Guild Wars 2

I am leveling up my elementalist and… I just don’t find any reason to unlock the arcane skills. They seem so boring. Sure gw2 has many ineffective skills but I can’t think of skills more dull than arcane…

• Arcane Brilliance is ok, blast + decent heal
• Arcane Shield: 75s CD for blocking 3 attacks?
• Arcane Wave: just a blast?
• Arcane Blast: does not even blast
• Arcane Power: kitten CD fo 5 critical hits?

I really don’t see any use for those skills except the heal. Am I missing something?

Back in the days of 2013, people didn’t know how to properly dodge yet. Thus, everyone got stomped by glass ele’s bursts, containing arcane skills. They were nerfed to the point where they’re unviable in most situations.

Like every utility the ele has except cantrips.

Since everyone is focused on HoT right now, I don’t expect any of the core classes’ problems to be adressed. Remember that big balance patch last week? All they did was nerf ice bow.

Bean Muncher.5197:

Back in the days of 2013, people didn’t know how to properly dodge yet. Thus, everyone got stomped by glass ele’s bursts, containing arcane skills. They were nerfed to the point where they’re unviable in most situations.

Like every utility the ele has except cantrips.

Since everyone is focused on HoT right now, I don’t expect any of the core classes’ problems to be adressed. Remember that big balance patch last week? All they did was nerf ice bow.

That’s what I call a perfect post. Thank you.

They have their uses. Their damage is pretty high and easy access to an extra combo finisher will never go amiss. Arcane Wave is great for some extra AoE Might (if you blast a Fire Field) or Healing (Water field). They’re especially strong if you trait for them.

I do want to give a special shout-out to Arcane Shield: it’s just three attacks, but often that’s all you need. Importantly, it’s three blocks a) with a stunbreaker, b) no cast time, and c) doesn’t interrupt your other actions. If you want to get off a full Meteor Storm but are concerned your opponents might hit you with a CC skill to interrupt, pop Arcane Shield and laugh as they waste their CC.

Arcane Shield and Brilliance are useful and in my utility bar. The others are very lackluster.

Blaine Tog.8304:

pop Arcane Shield and laugh as they waste their CC.

But I can also laugh that someone used utility slot for 75s CD 3 block skill instead of cantrip, right?

Arcane shield and blast are sometimes used by fresh air builds for active defense+free crit/fresh air proc respectively. Thats pretty much it in PvP.

In general though the elementalist has pretty poor utilities for PvP outside of cantrips. Signets are marginally useful because written in stone is really good, while glyphs are probably even worse than arcanes in how niche they are. And then we have the conjures, which are either completely overpowered in PvE or completely useless, the middle ground on elementalist utilities doesn’t exist.

Bean Muncher.5197:

Back in the days of 2013, people didn’t know how to properly dodge yet. Thus, everyone got stomped by glass ele’s bursts, containing arcane skills. They were nerfed to the point where they’re unviable in most situations.

Like every utility the ele has except cantrips.

Since everyone is focused on HoT right now, I don’t expect any of the core classes’ problems to be adressed. Remember that big balance patch last week? All they did was nerf ice bow.

Yeah I miss the launch meta, when we actually had 3 viable heals, mistform was usable, RTL was usable, and we could use utilities like signets

Pops Arcane Shield and laugh at your opponents wasting their CCs for a second? Why not pop an Armor of Earth and laugh at them wasting their CC for 8 seconds and get a bunch of boons in the process?

Arcane Shield needs a 40s cool down.

Armour of Earth > Arcane shield in pvp, in pve/wvw Arcane shield can be useful when running through mobs as it allows you to avoid being in combat if you pop it before running through mobs so will let you keep your ooc speed.

arcanse wave is also useful as a blast for tagging mobs/people in pve & wvw, in pvp its main uses are as a blast finisher + the insta cast can be useful, especially as you can cast it at the same time as casting longer spells (such as meteor shower)

i have personally found very little use for any of the other arcane spells

zxstanyxz.8769:

Armour of Earth > Arcane shield in pvp.

This is only true for tanky/bruiser builds. Arcane shield is one of the BEST utilities a dps ele (like marauder fresh air) can get. Because of the damage when it breaks, it serves as a VERY strong defense against incoming melee burst damage (what you fear most). Good thieves/mesmers learn quickly to back off and stop DPS for the duration. Bad ones attack into it and die, at least back when fresh air ele was viable. Nowadays, dps ele just can’t keep up with the superior damage, team utility, and defense (against both condi AND power) of mesmers.

Arcane wave and brilliance are pretty useful in PvE, but they are fairly lackluster.

I love Blast and Wave because they’re 0-cast time attacks that hit decently hard (and for Wave, being a blast finisher is also great). That’s a rarity in this game, so that alone makes them fairly unique in my eyes. Love using them and just being able to throw them out literally whenever I want without interrupting whatever else I’m doing.

Arcane Power has always been pretty “meh” to me. Its unique enough, there aren’t really any skills that do the same thing, but its not all that impressive overall. Guaranteed crits are nice, but not enough to waste a skill slot for. Also, the fact that its the next five hits and not the next 5 attacks kind of sucks, as it means one single multi-hit attack or a single AoE uses the whole skill all at once. I suppose the condition applications are nice if you trait Elemental Surge, though.

Arcane Shield is great, again mostly for being a 0-cast time defensive utility, which comes in handy for sure. Cooldown is a bit of a detriment, though.

Brilliance is alright. An attacking / finishing heal is fairly unique (though getting less so with elite specs). Healing amount is a bit of an annoyance with how inconsistent it is, though. Particularly since sometimes you want to get away from enemies to heal to keep yourself safe, but then you get bad healing.

I’d say Arcane skills are far from the most boring in the game. Heck, even on the Elementalist specifically I’d say Signets are far more boring (as well as signets on most other classes). Their active effects tend to be underwhelming, and I don’t like being encouraged to NOT use my utilities. Even on Ele who can use them as regular skills with Written in Stone, the effects are just bland.

I run arcane brilliance and arcane shield traited in WvW. Especially brilliance with its short casting time combined with a lifedraining runeset is great. It totally fits my build that has a lot of on crit effects too, blast my fire field and gives ferocity + a condition.
Its often a realy brutal turnaround when i duel, fall below 50% and fire brilliance at short range.
Arcane briliance might leave the toolbar with tempest eiter for wash the pain away or aether renewal when i redesign my build without arcane. But for now its the best heal for me.
Shield is a stunbreaker that usually secures me the next cast and explodes. I eiter use it at start of a fight going between oponents for a blast more or keep it for escape to pull off FSG.

Hell no! I use Arcane Wave and Arcane Blast on my Staff ele build and its amazing. Does respectable damage and one has a blast that is useful in so many situations while the other lets me apply even more burning to an enemy to kill them faster. I’ve had moments where I switch to air, lightning hits, my skill 2 hits, then I use Arcane Blast at the same time and they lose a big chunk of their health as well as get conditions from the Arcane trait+fire or chill field.

PvP —→Fresh Air
PvE --→Blast

dimek.4592:

Blaine Tog.8304:

pop Arcane Shield and laugh as they waste their CC.

But I can also laugh that someone used utility slot for 75s CD 3 block skill instead of cantrip, right?

Not if it gets the job done. There are no Cantrips that give you what Arcane Shield does: total damage immunity against 3 attacks. Sometimes, you need that more than some condi removal, or sometimes you’d rather have 3 blocks than 3 seconds of Invulnerability because you can’t go through the Meteor Storm channel while in Mist Form.

Sometimes you’re getting hit by a swarm of little attacks and then Arcane Shield isn’t as amazing (though at least you still get the big AoE damage). When I’m running it, though, I find it’s pretty easy to get good use out of it to ensure you get a given channel off, or to help with a tricky run. It’s probably even more useful for Eles that want to run glassier builds; I run Celestial and the Mossman’s attack from stealth takes away most of my health, so if I were running Zerker, I’d think hard about taking Arcane Shield to ensure I don’t go down, even if I’m out of Endurance and can’t dodge.

Sunshine.5014:

Pops Arcane Shield and laugh at your opponents wasting their CCs for a second? Why not pop an Armor of Earth and laugh at them wasting their CC for 8 seconds and get a bunch of boons in the process?

Arcane Shield needs a 40s cool down.

Who says you can’t run both Armor of Earth and Arcane Shield? Also, Armor of Earth blocks CC but not damage. Arcane Shield blocks both, which can be invaluable. I wouldn’t be adverse to Arcane Shield’s cooldown going down a bit, though.

Blast is legit, I run Shield / Blast on a S/D marauder build, with Elemental Surge you get permanent +150 ferocity and 1200 range no cast time 2k~ dmg + immob or blind or maybe chill every 16se, its pretty good. You can even use it to burn mid Firegrab cast…

Wave and Brilliance are solid skills (Brilliance has huge heal and support potential if you run staff, and I see no reason to run it with anything else), and arcane shield shines most on zerker builds where 3 hits suddenly becomes a lot, because it’s completely independent of your defensive stats, while our piddling base stats mean that zerker can’t use armor of earth as well.
Sadly, they all compete with evasive arcana, since you sort of need the CDR and while elemental surge is really horribly inappropriate for what seems to be intended to be direct damage burst skills, you still sort of have to take it.

Blast and power just aren’t even worth touching unless you’re building for a cheesy 1v1 spec (power will apply ele surge on all five hits, so you can stack burn very well against a single target, and blast is just instant unavoidable (unless predicted somehow) damage on a low cooldown.