Guild Wars 2

Okay, my first attempt at this was far too long, so I decided to rewrite. Simply put, do you think I am making the best use of the attunement mechanic in the given situations?

I’ve been playing Ele as my main since launch, but I’ve been away a while and upon returning I found I seem to swap less than before. I use a staff, with traits focused in fire damage and water for healing, and arcane skills, usually with frost bow. I tend to mostly run dungeons and world bosses and the build works fine.
But I tend to spend most my time in fire, and only swap to water to heal. I usually end up using frost bow as a weapon swap instead of my other attunements. And while I know why I do it and think it is for the best, it just feels wrong to do. For most mobs, including world bosses, I tend to just use fire and swap to water if I run into issues. But even for dungeon bosses, it seems I don’t get a lot out of air and earth, at least over frost bow and such. The only skill I’d really use on Air is the staff 2 but due to its long cast time I wonder if it is worth it; the rest are CC that bosses tend to resist. On Earth, it feels to have a similar problem with Air since the aura is situational and the movement skills are a lot like CC and often don’t matter. Eruption is the only one I probably should use more, but with lag and attunement recharges, it is can be hard to combo with lava font.

So do you think I am using the attunements well enough with the staff? My main concern is that I am focusing on fire/ice bow more and that I could be doing better and helping team more by swapping, but I currently just don’t see a reason most of the time. Thoughts?

I’m no expert, but I play staff as well, and after a bit of research, most people have been saying that in staff you’ll usually be in fire the whole time because it’s the only good source of damage. I myself tend to switch to Air for the #3 knockback or Earth for the #4 wall. Fire really IS the only way I do damage and all the other attunements are just for situational things.

Most of my staff experience comes from WvW. In such I tend to use all attunements about equally ( maybe fire and water slightly more than air and earth). Its not necessarily bad to stay in fire if you or your group are able to. Only recommendations that I have is not to neglect the Earth #2 blast finish. True it may be difficult to get that to go off on lava font, but you can put the earth skill down 1st and then the fire field after to make it easier to get the might. Also you can use Earth 2 to blast your geyser and healing rain the same way.

Just like you though I tend not to swap attunements nowhere near as much when im on staff compared to say S/D or D/D.

You’ll mostly be in Fire and Water in PvE because these 2 are mostly the only ones you need. I only switch to Earth for control and might stacking and Air for swiftness and Static Field.

In PvP or WvW you’ll find yourself switching a lot more because you will need to adapt to your current situation.

Thanks for the replies. So it seems it is more of a staff and pve thing than just me. I do use Air a lot for travel, especially in WvW where I also tend to use for 1 skill for tagging mobs. I’d expect the CC and crippling skills to be much more useful in PvP and WvW, but most champion and such are immune to it so kinda kills the attunement I guess. I do try to chill and cripple some bosses like the Archdiviner in fractals though.
So I guess the two things is should improve on is trying to combo Eruption more with fields, but with my lag it has proved to be very hard, and to study more on professions and combos so I can know what fields to use when (e.g. what professions are likely to make use of Static Field for Vulnerability…it gives that off projectiles, right? XD).

Every situation is different. like how many players are at a given WB? if you are 3 persons on Fire shaman you can have greater use for far more skills on the staff. if you have 100 doing it then properly not.
Earth blast finisher is extremely important. would not be able to play without it.
the earth wall has some very nice uses if placed right. even hillarius ones. more wb’s then you think are affected.
Air 6 combo with eath 2is a natural movement speed buff. used in wvw, dungeons and even solo.
earth3 —- reflect missile. besides the defensive part… its heavy damage back at a ranged enemy. very useful in every circumstance
earth 5 is what I usualy start out with in most scenarios..
Gust air 3. fun for wvw edge of mist ^^ and for pve it can give you a little defense.
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air 1…… go into TA dungeon….. and this time stop listening to the same old dredge about "you have to have x " in this case . you have to have a guard to staff clear flowers….. and just use air 1.
hell even earth 1. gives weakness….. not that many powers- for any class does that.