/20/0/30. Like I said CMC is coming out with a guide and we’ll help him set up some videos. He streams as well I think it’s /cmcgw2…?

All ele’s should be starting 20 earth for rock solid and ether renewal in this meta IMO.

All ele’s should be starting 20 earth for rock solid and ether renewal in this meta IMO.

Tried this already long time ago. I’m open-minded for new builds, so I know the weaknesses and strengths of them. 0/20/20/0/30 has some extremly weak points, it’s not quite worth it:

- pure bunker build, to go for dmg isn’t possible (therefor you would rather need 30 in air) —> pointless, guardian bunker is a lot more useful
- low dmg, you can’t kill anybody unless he is a pure glass cannon, doesn’t pay attention and doesn’t has any defensive utilities
- very low hp pool, no condition removal when swapping into water, no water 5 minor trait, no healing ripple
- low condition dmg

Ofc a build like this works in soloq, hotjoin and low tier matches. There I tried builds like 20/30/0/10/10 as well, using signets and fire aura to get a lot of dmg and yeah, I had success sometimes, but it doesn’t compensate the weaknesses of this build, having no healing at all and being squishy like hell, while your dmg output can easily be dodged. Against decent players something like this doesn’t work.
I tried 10/30/10/10/10, 10/30/0/20/10, 10/30/0/0/30, 0/20/0/20/30, 30/0/0/10/30 etc. pp. I like to figure out new builds and playstiles because I love diversity – that’s why other classes don’t please me, I need to have a very complicated and difficult class with a lots of skills to manage. But on the elementalist it just doesn’t work without points in arcana and/or water. Air traitline is actually only useful because of Fresh Air either. Design flaws.

Good..so we’ve got a variant of the 0/30/10/0/30..one-trick pony build…seriously…

Im saying right now, I wouldn’t be posting stream proof if all we did was hot joins.

We’re all top 200 players on the Team Leaderboard and we’ve been playing together for 2 days. If the comp we were running wasn’t strong, we wouldn’t be beating Team Ultimatum, almost beating vVv’s super pug last night and being within a boss of beating Last Resort.

A) the build is not bunker, it’s high DPS roamer/team fighter
B) you can’t kill spirit rangers 1v1 and probably not necros , but you don’t 1v1. You force team fights or 3v3 and 2v2 skirmishes.
C) water 5 trait an water 15 trait are missed, yes. However CMC believes removing 1 heal for more toughness and stability is well worth the removal of a 1.3k heal every 10-12 seconds, as you basically get a “free” 5k heal with condi removal every 15 instead.
D) Low condi damage, yes. It’s a power class..?

And air trait line is good because of the passive stats and air 15 scaling as well as it does.

But I’m done arguing because Arheundel’s logic is absolute kitten.

“Omgz it’s a staff build l2p newb. No no wait its probably a 0/0/10/30/30 build oh ya your so newb. Go back to hot joins, no proof = jiji. Oh it’s a variant of 0/30/10/0/30 ya one trick pony”. Like seriously? I’m sorry I am trying to prove you wrong and ask you to try a new build rather than cry all the kitten time.

But anyway I’m done. If you want check out some streams tonight to watch us play. Ill probably say when we’re tourneying on twitter if you guys wanna follow me.

I completely agree, this game has turned me off so much because every patch the imbalances are so insane. Eles are useless.

Try high burst s/f with fresh air.
Honeslty i cant say if its viable cause i used it so far at just 250-300 rank in lb but it kind of makes sence in this meta.
My logic is simple.Your heals in dps ele are worthless now,your escapes with rtl are worthless cause of nature of condies and s/d thief and you melee damage is a death sentence in this cheesy spam aoe meta
Focus is all ranged and you can run it with double arcanes +flash and does inange continuous single target damage thx to fresh air. It has 2 stronger versions of cleansing fire and mistform and the daze in water ,and all the projectile defence are amazing against sp rangers and engies (which are very easy to face with it)
But i doubt something like that would work on <100 lb rank..but you might as well bring a “gimmick” into the fight before giving up and rolling necro,ranger..right?? :P

Actually if focus had a tiny bit of mobility and some more damage in fire line it would simply be amazing imo.Fresh air and the change in phoenix speed really upped the weapons power by a lot.

Greetings,

I was hoping to finish my guide before posting here, but this thread seems to have spiraled out of control today.

To start: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;0J0BJ-U0v4-N-Z0;9;5JJ-T;159-57;245A5w0;3F-03F-036BS

I will touch on a few things that have been incorrectly assumed.

1) This is a DPS build. 2k power, 22% crit with 25 crit damage, high fury uptime between arcana 5 and pack runes. Damage bonuses from earth VI, air VI and X.

2) Taking soldier amulet over valkyrie makes the loss of water heals largely unnoticeable to my own survivability. Obviously there is a small loss in party heals, but Rock Solid is on a completely different level power-wise. Note that you can still heal teammates with EA and dagger skills; the loss of water traits is less noticeable than you would think given how everyone thinks they are an absolute requirement to play ele (I also thought this for a long time).

3) The sustained damage that is done by Lightning Whip is absurd. I know the world has been caught up with scepter burst the last few months and has gotten used to terrible autoattacks, but if you move back to D/D perhaps it will brick back glorious memories. In addition to Lightning Whip, you have access to a reasonable burst combo between Burning Speed, Arcane Wave, Lightning Flash, and Firegrab.

4) Rock Solid is insane. Everyone sees the obvious synergy with Ether Renewal, but that is merely a bonus in this condi meta. If I have the opportunity to run signet heal in the future, there is no doubt in my mind that I will continue to run Rock Solid. This is an AOE 2.6s stability on a 10 second cooldown. A few of the many things opened up by this trait:

• Stomp everything. Soldier amulet with protection makes this build hard to bring down while stomping. Even if you are under pressure, you can give a teammate stability while they get the stomp.
• Rezzing in teamfights. When someone drops and 2-3 people go in for the rez, everyone has stability. No spectral wall/reaper’s mark/etc is going to stop this.
• Waltzing through area denial and allowing teammates to do so as well.

I will expand a lot more in my guide which should be up in the next day or two, and probably put up a forum post for it. Certainly any questions/comments are welcome here in the meantime.

EDIT: In regards to viability. Myself, Edge, and two other guys played together yesterday and today picking up whoever was available for a 5th. Comp that we have been trying is ele ele ranger engi X. We have been very successful against mid-tier opponents, and have found some difficulty with higher level teams. There have been some blowouts, but we have also had some close games. At this point it’s hard to say if it is due to the comp or our inexperience playing with each other, probably a bit of both. That being said I believe that this build is quite good, but it may not have a place in the meta given the level that other professions are at right now.

Iksargo.2640:

Greetings,

I was hoping to finish my guide before posting here, but this thread seems to have spiraled out of control today.

To start: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;0J0BJ-U0v4-N-Z0;9;5JJ-T;159-57;245A5w0;3F-03F-036BS

Thanks for sharing this Iksargo. I have tried this build in WvW before, and always felt it was inferior to 0/0/25/15/30 that I run now. The +dps traits in air are not as strong as people make them out to believe, and there are only 2 skills that make any use out of air X (RtL, and autoattack, which is just about par with other classes autoattack – a good filler). The 15-point trait in air doesn’t synergize that well with D/D, which does mostly PbAOE damage as opposed to single-target burst that makes the most use of it. You also give up a lot of team-support (which this build focuses on), by not taking the team condi-cleanse and heal in water.

Also, I think that the 25 point trait in earth is a great option for additional dps, esp. with the energy sigil and our vigor uptime.

That all being said, I want to see your playstyle before giving any real critiques. My personal experience has been underwhelming and I felt like I wasn’t contributing to my team relative to the amount I was trying.

Also, I wanted to cross-post a comment from the ele forums that is very relevant to the discussion of our versatility:

The problem with ele
The problem with the ele attunement system is that it is supposed to provide versatility, but can’t actually do that b/c of the long cooldowns on swap. This is exacerbated by the fact that all of our skills are weaker (especially auto-attack)/ on a longer individual cooldown than other classes b/c we have access to more. This means that the only viable way to play ele is to spam skills from available attunements, rather than sit in the one that is best for the situation. In other words, if an ele is trying to do 1v1 damage, their design should make staying in air the best option for damaging the enemy. This is not the case. Instead, we have to do a rotation through attunements to output viable damage, usually saving only water b/c it is really the only one that provides specialized utility like it is meant to. This has made us very weak (on top of our other inherent weaknesses), b/c we can’t properly use our skills to respond to situations, instead giving up all versatility to piece together something that is closer to a whole. The boons that we could get by doing our spam-rotation is really what held it together.

Potential Solutions
Longer attunement recharge rate, buffed individual attunements
If they really want ele to have diversity, they need to buff individual attunements such that it is optimal to stay in the proper role/attunement for the proper time. This may actually be easier with a longer attunement recharge rate, or simply a decrease in the effectiveness of Intelligence. This would mean attunements that are more viable to sit in for a period, rather than spam-and-go like currently.

More fresh-air type traits
Fresh air is good, but air really isn’t good enough offensively to justify wanting to make it your primary attunement, only responding with another attunement then getting back to air so that you can get your utility back again. Fresh Air needs to reduce individual skill cooldowns (or aeromancer’s alacrity needs to do more than just give -20%) if it is meant to be a viable alternative to arcana. I believe it would be better to have a similar skill for earth/water that is:
“If you have 3 or more conditions on you, water attunement is recharged”
“If you take more than 20% of your total HP in one hit/over certain period of time, earth attunement is recharged”
This also only becomes meaningful with better minor traits that play into the proper theme (mainly in earth). I think this would also mean that these two attunements (defensive) can be used, but key skills can be saved for the proper time. If we had this, arcana wouldn’t be necessary b/c it wouldn’t be mandatory to make sure each attunement comes back ASAP for a certain utility we might need from there.

Lower base cooldown of attunements, traits to make individual attunements much better to specialize in
I am not sure this actually solves any of the issues with variabilty, but it does allow other builds to be viable as ele depends on rotations currently. It is also weaker at allowing specialization than fresh-air type approaches as leaving your primary attunement lowers your effectiveness significantly until you can get it back.

BlackBeard.2873:

words

I’m not a huge fan of the air traits either, but with soldier amulet the extra precision and crit damage is actually a moderate damage boost (about 9% for 20 air vs 0 air, given zerker jewel+pack runes). Additionally the extra crit chance opens up a reasonable chance of bursting someone down with burning speed+firegrab. Air training is not bad considering that I am harassing with Lightning Whip a lot, and bolt to the heart is very good for finishing off low targets. Air 15 is better than you might expect; it has certainly surprised me. In teamfights I usually find myself training a priority target, and getting some extra pressure on air swap is a nice little bonus. Again not the best traits, but not terrible considering that the stats given by the traitline are so valuable to this build.

The previous version of this build I was running 0/0/25/15/30 but found myself needing a berserker amulet to pressure anyone. This obviously left me rather squishy even with extra toughness from traits and runes, making it more difficult to secure stomps and easier to be focused down. Had I taken a soldier amulet with that trait setup I doubt I could consistently pressure anyone and would be rather useless as a DPS. At that point I would be better off running a bunker build with Rock Solid, but that is much worse than a guardian and not really viable for competitive play. I have had success with a bunker setup at lower tiers, but it’s not something I would ever recommend.

I think a lot of people overrate the impact the water traits (cleanse and heal) have on team support because we have found ourselves running them for so long. One extra condi removal is rarely going to have a large impact, similar to the one 1.5k heal that is being lost. It’s just that the sheer number of heals we can give (dagger or scepter mainhand, cleansing wave, EA roll, water 15) stack up to give a nice little burst heal. I have found that sacrificing one of those heals is not a huge deal; it only becomes more apparent if you begin cutting others (focus offhand or less than 30 arcana) as well.

BlackBeard.2873:

other words

I don’t think ele needs any massive changes like those being suggested. The only reason that ele is not played in the current meta is because the big three (necro, spirit ranger, s/d thief) are flat out better. Once (if) those are brought back down to reality, s/d ele becomes the boogeyman once again. On the topic of making the Arcana tree less of a requirement, I will continue to take 30 arcana as long as three of the strongest traits exist there (elemental attunement, renewing stamina, evasive arcana). Increased boon duration on top of those is even more value to be had. To bring eles out of arcana those traits need to be brought down, but I think that would cause an even greater outrage in the community.

HPLT.7132:

Haha : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

Good old days

In my opinion this is the best guide for ele I have ever seen. It is simply awesome.
Thank you very much for posting it.

I think a lot of people overrate the impact the water traits (cleanse and heal) have on team support because we have found ourselves running them for so long. One extra condi removal is rarely going to have a large impact, similar to the one 1.5k heal that is being lost. It’s just that the sheer number of heals we can give (dagger or scepter mainhand, cleansing wave, EA roll, water 15) stack up to give a nice little burst heal. I have found that sacrificing one of those heals is not a huge deal; it only becomes more apparent if you begin cutting others (focus offhand or less than 30 arcana) as well.

You may have forgotten that elementalists can swap into water attunement while stunned and especially feared. That’s why healing ripple and the condition removal is so extremly strong, even stunchained you still have a chance to survive and if fearchained you have a chance to get rid of the fear. You partially solve this problem by getting rock solid, but you lose a lot of heal therefor. Water Traitline gives some nice vitality additionally and vitality is more useful than tenacity in the current condition meta.
The rest I agree. The point is, that elementalists either need healing ripple or EA. They don’t need necessarily both, but at least one of them. That’s not a balance issue, that’s a design flaw.

Beside that, taking a look at your numbers I don’t quite buy it that this should be a dps build. Especially as you have very low crit chance and crit dmg and no Fresh Air (fresh air is a huge dps buff, I’d even say for ~15%). Yet you are in melee range, so decent players can kite you or just dodge your skills.

In my opinion, it’s just not worth it to go for 20 points in air. 30 points in air is good due to Fresh Air, 10 points are good just to have som crit and bolt in the heart. Having 20 in air you just don’t gain anything superior. To go for bunker doesn’t deal much less dmg there, tried 0/0/20/20/30 once and it worked, was pretty much pure bunker, but it’s ofc less useful than any guardian.

@Peter Buch
You’ve saved me time with your answer….

To all the rest..
Anet simply copied the concept of Druid from WoW and applied it to the ele in GW2, but they failed miserably, so now we’re stuck with a profession that can specialize in nothing and can’t nothing better than other professions , they thought they could balance ele with big numbers on CD and low numbers on dmg, they gave the ele so many natural weaknesses to compensate for what they thought it was versatility and it in the end we ended up with a complete mess, they failed to realize a simple paradox: versatility vs specialization where one shouldn’t be inherently stronger than the other as it is in GW2, they should at this point scrap the current concept of the ele and come out with a new one….but I don’t really think this will happen, they’ll keep giving us patches with few “fixes” there and there in attempt to make it works…just like trying to save a sinking shape by covering the holes in the base with scotch stretchable tape.

Peter Buch.8071:

You may have forgotten that elementalists can swap into water attunement while stunned and especially feared. That’s why healing ripple and the condition removal is so extremly strong, even stunchained you still have a chance to survive and if fearchained you have a chance to get rid of the fear. You partially solve this problem by getting rock solid, but you lose a lot of heal therefor. Water Traitline gives some nice vitality additionally and vitality is more useful than tenacity in the current condition meta.

Yep that whopping 1.5k heal is going to save you from a stunlock, and fear will always be the only condition on you so you can easily cleanse it. These scenarios do exist, but are much less common than would make for a good argument. By running soldier amulet I have more vitality than the more commonly seen s/d with valkyrie amulet and 20 in water, so there seems to be some confusion.

Peter Buch.8071:

Beside that, taking a look at your numbers I don’t quite buy it that this should be a dps build. Especially as you have very low crit chance and crit dmg and no Fresh Air (fresh air is a huge dps buff, I’d even say for ~15%).

Since you love Fresh Air so much, with 30 air and a valkyrie amulet/zerker jewel, you have the same 22% chance to crit that I do here. Unless you prefer berserker amulet, in which case you will have a 0% chance to crit as you lay dead on the ground. There is also a good amount of fury uptime between arcana 5 and pack runes. If you find that to be low, Zephyr’s Boon is an option over BttH for even more fury uptime. Finally, 2004 power is the maximum you will see in a build with zero points in the power tree, selecting primary stat of power on amulet, jewel, and runes. I suppose it does have less power than the 30/30/0/20/30 fresh air build.

Peter Buch.8071:

Yet you are in melee range, so decent players can kite you or just dodge your skills.

Lightning Whip has 300 range, which is twice as much as you see on other melee attacks (hundred blades et al). Certainly this is still not a ranged attack, but combining the gap closers (RtL, burning speed) and snares (water 3, earth swap, earth 2/3) with that 300 range makes it difficult to kite.

Peter Buch.8071:

In my opinion, it’s just not worth it to go for 20 points in air. 30 points in air is good due to Fresh Air, 10 points are good just to have som crit and bolt in the heart. Having 20 in air you just don’t gain anything superior.

First you complain about my crit chance being too low, then conclude that 10 in air (less crit chance) is good. Air 15 and air training are both solid damage traits as you may have seen in your fresh air builds.

Since you love Fresh Air so much, with 30 air and a valkyrie amulet/zerker jewel, you have the same 22% chance to crit that I do here. Unless you prefer berserker amulet, in which case you will have a 0% chance to crit as you lay dead on the ground.

eeeehm…. quite no

I’m running a 0/30/0/10/30 build with wurm runes and berserker amulet, having closely 17k hp, ether renewal, arcane wave, lightning flash and arcane shield. 49% crit chance and good crit dmg, all around ~3,2k attack dmg. High burst, good dps and being not too squishy against burst and conditions. I tried several times to spend the 10 points that I have currently in Water on fire or earth, but both didn’t show up as effective as in water.
I’d definitly say, that the build I use is more focussed on dealing dmg, while your ones rather goes into the direction of being a bunker. I don’t believe that you are able to deal the same dmg. You are probably able to live longer, allthough I’m actually still not very easy to kill (unless being focussed by cc warriors and necromancers at the same time… but not even guardians can survive that).

Lightning Whip has 300 range, which is twice as much as you see on other melee attacks (hundred blades et al). Certainly this is still not a ranged attack, but combining the gap closers (RtL, burning speed) and snares (water 3, earth swap, earth 2/3) with that 300 range makes it difficult to kite.

Lightning wip does deal 40% more dps than the Scepter Air 1+2, therefor it’s affected by the AoE cap and can be dodged rather easily. The problem is just, that you are definitly forced into melee range – I’m not. To deal the maximum of my dmg, I have to get into close range as well, but most of the time I can stay on range. That’s a huge downside of your build, as you will be #1 target, getting hit by every AoE and symbol and well. You won’t really have a chance to deal the maximum of your dmg in close range combat.
Just btw., Dagger water 3 and earth swap aren’t snares. Both are soft ccs and slows, earth 3 is a true snare. Just to clarify the terms.

First you complain about my crit chance being too low, then conclude that 10 in air (less crit chance) is good. Air 15 and air training are both solid damage traits as you may have seen in your fresh air builds.

Well, just your opinion vs my opinion. I won’t argue there, we both have different experiences. I did just experience that it’s not worth it to go for 20 points in air. It’s worth it to go for 10 points in air and then to spend the other 10 points on something else (earth, fire or water). Or it’s worth it to go for 30 points in air. That’s up to our personal preferences.

While I do agree Elementalists are bottom tier right now…. They are still rewarding AF to play. I agree with some of the information that is being said within this thread, but these are some of my current opinions:

-You legitimately have to work 10x harder for a kill, when in comparison to other classes. But, the “outplay” potential still exists within the class.

-Unfortunately, I fear that with the supposed incoming nerfs to spirit rangers, and necros, it will place ele’s back at the top of the food chain. Already (with the specific spec I run) I give necros a hard time. If they mess up in any way, they lose.

-With that being said I do fear a nerf incoming to the s/d weapon set. The damage spike is too high, and isn’t foreshadowed at all. Essentially you have 3/4 sec to dodge about half of the burst incoming from s/d, and even then you still eat huge damage spikes. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that you WILL see more nerfs incoming to eles, but hopefully, you will see buffs in other areas as well.

-As of right now, we (eles) only fill one role within the competitive scene. Defensively roaming. I would like to help make other people aware that prior to this meta, we came from a spot that let us fill any role we desired. We aren’t the masters of the arena anymore, and we have to be aware of that.

PTFO, ladies and gents. Quit trying to man-mode. <3

Inb4 I get cussed out for not “sharing” what my build is. Here you go:

-Fresh-air build:
30 Air: VI, X, XII
10 Water: V
30 Arcana: VI, V, XI

-Amulet: Berserker
-Superior Force on scepter, Superior Energy on dagger
-Utilities: Sig heal, Arcane Shield, Mist Form, Port cantrip, Glyph of Ele
-And the SUPER secret: Runes of Lyssa.

Playstyle:
-One role to fill: Defensively roam between the nodes that you do have, or the nodes your TEAM is engaging.
-Do not attempt to 1v1 spirits, you will lose.
-When using your earth gib combo on a necro, remember to arcane shield when you knock him down to prevent his fear.
-Lyssa runes are an “OH SNAP” button, I recommend baiting Signet of Spite out of necros with it.
-You have a very aggressive appearance in team fights due to the two stun breaks and defensive utilities. This build isn’t meant to global people, but put tons of pressure on the team.
-Remember to pre-cast Air 1 when swapping attunements. It will automatically activate fresh-air due to the fury + high crit chance the build already has.
-If you can’t stand berserkers, or you just don’t want to run it, then use valks w/ zerker ammy.

Notes: I would say I am a very seasoned ele. This build MAY NOT work for you, and it isn’t some godly build that defeats everything. Your biggest fear is d/p thieves, but they are beatable. S/D thieves are extremely easy to kill with this build, and it is very forgiving. Just simply run from spirit rangers, simple as that. NO, I do not have a video for it, and NO I will not make one. I’m not sharing this because I feel the need to be some ele superhero. I’m sharing this because I love the class, and I want to fill people in on what I’m using that works for me.

The end.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2B2-V0657N-Z0;9;59-TT;10;348A45A531;3V-m7Y3H75Bo

This is the most viable d/d ele build right now imo. It’s 90% perma chill thats reapplied frequently. It’s not an easy build to play by any means because u need to pay attention to a lot of things but its pretty brutal 1v1 which is ele’s biggest weakness right now.

If you swap out mist form for cleansing fire its pretty strong against spirit rangers and engis.

Been messing with this kind of builds myself.Perma chill is not something impossible for ele but you need to survive long enough for the cd increase to really show up.But if you do then chill seems to be an amazing condition.
Another way to get good chill uptime is glyph of lesser elementals.The ice elemental creates frost fields that apply good chill themselves and you cna also blast through them for 4 sec frost auras.Those auras if i remember correctly seem to “semi” stack though..

welcome to warrior world

So, I heard people are trying to get necro condi damage nerfed hmm? Sounds fair only if we get some invulnerability, some mobility, stability, blocks and possibly some more useful group utility buffs you know to prevent us from being focused first all the time and thrown around with all that wonderful CC and not able to do anything about it? yea, before you go asking for nerfs for a class play one yourself atleast 500+ hours and see the glaring weaknesses and asking for buffs in those area’s and maybe nerfs in others.

I hate it when people are always quick to call out nerfs instead of thinking of ways to buff a class in area’s and tone the class in other area’s but seems people are to selfish and only care about their class that they play.

It’s funny. When you read back over the old “n3rfz teh 3l3” threads, most of the complaints are about being able to consistently defeat an ele, but they can always run away. So, ANet responded by nerfing the ele’s ability to run away… and their ability to stay and fight against people who were saying they could already easily defeat an ele and make them run.

Now they wonder why people think ele isn’t viable.

Now with Warriors becoming viable you might aswell completely trow your ele in the dustbin, because there’s no way you’re gonna out dmg their sustain.

Imo, Ele needs boost in PvE, they never had issues with PvP. It’s ridiculous that the top PvE dps build for eles require you to wield a hammer, destroying the theme of the class.

Always difficult when you face a good ele who knows what he’s doing in pvp.

If you don’t like thieves you can always reroll to a spirit ranger and just kitten your way to fame and victory.

Ele went from OP to worst class in game, and some people considered necro or ranger worst class and guess what they now best class.

uberkingkong.8041:

Ele went from OP to worst class in game, and some people considered necro or ranger worst class and guess what they now best class.

balance patch

uberkingkong.8041:

Ele went from OP to worst class in game, and some people considered necro or ranger worst class and guess what they now best class.

It actually went:
OP → worst in game (via general opinion) → OP → worst in game (via general opinion).

But that general opinion is supported by people who can’t make their own builds, can’t form their own styles, they just go to the forum, copy paste the latest OP build and force the class to be nerfed. Imagine if no one played the ele when D/D was one of its better builds (S/D was still a better bunker IMO), no one would have complained on the forum and the build would still be viable. Atm everyone plays Necros, so it won’t be long till its nerfed and everyone plays something else.

What was annoying about the D/D nerfs was that they affected a lot of builds, not just the root of the problem which was /Ds ability to do everything.

They only nerfs that Anet needed were:
1: Move Dagger Water 5 to Focus Water 5 (make focus the bunker weapon and dagger the Damage / Control / Roamer)
2: Move around the stun breaks (buff to a lot of builds, but upset a few)

TGSlasher.1458:

OP -> worst in game (via general opinion) -> OP -> worst in game (via general opinion)

The funny thing is only 2 things happened between worst and OP:

1. Eles built bunker as a reaction of the glass canon meta
2. self-stuns on dagger (magnetic grasp and rtl) have been fixed.

pmnt.4067:

TGSlasher.1458:

OP -> worst in game (via general opinion) -> OP -> worst in game (via general opinion)

The funny thing is only 2 things happened between worst and OP:

1. Eles built bunker as a reaction of the glass canon meta
2. self-stuns on dagger (magnetic grasp and rtl) have been fixed.

It was more:
OP (beta damage) → OP (even after beta nerf) Staff builds → UP super staff nerf (healing coeficents on staff heals, blast finishers on EA, condition internal cd on cleansing water)→ OP D/D Bunker (S/D was better) → Subpar what we have now.

I wouldn’t go as far to say that we are underpowed, but defiantly feels like we are subpar. If the OP builds (Walker the Texas ranger, necros) were brought into line we would be in a much better place.

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele:
Ele vs guardian:
Ele vs ranger:
Ele vs necro:
Ele vs thief:
Ele vs engineer:
Ele vs mesmer:
Ele vs warrior:

Ele wins vs Ele xD

And they have a decent chance against mesmer