Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone. I’m quite new to the game (been playing about 2 weeks now) and I really enjoy playing a staff Elementalist in WvW. I’m having a hard time gauging my effectiveness during battle and I wanted to solicit some constructive criticism to hopefully improve my gameplay.

First a little bit about my setup: http://bit.ly/19XsfH7

I know it’s a really unorthodox setup. I wanted to focus on hard hitting AoE and survivability above all else. 30 points in fire to hopefully bring the AoE damage, 10 in earth, 10 in water and 20 in arcana for survivability with their Adept traits. Blasting Staff Master trait in Arcana is self explanatory. Soldier gear for power and survivability, although I know I’ve sacrificed a lot of potential damage from critical hits.

At the start of a fight I will typically toss as much support as possible by throwing Static Field, Frozen Ground and Ice Spike. I’ll drop an Eruption and lay down a fire field for Area Might and then commence nuking. Once the battle has been joined for a few seconds I’ll roll AoE heals as needed, drop some more CC and vulnerability, go Earth to cripple and immobilize anyone who is rushing the back line then pop another Eruption and fire field for Area Might and repeat the process. I really only get killed if we’re getting wiped and it’s usually towards the end of the wipe. I do feel very survivable on the field.

I’ve followed some really great commanders and through their leadership and the people around me I’ve had a lot of success on the field but I wanted to make sure I was carrying my weight by being as effective as possible. Please weigh in with any criticisms or advice.

Thanks!

Always pop Magnetic Aura before leaving earth attunement. It’ll recharge before you get back to that attunement, and it may save you.

You’ll probably get the best advice from the Ele subforum.

I started out in WvW with a very similar build (30 in fire), but eventually switched to the standard bunker (30 water 30 arcana) and absolutely loved it!

You get so much heals and survivability with 30 in water. 30 in arcana lets you switch attunements in a pinch, and also gives you Evasive arcana, which is like, the best ele trait ever.

As a staff ele, you serve the zerg best by providing tons of AoE for people to use blast finishers on, while hitting as many enemies as possible with your many AoEs. The longer you are able to survive, the better your ability to do this.

Don’t blow all your CC in one go . You only need to do it as needed. Stunning is best for zergs that are charging you, and chilling is best for when you are charging a zerg. Crippling works great on people that are running away.

As a long-ranged person, your job is to keep the guys in the back from running away. Use that long range and keep them in combat mode.

Also, you should swap out Lightening Flash for Signet of Earth for the toughness and the root. Keep in mind burning retreat has a similar range to lightening flash, you just have to angle your camera right.

Your build seems a bit too scattered right now. As a staff ele, you don’t need PVT for everything. If you are going for more support / CC, you should specialize into water a bit more.

Main problem with your build is the lack of damage and survivability.

V in Water cleanses a condition off of you and a teammates when you attune to water. This has good self and team usefulness.
V in Arcana will give you and allies boons and is absolutely key for any ele build.

Also, 15 in water gives a heal everytime you hop into water and 15 in arcana extends the boon length every time you change attunements. No ele should ever run less than 15 in the last two lines.

Too lazy for the other stuff, but this is approximately the build I run in wvw to zerg-bust.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQFAWhImkbox5wjDAEFm8iQRFUUeMzO2A-j0yAoLEMGAFBgKgk9KiGbVrIasq6ApXwUuJV9C7NwkBgZMA-w

I mainly use a staff in WvW when running with guild group (15+). The other classes do a fine job with damage so I gravitate towards support.

Currently running 0/20/0/20/30
air- zyphyr’s boon, areomancer’s alacrity
water- cleansing wave, soothing wave
arcana- elemental attunement, blasting staff, evasive arcana

gear, a mix of knights & zerker, cleric with healing staff and some vitality trinks

I made this build to reduce time on static field, as support my goal is to cc as much and often as possible. use AoE dps between all the cc skills the staff provides. with static field on a 31 second cool down you can support your group out of combat with basically perma swiftness.

Lots of good advice and lots to think about. Thanks everyone, and please keep it coming!

First off I would change the Adept Trait in Water from Soothing Disruption to Cleansing Wave, this lets you remove a condition from you and allies just by switching to water attunement. This is incredibly useful with Fear, while feared you can simply switch to Water attunement and remove it from you and allies.

Another tip is before casting Meteor Shower always be sure to have Earth attunement ready, this way you can start casting Meteor Shower and immediately switch to Earth Attunement to put up Magnetic Aura, this way you are reflecting projectiles the whole time you are casting it. Any good player will see an ele run up in fire attunement and know they are about to cast meteor and immediately target you, with Magnet Aura you will prevent all but aoe attacks and if someone try’s to pull you they will get pulled into your group instead due to the reflection. You can also then proceed to lay down a cripple field in your meteor shower to keep them there a little longer.

Also, if you like the condition/power focus of your build I would recommend switching out the 100power/70 condition food for 40% condition duration/70 condition food. At your lvl of power, a 100 power increase from food is not better then increasing the duration of all your cripples, bleeds, chills, and burns by 40% duration. Also once you get comfortable being able to position yourself in a safe way during fights and be able get away from thieves that target you, I would switch your jewelry to pure Rampagers (precision/power/condtion damage). This will grant you more condition damage and an extra ~25% crit chance.

I run staff ele (when I’m not roaming) and have ~145k kills under my belt in WvW, but before I give advice, a couple of clarification questions:

1 – What size group do you run with?
2 – What is your group composition? (necro-heavy? ele-heavy? guard/war-heavy? mes-heavy?)
3 – When running in large groups, do you have separate range/tank groups that split and reform, or do you run DPS-ball? (Both valid strategies, but require different thought processes when designing a build for them.)

Atrophied.8725:

1 – What size group do you run with?
2 – What is your group composition? (necro-heavy? ele-heavy? guard/war-heavy? mes-heavy?)
3 – When running in large groups, do you have separate range/tank groups that split and reform, or do you run DPS-ball? (Both valid strategies, but require different thought processes when designing a build for them.)

Since I’m brand new I don’t have a set group that I run with on a regular basis. I typically find a commander tag, hop in the appropriate TS channel, and run with the zerg. Group size is usually 15-30 people. Compositions vary. We all move as a single group.

Something similar to this might be what you’re looking for:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQFAWhEmKbwR5wjDAEFnYyQRIjUeMzO2A-jkzAoLEcHAxAgKgkzxSeCiZPksIaZUZt4KIqqjsyGTFLkawLiWtMAMjB-w

Nourishments key for wvw are either the lemongrass poultry soup (reduce condi duration), or omnomberry compote (heals on kill)

Note that I run a bloodlust staff for +250 power in stacks (during small engagements, tower/camp captures) before switching to stamina for large-scale engagements.