Guild Wars 2

Does anyone else think that the Auto attacks on some of the weapons and attunements need to be improved?

For me on D/D the only good Auto attack is Air as it hits fast and is pretty good damage, in my build it does about 1-1.2k crits which is reasonable. Not amazing but decent and the pace of them is quite good.

Fire i think is rather lacking, it would do about 1.5k if all 3 flames hit and all 3 crit but they crit individually so its normally around 1k damage as i normally get 1 crit hit at most

Water I also find lacking, i know its not meant to be a serious damage dealer but i think it needs something else added

Earth i like the Bleeding, i dont like the animation or the way it is cast with it being single target only.
For me i think i would like to see buffs and/or changes to the attacks.

Fire: Up the base damage. Maybe add 1-2second burning as well?

Water: Add so that the ele is healed when casting and on impact it deals small radius AoE damage to enemies and AoE again in a small radius healing to allies

Air: I dunno, i really think its in its “right” place at the moment so i dont think it needs any adjustments

Earth: Full redesign. I just can’t stand that it is a single target and that it has a terrible animation. Not quite sure what it could be changed to though, keep the bleeding and add a AoE aspect to it. Maybe have it as a sort of reskinned version of Dragons Claw where it fires out 3 stone spikes or something. Any target hit by any of the spikes gets damaged and bleeding. The Range to stay the same.

I agree with most of these, but scepter auto attacks are far worse when compared to dagger.

If you want more damage you need to build for it. Ele can hit much, much higher crits than 1.2k in a single attack, I assure you.

Impact.2780:

If you want more damage you need to build for it. Ele can hit much, much higher crits than 1.2k in a single attack, I assure you.

I would prefer to not die in seconds though. Even so, with 73% crit damage, nearly 1,800power and still the damage is rather poor.

Ele isn’t really supposed to use autoattacks unless his rotation is broken. You have a lot of spells to be busy with.
And for the water and (especially) fire 2 are pretty much autoattacks: they have short cd’s, nice damage and long channeled cast time so you can fill attunement swap time with them.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Earth: Full redesign. I just can’t stand that it is a single target and that it has a terrible animation. Not quite sure what it could be changed to though, keep the bleeding and add a AoE aspect to it. Maybe have it as a sort of reskinned version of Dragons Claw where it fires out 3 stone spikes or something. Any target hit by any of the spikes gets damaged and bleeding. The Range to stay the same.

Earth 1 have a nice and unusual feature – it goes up the cliffs. Useful in forest’t mid. It also have guaranteed projectile finisher that can be used to… wait, nothing reall, d/d ele have only crappy fire field for that. Well, maybe someday we’ll get water field on cleansing wave – that would be a real buff the we deserve. Or we’ll get a condition option to put that burnings and bleeding to a good use. However 300 range is really sad for single targeted spell that supposed to be applied continuously.

Arcturus.8109:

Ele isn’t really supposed to use autoattacks unless his rotation is broken. You have a lot of spells to be busy with.
And for the water and (especially) fire 2 are pretty much autoattacks: they have short cd’s, nice damage and long channeled cast time so you can fill attunement swap time with them.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Earth: Full redesign. I just can’t stand that it is a single target and that it has a terrible animation. Not quite sure what it could be changed to though, keep the bleeding and add a AoE aspect to it. Maybe have it as a sort of reskinned version of Dragons Claw where it fires out 3 stone spikes or something. Any target hit by any of the spikes gets damaged and bleeding. The Range to stay the same.

Earth 1 have a nice and unusual feature – it goes up the cliffs. Useful in forest’t mid. It also have guaranteed projectile finisher that can be used to… wait, nothing reall, d/d ele have only crappy fire field for that. Well, maybe someday we’ll get water field on cleansing wave – that would be a real buff the we deserve. Or we’ll get a condition option to put that burnings and bleeding to a good use. However 300 range is really sad for single targeted spell that supposed to be applied continuously.

I was talking about D/D auto attacks.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I was talking about D/D auto attacks.

Me too o_o. Oh, wait, impale doesn’t have projectile finisher, I mistook it with sstaff’s 1.
Well, that doesn’t change much without proper fields anyway.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Impact.2780:

If you want more damage you need to build for it. Ele can hit much, much higher crits than 1.2k in a single attack, I assure you.

I would prefer to not die in seconds though. Even so, with 73% crit damage, nearly 1,800power and still the damage is rather poor.

Like I said, if you want more damage you need to build for it. Similarly, if you want to survive with less toughness and healing, you need to practice playing with less toughness and healing. My build has defenses and healing, and I have ~2050 power and 110% crit chance with it. If I need more survival a change of armour still leaves me over 1950 power and over 90% crit chance. My response above was from experience - you really can’t claim it’s incorrect to me because it’s tried and proven. This too, is from experience. ANet won’t buff ele damage because someone wants to build defensively.

Impact.2780:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Impact.2780:

If you want more damage you need to build for it. Ele can hit much, much higher crits than 1.2k in a single attack, I assure you.

I would prefer to not die in seconds though. Even so, with 73% crit damage, nearly 1,800power and still the damage is rather poor.

Like I said, if you want more damage you need to build for it. Similarly, if you want to survive with less toughness and healing, you need to practice playing with less toughness and healing. My build has defenses and healing, and I have ~2050 power and 110% crit chance with it. If I need more survival a change of armour still leaves me over 1950 power and over 90% crit chance. My response above was from experience – you really can’t claim it’s incorrect to me because it’s tried and proven. This too, is from experience. ANet won’t buff ele damage because someone wants to build defensively.

110% crit chance is a waste, you know that right, if you run with Zephyrs boon and Arcane Fury than you are wasting A LOT of precision. How much Crit Damage do you have?

The point is we are FORCED into getting defensive gear, the amount depends on the player and the build but EVERY build takes some defensive stats – why? because without them and running with 11k health and the lowest armor in the game simply would mean death in most cases.

In most cases, its not even the damage that is the main issue, its the serious lack of sustain which when added with the rather poor auto attacks and the very long cool downs of some skills means we just can’t do that much damage unless you go full zerker with 11k health and one missed skill in a rotation would get punished and you would die in most cases.

Just curious, in WvW how much does your D/D auto attacks hit for, seeing as you have like 200extra power, though no mention of your crit damage, toughness or Vitality

imo, vapor blade should be an insta-cast.
Lightning whip just needs a slightly different animation.
impale does need a rework
and I’m not sure about Dragons Claw

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

110% crit chance is a waste, you know that right, if you run with Zephyrs boon and Arcane Fury than you are wasting A LOT of precision. How much Crit Damage do you have?

The point is we are FORCED into getting defensive gear, the amount depends on the player and the build but EVERY build takes some defensive stats - why? because without them and running with 11k health and the lowest armor in the game simply would mean death in most cases.

In most cases, its not even the damage that is the main issue, its the serious lack of sustain which when added with the rather poor auto attacks and the very long cool downs of some skills means we just can’t do that much damage unless you go full zerker with 11k health and one missed skill in a rotation would get punished and you would die in most cases.

Just curious, in WvW how much does your D/D auto attacks hit for, seeing as you have like 200extra power, though no mention of your crit damage, toughness or Vitality

Sorry typo. I meant 110% and 90% critical damage.

I’ve never felt in the least bit forced to get defensive gear. It’s ideal to have some as an alternate set though, and for every class - not just ele - in case it turns out more survivability is needed when already inside an instance. If you must know, my gear is full exotic berserker with ascended berserker back, and berserker/valkryrie trinkets. By berserker/valkyrie, I mean the ones that offer power, crit chance, crit damage, and a small amount of vitality. I haven’t played ele in PVE for quite some time, but that’s the gear I was using in all content including level 48 fractals (before the reset to 30). On occassion when I do run dungeons on my ele now, I use the same gear and an even squishier trait set up. The only time I used defensive gear was when I was new to this game, and PVT was a good starter set while I got used to the class. Then I moved to knights, and then to berserker. My traits also changed, giving up less survival potential as survival skill increased in order to deal more damage.

I can’t tell you my exact vitality and toughness now, but I can say health is less than 14k, and toughness is base, or 100-200 above base if I decide to use the cavalier rings.

I can’t tell you how much my D/D auto attacks hit in WvW, since I can’t remember the last time I used D/D in WvW. I was under the impression you were talking about PVE though. Of course in WvW you’re going to have to build for some defense... that is true of all classes.

Impact.2780:

Of course in WvW you’re going to have to build for some defense… that is true of all classes.

No. No. No. That is true for CERTAIN classes. Mesmer, Thief, Warrior can go FULL zerker gear wise and take a select few traits and have WAY more defence than what we have even when we go bunker – Thanks to Stealth, Blinks, teleports, Clones, Invuls, Immunities, Blocks, Insane Regen, insane CC

what as a class does Ele have?

Mist Form = 3 seconds, 75 second cool down
Amor of Earth = 6 second Stability and Protection

Now we have a FEW options on weapons (lets say D/D)

Cone of Cold = 10 second cool down. Decent healing
Frost Aura = 40second cool down. 10% damage reduction + Chill
Cleansing Wave = 40second cool down. 1 condition removed, small heal (AoE)
Shocking Aura = 25second cool down. 1 second stun every 2 seconds for 4 seconds

Thats it, that is our defence. Ignoring healing slot as everyone has that. Now compare that to what other classes have access to…

Counters for Mist form? Conditions still continue to tick. You cant do anything other than swap attunements and now compare that to Endure Pain which has a 1 second longer duration, low cool down and allows you to continue attacking, heal and everything else. Armor of Earth counters? easily corrupted or removed Boons

So, not only do these classes either have more health or armor (or both) they also have better defensive options and more damage…

We sacrifice Damage to counter the inbuilt problems the class has. What does the likes of Warrior sacrifice for everything they have? The answer – Nothing.

So this does concern WvW, and not PVE? Otherwise you’ve just ignored everything I’ve said in response to the original post, minus a discussion around a rather obvious typo.

Don’t use warriors. It’s no secret they are unblanaced right now. Elementalist has plenty of defenses and counters of their own. A knock down and knock back allow the opportunity to take down a squishy build such that a thief, ranger, elementalist or guardian might be running. The fact they are on 40-45sec CDs doesn’t hinder the counter. Of course, this requires that you have sufficient offensive capability to make using them offensively worth while.

Tempest defense is a good defense against stuns. Protection when using auras is quite strong and has nice synergy with D/D and tempest defense.

The ability to kite melee builds. Elementalists can have good damage with dagger, with 300 range allowing them to dance just out of reach of meleers, and their ability to cripple makes this easier. You refer to thief and mesmer teleporting, but a thief doesn’t have as much in-combat healing capability, so they can kite with infiltrator’s strike/return. This of course has a counter - fighting over the return point. Mesmers try to hide amongst clones or range when they are squishy. Keeping track of the real mesmer is just practice, and AoE will hit them and their clones. Once you have that distance closed your good AoE capability allows you to hit any stealthed opponent near you. Again, this requires offensive capability to be effective.

You must see where this is going. What use are the tool available for winning, if you don’t build the stats to use them? The best defense is not to be a punching bag. As a punching bag you’re dead when you enter a fight. You can only put it off for a time. The best defense is a balance of offense and defense. Defense to survive and offense to make going all out too dangerous for your opponent. You speak of sacrificing damage for defense, well now you need to sacrifice defense for damage.

I can also argue that for those other classes, when going full berserker, different weapons are better suited to the build and different situations. This has to be the same for ele. If you want specific capabilities, you have to build for them. That includes selecting the right weapons. One weapon combination shouldn’t be able to do everything. For ele, weapon combinations can do a lot of different things because of attunements, but still not everything. So when discussing elementalist’s ability to build offensively and maintain defensive capabilities, you musn’t restrict yourself to D/D. There are some good examples of offensive S/D builds for WvW roaming. S/D maintains the knock down/back, has the defense of ranged, has some strong burst, and can reach a high amount of toughness even in berserker gear.