Guild Wars 2

Before launch of the game, before betas, all of that, i thought the elementalist was going to be what arena net said it would. Youre attunement should dictate how your playstyle is going to be. The only attunement that fufills that is water. Every other attunement is just a blend of various skills. They do on a very small scale have certain qualities to them, but not what they should be. Water should be for controlling your enemies and supporting yourself, and to a degree, this is true. but how about earth’s staff 4+5 skill where one cripples and the other immobilizes? That is control. How about airs focus skill 5 where it knocks them down? more control. or airs offhand dagger 5, updraft.. more control. left to other attunements. I can go on about how air is supposed to be high damage, earth for defense, and fire for whatever. Air attunement should do so much more damage than what it does now. theres no reason i should do more damage with water scepter autoattack than air autoattack. (i get on average 1k per autoattack every 3/4 a second when i go full berszerkers gear, compared to airs 3k chain every 4 seconds). And this is just one example of it. So lets hear other opinions on this.

Where did you get the idea that water would be the main control attunement? Even in game it is described that air would be the attunement with control abilities.

You are right though. The attunements do not have very distinctly different playstyles. There definitely is a difference, however; fire is definitely AOE damage, air has single target burst+control, water has healing and cond removal, and earth has defensive abilities+bleeds. It is as they described it in game.

Fire gives more damage than any other school, air is more mobility, water is more healing, and earth is more defense….. I don’t see what the issue is here.

Mid fight I pop what I need depending on those 4 things basically.

• Staff
  Fire: Damage in general.
  Water: Healing and CC.
  Air: CC and mobility.
  Earth: Condition damage and CC.

• Scepter/Dagger and Scepter/Focus
  Fire: Burst damage.
  Water: Healing and CC.
  Air: Single target damage and CC (mobility with offhand dagger), as well as minor defense with a blind.
  Earth: Condition damage and defense (CC with an offhand dagger).

• Dagger/Dagger and Dagger/Focus
  Fire: Damage in general and minor mobility.
  Water: Healing and CC.
  Air: CC (Mobility with offhand dagger.)
  Earth: Condition damage, CC, and minor mobility (defense with a focus, as well).

Y’know, our different attunements don’t mean much when we’re forced to switch between them due to weak autoattacks, long cooldowns, and bonuses for swapping attunements, instead of using them for specific situations.

Staff:
Fire: 1. Normal attack 2. small AoE damage 3.Target AoE burn 4. Escape 5. Large AoE damage

Water: 1. Low attack, heals melee allies 2. Vulnerability 3. Small AoE heal 4. AoE Slow 5. Large AoE Heal

Air: 1. Ricochet attack 2. 2s charge blind 3. narrow single target push 4. AoE swiftness 5. AoE stun

Earth: 1. Normal attack, weakness effect 2: 2s charge bleed 3. Anti-Missile shield 4. Cripple 5. Narrow single target immobilize

Description:
Fire – heavy damage and burning abilities.
Water – superior support and healing abilities.
Air – heavy damage and control abilities.
Earth – superior damage-over-time and defensive abilities.

At least for staff, the role simply isn’t optimal.
Fire’s burning capability is only skill 3
Air’s damaging skill is only skill 1
Earth’s bleed is only skill 2, defense is only skill 3 and 4

Overlap in utility:
Water 4, Air 5, Earth 4 all are pretty much for the same use: halting the enemy. Air 5 is useless against stability, but Water and Earth 4 are still applicable

Burn and Bleed both are damage-over-time.

The playstyles are not different. Different attunement only defines the type of damage you deal. I frankly would like them to have different playstyle with each attunement, for example:

Fire – gain superior area damage spells (burn is only a bit of bonus)
Water – gain superior healing and boon spells (chill is only a bit of bonus)
Air – gain superior single-target spells and knockbacks
Earth – gain superior blockade and condition spells (bleed is only a bit of bonus)

So:
Use Fire to deal damage to a large group of enemies
Use Water to truly support your allies
Use Air to deal with single targets, and to harass individuals
Use Earth to keep the enemies from chasing, or to keep them from running away. Also to inflict conditions such as blind, vulnerability, and the likes.

Chaosky.5276:

Our different attunements don’t mean much when we’re forced to switch between them due to weak autoattacks, long cooldowns, and bonuses for swapping attunements, instead of using them for specific situations.

What he said.

I thought it would be like the Engineer, where you swapped attunements depending on what’s needed. Right now I’m leveling an Engi, and it’s a lot more fun because all of the 10-30 skills can be accessed at any time.

Obviously if attunements have no cooldown, it would be overpowered, but I still hope that one day I can swap attunements not just because all the skills in the current attunement are on cooldown.

fire → high dmg
air→ crit and some utility
earth→ cond and some defense (staff as a ranged weapon needs the kiting abilities)
water→ heal and aoe debuff (chill)

I agree with a lot of what the O kitten aying. I will give the example of D/D because that is the playstyle I enjoy.

Fire has some high-damage spells on short cooldowns that allows some of our best DPS – this seems pretty good, although fire-grab could use some fixing.

Water has some healing, some chilling, and a little vulnerability – also pretty good

Earth – has a few spells that bleed, a good CC, and very slow single-target CC. I feel like there should be more toughness increases and bleeds, and less straight damage. As it is, earth has our hardest-hitting spell (Churning earth). I personally would tweak CE to give less straight-damage on a shorter charge and cooldown, but still apply lots of bleeds. I would also change earth 3 to either be a pull on the enemy, or combine the snare and pull into one single action. Currently, the leap finish doesn’t apply any conditions and does no damage.

Air – this is the attunement I feel is furthest from its desire. Its auto-attack is ok, but is more aoe rather than single-target. Updraft is a fitting CC, and RTL would be better as a shorter gap, higher-damage, lower cooldown skill. Shocking aura is ok, but doesn’t improve dps. My largest gripe is air 2 – this simply doesn’t fit at all with what air is supposed to do. Air 2 should be a high-single target damage skill that stings. This would drastically change the flavor of the air attunement, which is mostly defensive (except the auto-attack). As it is, if you are on-top of your enemy, you only switch to air for a couple of auto-attacks to kill time. I don’t go into air when its 1v1 thinking “let’s get some damage.” I go into air and say “let’s get some defense, and then maybe wip a couple times.” I would really like a high-spike single-target spell here. I think people who want to play more dps would love this as well.

Raestloz.7134:

Staff:
Fire: 1. weak attack 2. small AoE damage 3.Target AoE burn 4. half range Escape 5. moderate 5 target AoE damage

Water: 1. extra weak attack, heals melee allies 2. Vulnerability that misses 3. Small AoE heal 4. 5 target short duration AoE Slow 5. Large AoE Heal

Air: 1. Ricochet attack 2. 2s charge blind that always misses 3. narrow single target push that always misses 4. AoE swiftness 5. AoE stun

Earth: 1. Normal attack, weakness effect 2: 2s charge bleed that always misses, and is only used to trigger combo fields 3. Anti-Missile shield 4. line of warding style Cripple with short duration 5. Narrow single target immobilize

Description:
Fire – heavy damage and burning abilities.
Water – superior support and healing abilities.
Air – heavy damage and control abilities.
Earth – superior damage-over-time and defensive abilities.

Fixed that for you, so people don’t get the wrong idea about staves.

Sunflowers.1729:

Chaosky.5276:

Our different attunements don’t mean much when we’re forced to switch between them due to weak autoattacks, long cooldowns, and bonuses for swapping attunements, instead of using them for specific situations.

What he said.

I thought it would be like the Engineer, where you swapped attunements depending on what’s needed. Right now I’m leveling an Engi, and it’s a lot more fun because all of the 10-30 skills can be accessed at any time.

Obviously if attunements have no cooldown, it would be overpowered, but I still hope that one day I can swap attunements not just because all the skills in the current attunement are on cooldown.

It would not be overpowered if the traits and bonuses would have ICD’s.

stale.9785:

Fire 5: moderate 5 target AoE damage

It was my impression that Meteor Shower bypasses the 5-man target limit because the limit applies to each individual meteor, rather than the whole spell. I could be wrong though. Also, since it can easily deal up to 10k damage per target (in PvE hitting isn’t an issue) the damage is far from mediocore. Especially for an AoE skill.

Water 4: 5 target short duration

Prefer ‘perma-chills-anything-including-bosses-due-to-combo-potential’ as a decription instead. That’s also the reason it has a short duration. If used correctly, it can easily apply 20+ seconds of chill.

2s charge blind that always misses

How can is miss if it’s not a projectile? Or do you mean that you can’t use it to ‘block’ a specific attack?

Yes, each individual meteor can hit 5 people so Meteor Shower bypasses the 5-man AoE cap (in a sort of roundabout way, I guess).

stale.9785:

Raestloz.7134:

Staff:
Fire: 1. weak attack 2. small AoE damage 3.Target AoE burn 4. half range Escape 5. moderate 5 target AoE damage

Water: 1. extra weak attack, heals melee allies 2. Vulnerability that misses 3. Small AoE heal 4. 5 target short duration AoE Slow 5. Large AoE Heal

Air: 1. Ricochet attack 2. 2s charge blind that always misses 3. narrow single target push that always misses 4. AoE swiftness 5. AoE stun

Earth: 1. Normal attack, weakness effect 2: 2s charge bleed that always misses, and is only used to trigger combo fields 3. Anti-Missile shield 4. line of warding style Cripple with short duration 5. Narrow single target immobilize

Description:
Fire – heavy damage and burning abilities.
Water – superior support and healing abilities.
Air – heavy damage and control abilities.
Earth – superior damage-over-time and defensive abilities.

Fixed that for you, so people don’t get the wrong idea about staves.

Well sorry you suck at staff…

Leo G.4501:

stale.9785:

Fixed that for you, so people don’t get the wrong idea about staves.

Well sorry you suck at staff…

Then please enlighten us as to how we can improve; I’m most interested to learn how skill can make attacks hit harder. Also, personally, I don’t think being forced to use Static Field or something just for a chance to get moderate damage out of an AoE attack makes for effective combat, but maybe I’m just bad.

Chaosky.5276:

Leo G.4501:

stale.9785:

Fixed that for you, so people don’t get the wrong idea about staves.

Well sorry you suck at staff…

Then please enlighten us as to how we can improve; I’m most interested to learn how skill can make attacks hit harder. Also, personally, I don’t think being forced to use Static Field or something just for a chance to get moderate damage out of an AoE attack makes for effective combat, but maybe I’m just bad.

Not talking about damage (that can vary depending on circumstances and terrain). I’m talking about the ignorant adds:
-Why would you expect an evade (same as a dodge) to be some sort of long range escape? It’s meant to dodge while moving you away from a target, not leap you 1000+ range away.
-If you can’t hit more than 5 targets with Meteor Shower, that’s your problem.
-If you can’t hit someone with ice spike, which has a hefty radius without Blasting Staff, that’s your problem.
-If you can’t hit a target with a 1200 range attack that isn’t a projectile, that’s your problem.

Also, Shockwave is a line immobilize + bleed although it’s also a slowish projectile so can be dodged but it’s also pretty wide.

IMO, Staff is best when paired with lots of condition duration as it can apply lots of conditions in an AoE. It’s not a dueling weapon, it’s a support weapon.

It’s a simple fact – staff is our weakest weapon. Our highest attack on it does pitiful damage (meteor shower, I’m looking at you.) There are no high damage single target attacks at all, the CC is on 5 second duration (making a ranger bringing muddy terrain more adept at CC than ele’s).

I’ve made posts – One long one, collecting and allowing for complaints from the community, about how to buff staff.

Did anyone else play beta? You know we lost 50% of our damage on staff, right? Because people were afraid of being smoked by AoE.

You know that a zerker staff build is still mediocre damage? As in, a PVT warrior does more damage with it’s auto attack? A bunker ranger’s pet does more damage than the staff can dish out? That’s where I’m saying staff is hurting – because Anet nerfed it into a walking stick instead of a weapon.

And we’re not going to get buffs – the mantra at Anet is Melee over Everything which they call risk vs. reward. Low armour, low hp, doing damage from range – well, since there are more gap closers in the game than there are skills to keep them, that’s your risk right there.

Before you call me out next time, maybe look at my post history, or take your staff to the mists and compare it to our other weapons when used on the golems. (A S/D can to 8 times the damage, in far less time. A D/D can do better damage with almost 0 risk of death. Every single other profession can do more damage with more armour and comparable utility to a staff ele.)

Leo G.4501:

IMO, Staff is best when paired with a team to do damage for you, because it’s a support weapon.

Fixed that for you. In wvw, waving a staff around makes you a free kill. Every class (except necro) can close the gap to melee range long before a staff user can hope to deal out enough damage to kill them. Ice spike’s animation is slow enough that there’s no reason someone should get hit by it – same applies to earthquake.

Of our two escape skills, one only tosses you back a short distance, then the enemy walks up to you to continue killing you – the other one never hits.

For air 2 always missing – it has a 2 second buildup – there’s no reason that anyone will stand there for a full 2 seconds to be hit by it.

The attitude of someone facing a staff should be “I better close now, before I’m toast.” what it is; “look! a staffy! free kill” (saunters over and kills ele).

This is a subject that I’ve given a lot of thought to, and gotten suggestions from the community for what appropriate changes would be:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/staff-fixes-improvements/first#post1747448

Believe me, I’d love nothing more than for a staff ele to match up with Anet’s description of us – but we don’t, and after 8 months with 0 love, I don’t believe we’re going to either.

Leo G.4501:

Not talking about damage (that can vary depending on circumstances and terrain). I’m talking about the ignorant adds:
-Why would you expect an evade (same as a dodge) to be some sort of long range escape? It’s meant to dodge while moving you away from a target, not leap you 1000+ range away.
-If you can’t hit more than 5 targets with Meteor Shower, that’s your problem.
-If you can’t hit someone with ice spike, which has a hefty radius without Blasting Staff, that’s your problem.
-If you can’t hit a target with a 1200 range attack that isn’t a projectile, that’s your problem.

Also, Shockwave is a line immobilize + bleed although it’s also a slowish projectile so can be dodged but it’s also pretty wide.

IMO, Staff is best when paired with lots of condition duration as it can apply lots of conditions in an AoE. It’s not a dueling weapon, it’s a support weapon.

Burning Retreat is clearly meant to be used for escaping/mobility, so why can’t it function more like a mesmer’s Phase Retreat?

Ice Spike is really easy to avoid.

I agree that the other points aren’t accurate, but I ask you this: Why must staff elementalists be restricted to a support role when other classes can offer both support and solo capability?

ThiBash.5634:

stale.9785:

Fire 5: moderate 5 target AoE damage

It was my impression that Meteor Shower bypasses the 5-man target limit because the limit applies to each individual meteor, rather than the whole spell. I could be wrong though. Also, since it can easily deal up to 10k damage per target (in PvE hitting isn’t an issue) the damage is far from mediocore. Especially for an AoE skill.

Water 4: 5 target short duration

Prefer ‘perma-chills-anything-including-bosses-due-to-combo-potential’ as a decription instead. That’s also the reason it has a short duration. If used correctly, it can easily apply 20+ seconds of chill.

2s charge blind that always misses

How can is miss if it’s not a projectile? Or do you mean that you can’t use it to ‘block’ a specific attack?

Easily hit up to 10K per target? Against uplevelled folks in wvw? or glass cannons? or, ambient creatures? It will not do that damage against a levelled enemy in wvw. It can’t, the damage calculations don’t allow for it.

If you get 20+ seconds of chill from that skill, your opponent was afk in the field. 5 seconds, pinging every second, on a field that one dodge roll removes you from, for a max possible hit of 20 targets, or 5 at 20 seconds. Far more likely, you’ll get 5 people for 5 seconds, and that’s it.

The air skill has a 2 second build up, evade and dodge both work against it (which shouldn’t, because it’s not a projectile.) you can also walk around the ele and not get hit, which is also wrong, because it’s not supposed to be a projectile.

Please, don’t accuse me of being a baddy, when I most certainly know whereof I speak. My complaints about damage come straight from working the damage calculation from the wiki, my complaints about skills come from actual in-game experience, since the descriptions (on about 70% of the skills in game) are flat out wrong.

Ele was my main, 1200 hours, trust me, I know the ele. I shelved him because the lack of love on staff, and the kittenstorm that came down because of d/d bunkers.

I can roll a S/D ele, and play in melee range, but that’s not what I want. I want to be a staff wielding engine of pain, as described on the character creation screen, the Anet page about ele’s, and what we were in GW1. Hitting like a limp noodle from range, with no tools to maintain that range, sucks balls.

I just want to say, one of my best accomplishments in WvW was surviving a chase from a thief (he must have sucked) when I got caught with my pants down holding a staff. It was an epic effort using EVERY trick I could: lightning flash, camera+burning retreat, drop every slow and damage field I could just a bit behind me, throwing water fields just ahead of me to heal a bit, and then eventually popping my elite FGS to just barely reach the tower. You know staff is underpowered when just surviving requires popping an elite as you slink back to your tower. Elites are usually meant to change the tide of a battle, and it this case it did! I went from free badge to epic survivor! Hooray staffies!

stale.9785:

ThiBash.5634:

stale.9785:

Fire 5: moderate 5 target AoE damage

It was my impression that Meteor Shower bypasses the 5-man target limit because the limit applies to each individual meteor, rather than the whole spell. I could be wrong though. Also, since it can easily deal up to 10k damage per target (in PvE hitting isn’t an issue) the damage is far from mediocore. Especially for an AoE skill.

Water 4: 5 target short duration

Prefer ‘perma-chills-anything-including-bosses-due-to-combo-potential’ as a decription instead. That’s also the reason it has a short duration. If used correctly, it can easily apply 20+ seconds of chill.

2s charge blind that always misses

How can is miss if it’s not a projectile? Or do you mean that you can’t use it to ‘block’ a specific attack?

Easily hit up to 10K per target? Against uplevelled folks in wvw? or glass cannons? or, ambient creatures? It will not do that damage against a levelled enemy in wvw. It can’t, the damage calculations don’t allow for it.

If you get 20+ seconds of chill from that skill, your opponent was afk in the field. 5 seconds, pinging every second, on a field that one dodge roll removes you from, for a max possible hit of 20 targets, or 5 at 20 seconds. Far more likely, you’ll get 5 people for 5 seconds, and that’s it.

The air skill has a 2 second build up, evade and dodge both work against it (which shouldn’t, because it’s not a projectile.) you can also walk around the ele and not get hit, which is also wrong, because it’s not supposed to be a projectile.

Please, don’t accuse me of being a baddy, when I most certainly know whereof I speak. My complaints about damage come straight from working the damage calculation from the wiki, my complaints about skills come from actual in-game experience, since the descriptions (on about 70% of the skills in game) are flat out wrong.

Ele was my main, 1200 hours, trust me, I know the ele. I shelved him because the lack of love on staff, and the kittenstorm that came down because of d/d bunkers.

I can roll a S/D ele, and play in melee range, but that’s not what I want. I want to be a staff wielding engine of pain, as described on the character creation screen, the Anet page about ele’s, and what we were in GW1. Hitting like a limp noodle from range, with no tools to maintain that range, sucks balls.

10k damage per target is an impossibility. Well, unless against ambient creatures.

My main is ele, and I’m glad I went for support the moment I see the description of water. Staff feels lackluster in damage dealing department.

Ice Spike is far too slow. First, it shows the enemy a very clear red circle, then it forms up in the air for 2 seconds before it finally tries to hit the ground. 2 seconds between the red circle and the damage tick? The problem is in the skill right there.

The Eruption thing is also another problem. Frankly, ele has lots of combo fields, but pretty much no combo finisher. You need to cats Eruption and quickly switch to another attunement and cast the combo field to take advantage of it. It doesn’t work against small raid parties or wavy zerg battle where the balance shifts every so often