Guild Wars 2

There were 2 eles group roaming with this build (including the fire axe) from my server. Your influence is spreading!

Okay I’ve still not gotten round to watching your video, but I’m loving this thread - positive chat about the staff, and good advice/tips too!

I’ve not yet played with the Flame Axe conjure... at all, really. Still sticking with glyphs and trying to live without cantrips - it works, for the most part, since staff has Burning Retreat and all that CC should I need to disengage. And I love my glyphs.

Water fields are not unique to our class. Our ability to freely utilize them is.

This is so incredibly true. Geyser even has a quick cast and good healing on its own, so you can run in, lay it down, then EA-earth or Arcane Wave to bring someone well back from the brink - and you’ve still got a second field to do this later in the fight, along with your slot-heal of choice for your own difficult moments.

By the way, Engineers only get their water fields from the Healing Turret’s activated skill or its undeployed tool belt skill - the Supply Crate’s turrets can’t be overcharged - and the tool belt only gives a 1s field so requires a lot of coordination to get allies to land their own blasts in.
Staff Ele really is the only class who has reliable water fields they can freely share, particularly in the less-organised teams you’ll tend to find in soloq.

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

By the way KFC have you considered using fgs instead of tornado in conjunction with the meteor shower combo.

LightningBlaze.4913:

By the way KFC have you considered using fgs instead of tornado in conjunction with the meteor shower combo.

Tornado triples your power, FGS gives 260ish. Not much competition there.

Biomanz.9302:

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

Actually, a dodge from one edge of an untraited Geyser’s field (along its diameter) will stay within it. Dodges are 300 units* and the diameter of Geyser is 360 units.
I’ve not been running blasting staff in a while, mostly so I can play with the Arcane blasts Brilliance and Wave on shorter cooldowns - enjoying it so far!

*this is what wiki says, and I just tested to make sure - it’s definitely completely possible to dodge within a Geyser field and get the full benefit of its own heals, without blasting staff.

Slightly related: you can Burning Retreat from one edge of the Graveyard capture point in Foefire, and still stay within the point - just make sure you’re facing outwards, perpendicular to the tangent of the circle. Great distance from a foe, and you can get off a couple of CC skills or a heal before they close the gap.

cheese.4739:

Biomanz.9302:

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

Actually, a dodge from one edge of an untraited Geyser’s field (along its diameter) will stay within it. Dodges are 300 units* and the diameter of Geyser is 360 units.
I’ve not been running blasting staff in a while, mostly so I can play with the Arcane blasts Brilliance and Wave on shorter cooldowns – enjoying it so far!

*this is what wiki says, and I just tested to make sure – it’s definitely completely possible to dodge within a Geyser field and get the full benefit of its own heals, without blasting staff.

Slightly related: you can Burning Retreat from one edge of the Graveyard capture point in Foefire, and still stay within the point – just make sure you’re facing outwards, perpendicular to the tangent of the circle. Great distance from a foe, and you can get off a couple of CC skills or a heal before they close the gap.

Ah, probably remembered wrong then. I’ve gotten addicted to Blasting Staff

Biomanz

*previous post, look above*

I mostly know this because Geyser wasn’t affected by Blasting Staff (along with several other skills) when I started getting into PvP - about 8 months ago I think? - so I learned my EvArcana-earth aiming based on the low-radius Geyser.

A couple of patches over the latter half of last year slightly reduced cooldowns/aftercasts on staff skills and made the weapon generally more fun to play... more relevantly, a major update later in the year involved some reworking of traitlines but was focused mostly on improving trait-effect-transparency for all classes.
This patch improved a number of skills when traited with Blasting Staff, most noticeably Geyser and Static Field (which previously didn’t increase in range while traited), but also the AoE range on Fireball, the AoE range on each meteor from Meteor Shower, and the AoE range on EvArcana-fire.

Really interesting build, I see where I went wrong when trying fire axe now :P, I just don’t like being up close and personal, esp with zerk.

Atm I’m running a zerker 30/10/0/0/30 but with persisting flames (for longer lava font and fury for me/team) but the most important difference is Elemental surge which I carried over from the S/F build.

Maybe it’s gimmicky but it’s hilarious putting down a lava font then switching to earth and using both arcane abilities + shockwave to lock them inside it plus deal so much damage, sometimes I’ll cast meteor shower before this combo for even more madness. The immobilise can also guarantee shockwave to land if used the opposite way.

Elemental surge is also good for being defensive and offensive at the same time with blinds and immobilises, the burning is ok and chill is not used much unless it’s a melee class I wanna troll with no condi removal or perhaps runners. The reduced cooldown has them up all the time and arcane briliance also applies the condi (I just wish they would merge the 25% energy gain at last or add condi removal to their use as someone mentioned). You can also blind people for stomps in air attunement

One with air is also neat as I can switch to air while burning retreat for insane distance or use it with FGS for roaming, (but also helps to gain a little distance while crippled/chilled) I used to use tornado for the meteor shower combo, but I just find FGS too useful plus you can then call down a firestorm, fiery rush then fiery whirl, after the meteor, for probably the same damage, and is epic for disengage.

I too have trouble with thieves, so look forward to seeing your next video. Just posting this for a different playstyle that can still support but is a bit more offensively defensive. Atm I use sigil of fire for more AoE dmg but perhaps energy will help me survive that bit longer against thieves.

LightningBlaze.4913:

There were 2 eles group roaming with this build (including the fire axe) from my server. Your influence is spreading!

Yes! I can already see the guildmate’s eyes roll when they get split in half by a fire axe. The naysayers will get theirs!

cheese.4739:

Okay I’ve still not gotten round to watching your video, but I’m loving this thread – positive chat about the staff, and good advice/tips too!

I’ve not yet played with the Flame Axe conjure… at all, really. Still sticking with glyphs and trying to live without cantrips – it works, for the most part, since staff has Burning Retreat and all that CC should I need to disengage. And I love my glyphs.

Water fields are not unique to our class. Our ability to freely utilize them is.

This is so incredibly true. Geyser even has a quick cast and good healing on its own, so you can run in, lay it down, then EA-earth or Arcane Wave to bring someone well back from the brink – and you’ve still got a second field to do this later in the fight, along with your slot-heal of choice for your own difficult moments.

By the way, Engineers only get their water fields from the Healing Turret’s activated skill or its undeployed tool belt skill – the Supply Crate’s turrets can’t be overcharged – and the tool belt only gives a 1s field so requires a lot of coordination to get allies to land their own blasts in.
Staff Ele really is the only class who has reliable water fields they can freely share, particularly in the less-organised teams you’ll tend to find in soloq.

I’m also impressed by the (relatively) positive response to this post as well. I thought people would read “Staff PvP” and immediately begin the troll war. So far, so good.

And that’s good to know regarding the engineers. Even with the large, ground-targeted healing rain, people don’t seem to notice it and immediately leave the field making it difficult to heal them. Often times, i’ll inform my teammates before-hand to watch out for those fields. I don’t think they actually do

Thanks for watching!

Biomanz.9302:

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

You don’t even need blasting staff. You just need to make sure you cast the guyser in front of you, so your roll finishes inside it. You’ll miss the initial tick, but you’ll get the blast finish (which is far more valuable)

P Fun Daddy.1208:

LightningBlaze.4913:

By the way KFC have you considered using fgs instead of tornado in conjunction with the meteor shower combo.

Tornado triples your power, FGS gives 260ish. Not much competition there.

Pretty much this. FGS is great for getting out in WvW, but I haven’t really tested it much in sPvP. I’m certain there are a handful of combos one could come up with that will make it more interesting (I think it has a leap and a firefield at least).

But I don’t think there’s any comparing to Meteor + Tornado. Tornado also gives huge precision which causes those meteors to crit like crazy

cheese.4739:

Biomanz.9302:

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

Actually, a dodge from one edge of an untraited Geyser’s field (along its diameter) will stay within it. Dodges are 300 units* and the diameter of Geyser is 360 units.
I’ve not been running blasting staff in a while, mostly so I can play with the Arcane blasts Brilliance and Wave on shorter cooldowns – enjoying it so far!

*this is what wiki says, and I just tested to make sure – it’s definitely completely possible to dodge within a Geyser field and get the full benefit of its own heals, without blasting staff.

Slightly related: you can Burning Retreat from one edge of the Graveyard capture point in Foefire, and still stay within the point – just make sure you’re facing outwards, perpendicular to the tangent of the circle. Great distance from a foe, and you can get off a couple of CC skills or a heal before they close the gap.

I’ve been playing with the idea of dropping blasting staff as well. As great as the large fields are, most of the combos presented don’t actually require the range to be increased since its largely about controlling your opponent anyways. I may have to give that a try.

I personally love fighting in graveyard, so I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. There’s lots of places for staff eles to freecast up on the high ground and lay down some great DPS. Thanks for the suggestion

SlayerUK.5029:

Really interesting build, I see where I went wrong when trying fire axe now :P, I just don’t like being up close and personal, esp with zerk.

Atm I’m running a zerker 30/10/0/0/30 but with persisting flames (for longer lava font and fury for me/team) but the most important difference is Elemental surge which I carried over from the S/F build.

Maybe it’s gimmicky but it’s hilarious putting down a lava font then switching to earth and using both arcane abilities + shockwave to lock them inside it plus deal so much damage, sometimes I’ll cast meteor shower before this combo for even more madness. The immobilise can also guarantee shockwave to land if used the opposite way.

Elemental surge is also good for being defensive and offensive at the same time with blinds and immobilises, the burning is ok and chill is not used much unless it’s a melee class I wanna troll with no condi removal or perhaps runners. The reduced cooldown has them up all the time and arcane briliance also applies the condi (I just wish they would merge the 25% energy gain at last or add condi removal to their use as someone mentioned). You can also blind people for stomps in air attunement

One with air is also neat as I can switch to air while burning retreat for insane distance or use it with FGS for roaming, (but also helps to gain a little distance while crippled/chilled) I used to use tornado for the meteor shower combo, but I just find FGS too useful plus you can then call down a firestorm, fiery rush then fiery whirl, after the meteor, for probably the same damage, and is epic for disengage.

I too have trouble with thieves, so look forward to seeing your next video. Just posting this for a different playstyle that can still support but is a bit more offensively defensive. Atm I use sigil of fire for more AoE dmg but perhaps energy will help me survive that bit longer against thieves.

I really wanted Elemental Surge to work for me. But it’s really hard to give up a blast finisher (equates to a heal with staff) and a rolling heal. I also found it difficult to use my arcane abilities in Earth (for immobilize) since you don’t get any fields in earth. Like you said though, you could drop a lava font then switch into earth for the immobilize, but it’s really risky since the lava font field is so small.

I may have to revisit it if I decide to go more glassy. Having a few ranged immobilizes could make the ranged bombs more worthwhile.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

SlayerUK.5029:

Really interesting build, I see where I went wrong when trying fire axe now :P, I just don’t like being up close and personal, esp with zerk.

Atm I’m running a zerker 30/10/0/0/30 but with persisting flames (for longer lava font and fury for me/team) but the most important difference is Elemental surge which I carried over from the S/F build.

Maybe it’s gimmicky but it’s hilarious putting down a lava font then switching to earth and using both arcane abilities + shockwave to lock them inside it plus deal so much damage, sometimes I’ll cast meteor shower before this combo for even more madness. The immobilise can also guarantee shockwave to land if used the opposite way.

Elemental surge is also good for being defensive and offensive at the same time with blinds and immobilises, the burning is ok and chill is not used much unless it’s a melee class I wanna troll with no condi removal or perhaps runners. The reduced cooldown has them up all the time and arcane briliance also applies the condi (I just wish they would merge the 25% energy gain at last or add condi removal to their use as someone mentioned). You can also blind people for stomps in air attunement

One with air is also neat as I can switch to air while burning retreat for insane distance or use it with FGS for roaming, (but also helps to gain a little distance while crippled/chilled) I used to use tornado for the meteor shower combo, but I just find FGS too useful plus you can then call down a firestorm, fiery rush then fiery whirl, after the meteor, for probably the same damage, and is epic for disengage.

I too have trouble with thieves, so look forward to seeing your next video. Just posting this for a different playstyle that can still support but is a bit more offensively defensive. Atm I use sigil of fire for more AoE dmg but perhaps energy will help me survive that bit longer against thieves.

I really wanted Elemental Surge to work for me. But it’s really hard to give up a blast finisher (equates to a heal with staff) and a rolling heal. I also found it difficult to use my arcane abilities in Earth (for immobilize) since you don’t get any fields in earth. Like you said though, you could drop a lava font then switch into earth for the immobilize, but it’s really risky since the lava font field is so small.

I may have to revisit it if I decide to go more glassy. Having a few ranged immobilizes could make the ranged bombs more worthwhile.

It’s pretty much only good for arcane power. Everything else ends up being really lackluster (who really cares about the small burn or chill? the blind is okay, but the immobilize duration is atrocious), but with arcane power you can easily stack 15 seconds of chill, 25 burn, and five seconds of immobilize.
Even then, its on a 36 second at minimum cooldown.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

It’s pretty much only good for arcane power. Everything else ends up being really lackluster (who really cares about the small burn or chill? the blind is okay, but the immobilize duration is atrocious), but with arcane power you can easily stack 15 seconds of chill, 25 burn, and five seconds of immobilize.
Even then, its on a 36 second at minimum cooldown.

!

I had no idea it did this! That’s incredible. I’m going to have to give this a shot. Thanks!

[Edit] For theorycrafting: If that’s true… Do you suppose this might work with it:

Start in Earth.
Drop Ice Bow.
Arcane wave (for initial immobilize)
Arcane Power
Ice Storm (still earth attuned).

Each bolt falling (first 5) will cause AoE immobilize with the already-ludacrous damage and guaranteed crit…
That would be pretty lol.

[Edit Edit] If this becomes a ‘thing’ i’m going to dub it the ‘Go-go gadget Icebow’. You all witnessed it. It’s official.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

It’s pretty much only good for arcane power. Everything else ends up being really lackluster (who really cares about the small burn or chill? the blind is okay, but the immobilize duration is atrocious), but with arcane power you can easily stack 15 seconds of chill, 25 burn, and five seconds of immobilize.
Even then, its on a 36 second at minimum cooldown.

!

I had no idea it did this! That’s incredible. I’m going to have to give this a shot. Thanks!

[Edit] For theorycrafting: If that’s true… Do you suppose this might work with it:

Start in Earth.
Drop Ice Bow.
Arcane wave (for initial immobilize)
Arcane Power
Ice Storm (still earth attuned).

Each bolt falling (first 5) will cause AoE immobilize with the already-ludacrous damage and guaranteed crit…
That would be pretty lol.

[Edit Edit] If this becomes a ‘thing’ i’m going to dub it the ‘Go-go gadget Icebow’. You all witnessed it. It’s official.

Yes it works with Arcane Wave at least. It should work with Ice Storm too. You could even use Glyph Of Storms.
Its really easy to control stealthed enemies like this in my opinion. I’m running Elemental Surge for several weeks now and it works great. My build was pretty similiar to yours though I didn’t use Flame Axe.
Guess I’m the one and only Elemental Surge-Elementalist on my server right now … Thought my targets are immobilized for at least 4 seconds. It helps to counter Endure Pain and such abilities.
Though Warriors who use Berserker’s Stance won’t have a problem with it at all.

I wasn’t using Arcane Shield actually. I hope that it will work as a better counter against glassthieves.

Edit: I also still have issues with conditions. Cleansing Fire and Healing Rain is not enough.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

It’s pretty much only good for arcane power. Everything else ends up being really lackluster (who really cares about the small burn or chill? the blind is okay, but the immobilize duration is atrocious), but with arcane power you can easily stack 15 seconds of chill, 25 burn, and five seconds of immobilize.
Even then, its on a 36 second at minimum cooldown.

!

I had no idea it did this! That’s incredible. I’m going to have to give this a shot. Thanks!

[Edit] For theorycrafting: If that’s true… Do you suppose this might work with it:

Start in Earth.
Drop Ice Bow.
Arcane wave (for initial immobilize)
Arcane Power
Ice Storm (still earth attuned).

Each bolt falling (first 5) will cause AoE immobilize with the already-ludacrous damage and guaranteed crit…
That would be pretty lol.

[Edit Edit] If this becomes a ‘thing’ i’m going to dub it the ‘Go-go gadget Icebow’. You all witnessed it. It’s official.

It does, try it.
I distinctly remember getting roughly 20 seconds of chill just using cone of cold and arcane power.
Presumably you would want Arcane retribution as well.
Also, remember that if they dodge you waste the hit.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

[Edit] For theorycrafting: If that’s true… Do you suppose this might work with it:

Start in Earth.
Drop Ice Bow.
Arcane wave (for initial immobilize)
Arcane Power
Ice Storm (still earth attuned).

Each bolt falling (first 5) will cause AoE immobilize with the already-ludacrous damage and guaranteed crit…
That would be pretty lol.

[Edit Edit] If this becomes a ‘thing’ i’m going to dub it the ‘Go-go gadget Icebow’. You all witnessed it. It’s official.

3 Utilities and a Grandmaster-Trait only to pull off one combo that’s propably not killing anybody? … not really worth it

Great video — I thought the combo explanations were excellent. I rarely setup Earth-2 as a blast because I have to start in earth (and normally I end in earth). I will try and focus on that a bit more based upon your video.

I love the staff, but I play like D/D — switching attunements all the time with Elemental Attunement. I need to retrain my brain

vanensang.1389:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

It’s pretty much only good for arcane power. Everything else ends up being really lackluster (who really cares about the small burn or chill? the blind is okay, but the immobilize duration is atrocious), but with arcane power you can easily stack 15 seconds of chill, 25 burn, and five seconds of immobilize.
Even then, its on a 36 second at minimum cooldown.

!

I had no idea it did this! That’s incredible. I’m going to have to give this a shot. Thanks!

[Edit] For theorycrafting: If that’s true… Do you suppose this might work with it:

Start in Earth.
Drop Ice Bow.
Arcane wave (for initial immobilize)
Arcane Power
Ice Storm (still earth attuned).

Each bolt falling (first 5) will cause AoE immobilize with the already-ludacrous damage and guaranteed crit…
That would be pretty lol.

[Edit Edit] If this becomes a ‘thing’ i’m going to dub it the ‘Go-go gadget Icebow’. You all witnessed it. It’s official.

Yes it works with Arcane Wave at least. It should work with Ice Storm too. You could even use Glyph Of Storms.
Its really easy to control stealthed enemies like this in my opinion. I’m running Elemental Surge for several weeks now and it works great. My build was pretty similiar to yours though I didn’t use Flame Axe.
Guess I’m the one and only Elemental Surge-Elementalist on my server right now … Thought my targets are immobilized for at least 4 seconds. It helps to counter Endure Pain and such abilities.
Though Warriors who use Berserker’s Stance won’t have a problem with it at all.

I wasn’t using Arcane Shield actually. I hope that it will work as a better counter against glassthieves.

Edit: I also still have issues with conditions. Cleansing Fire and Healing Rain is not enough.

Conditions are a problem. My only solution to it is, quite literally, healing through them/Cleansing wave from Evasive arcana. The cleansing fire trait will help with your first 3.

This gives you the ability to deal with run-of-the-mill conditions which are really only applied to augment their direct damage.

But if someone is built to apply conditions (Necros), then you’re pooched. Swiftness + Burning speed the heck out of there.

Gorni.1764:

3 Utilities and a Grandmaster-Trait only to pull off one combo that’s propably not killing anybody? … not really worth it

I tried it out last night. I concur.

It’s good. And it’s a lot of fun to do this, and then immediately go into meteor shower + tornado.

But ultimately, it makes you a one-trick pony which will dominate a point for only about 10 seconds with a 150s cooldown.

juno.1840:

Great video — I thought the combo explanations were excellent. I rarely setup Earth-2 as a blast because I have to start in earth (and normally I end in earth). I will try and focus on that a bit more based upon your video.

I love the staff, but I play like D/D — switching attunements all the time with Elemental Attunement. I need to retrain my brain

Thanks for watching Juno!

I too came from D/D and it took a long time to break down the old habits. Blowing my attunements (although fun!) is something I still catch myself doing from time to time because of how used to D/D I was.

Gotta try this build out!

I’m not very impressed with the 20 fire point investment, though. The minors aren’t worth it, and I feel that two of the best fire traits are the #25 and the #30 Persisting Flames. Cleansing Fire is cool, though.

I wonder if 30 water investment could work. Cleansing Wave and Cleansing Water offer more cleansing over time, the minors are much better, the new trait that gives regen when hit, and berserker amulet to compensate for the loss of fire and air magic investment. You would be able to maintain the healing power, vitality, precision and critical damage, but lose condition damage and toughness for a lot more power and much better traits. Alternatively, valkyrie with zerker jewel, 10 in air, and perhaps runes of lyssa or pack for the extra precision. A cleansing full boon tornado and an extra boon for each 20 second arcane heal are not too bad either. Especially whenever Lyssa gives you protection/ retaliation/ regen/ etc from the heal.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Gotta try this build out!

I’m not very impressed with the 20 fire point investment, though. The minors aren’t worth it, and I feel that two of the best fire traits are the #25 and the #30 Persisting Flames. Cleansing Fire is cool, though.

I wonder if 30 water investment could work. Cleansing Wave and Cleansing Water offer more cleansing over time, the minors are much better, the new trait that gives regen when hit, and berserker amulet to compensate for the loss of fire and air magic investment. You would be able to maintain the healing power, vitality, precision and critical damage, but lose condition damage and toughness for a lot more power and much better traits. Alternatively, valkyrie with zerker jewel, 10 in air, and perhaps runes of lyssa or pack for the extra precision. A cleansing full boon tornado and an extra boon for each 20 second arcane heal are not too bad either. Especially whenever Lyssa gives you protection/ retaliation/ regen/ etc from the heal.

Great suggestions, but a big reason I can’t ever make zerker trinkets work is because of that lack of toughness. Without damage mitigation, your heals are reduced in their overall effect. Regen, especially, is only good if you’re mitigating the incoming damage to make it worthwhile.

There are a lot of boon duration builds which utilize heavy amounts of protection and regen because the two play off each other. Protection makes the regen worthwhile because every point healed is 33% harder to remove.

In a build without toughness or protection, regen is largely worthless (unless you put 30 in water to get them to clean conditions as well).

But if you’re going to run 0/10/0/30/30 you’re swinging your build back to a more personal/survival build and not so much team support. And if your goal is to just survive and drop fields—why not play a necro?

Likewise, for this build (which is high-DPS centric) I prefer the power/condi duration over vitality/healing.

I definitely agree with the comment about fire 30 though. Persisting flames is amazing, and something I’ve been running a lot more of. The fury given to teammates really helps in a team fight. The 25pt minor fire trait also helps to make up for the lack of arcane lightning.

Thanks for all your suggestions

I’d say water’s minor #5, water’s #15, cleansing wave and cleansing water + healing rain skill offer a lot more party support than 20 points in fire and 10 in air, no?

But I agree with you when it comes to toughness. Maybe valkyrie amulet could work with 30 water investment, but the critical chance would be very poor. Might work well with Rune of the Pack, though, but I understand that I’m moving too much away from your build now.

In regards to 30 fire, I feel it might be worthier than 20 in air. More fury will offset the lower precision, more power is more effective than more critical damage, the 25pt trait replaces arcane lightning, and you lose the lighting strike on air attunement to get more condition duration, fury team support, and a 50% stronger lava font from a trait that also affects burning retreat and your two fire fields from flame axe.

Runes of Lyssa might be appealing here too, with good precision to compensate for less points in air, an extra 10% condition duration (up to 40%), a 13 second boon every 20 seconds from the heal, and a condition cleansing tornado that offers all boons for 5 seconds. That means even more fury, and some nice protection and regen, while on tornado.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Biomanz.9302:

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

You don’t even need blasting staff. You just need to make sure you cast the guyser in front of you, so your roll finishes inside it. You’ll miss the initial tick, but you’ll get the blast finish (which is far more valuable)

without the blasting staff i feel like the ele fire lava become too small to be useful…

Here are my thoughts about your build (& video):

Showing combos like you did is really helpful for starters, especially for the weapon which none used in s/tPvP (until now )!

I’ve had great experiences in soloQ where for example thieves were QQing at me… “If only I could catch you”. Or when I somehow managed to get rid of two foes at the Skyhammer Cannon (evil laugh). Although we eles are squishy as hell wearing only cloth, I prefer to use the Berserker Trinket over the Celestial one (To increase our squishi… umm… I meant damage obviously).

Also I switched out the Lava Axe for Signet of Fire (atm; couldn’t really decide), because I don’t really like it. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t find it effective though! It’s just that… when I use it, I feel like it’s a burden. Usually in combat with more than 1 opponent I don’t have the time to think how I should pull off a triple burst/leap heal.

Back to the zero-toughness build: My survivability is pretty high albeit wearing a Berserker Amulet. Until now I rarely had problems with conditions (maybe because there are few running them in tPvP? I’ve observed that about 90% were running power builds) and generally no problems with many classes. The only opponents who really ‘pwned’ me were:

• Minionmancers (Those minions do such op high sustained damage QQ) But seriously, I am downed before I killed every minion of those Necros. (I even check the other team whether any necros are present, and try to avoid them, if any are)
• A shortbow ranger who critted 1k per hit (Crossfire!)
• Hambow warriors, who aren’t that frequent fortunately (Only 1 stunbreaker is kind of… meh)
• And lastly, thieves, when I didn’t pay attention

P.S.: My ele fittingly bears the name “Glàss”. Maybe you’ll meet me in soloQ

I tried alot of builds and amuletts lately and I think that a defensive spec (I run 0/0/20/20/30 now) brings the most benefit for the team. Due to the high amount of power (~3000) Your AoEs will still do very good damage (even with soldiers amulett) and force dodges from opponents, Frostbow can still oneshot squishy thieves and overall I think that the role of a staff-ele shouldn’t be pure damage anyways because of the enourmous support-potential it has. You won’t get oneshotted when focused in team-fights and you can even tank thieves for some time. Additional to your healing, with stability on earth-attunement you can stomp any enemy (or ensure that your mates get the stomp) and rezz your mates. You can engage in group-fights without fearing to instantly die in AoE. You can kite better and defend points 1v1 without larger problems against most classes. You can also do objectives like carrying orb in spirit watch. Since you can’t win 1v1 with staff anyways you’re always kinda dependent on your team-mates so I think a more support-orientated build fits staff better. Best thing above all: you won’t melt against AI-builds like minion-necro or spirit-ranger like GC-eles do.

I’d say it’s a matter of taste but overall I’ve won more games with a defensive build than with a pure GC-build.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’d say water’s minor #5, water’s #15, cleansing wave and cleansing water + healing rain skill offer a lot more party support than 20 points in fire and 10 in air, no?

But I agree with you when it comes to toughness. Maybe valkyrie amulet could work with 30 water investment, but the critical chance would be very poor. Might work well with Rune of the Pack, though, but I understand that I’m moving too much away from your build now.

In regards to 30 fire, I feel it might be worthier than 20 in air. More fury will offset the lower precision, more power is more effective than more critical damage, the 25pt trait replaces arcane lightning, and you lose the lighting strike on air attunement to get more condition duration, fury team support, and a 50% stronger lava font from a trait that also affects burning retreat and your two fire fields from flame axe.

Runes of Lyssa might be appealing here too, with good precision to compensate for less points in air, an extra 10% condition duration (up to 40%), a 13 second boon every 20 seconds from the heal, and a condition cleansing tornado that offers all boons for 5 seconds. That means even more fury, and some nice protection and regen, while on tornado.

I honestly haven’t tried Runes of Lyssa, but I really like what I see there! The precision + condi duration is an interesting mix for my celestial build since it already has some condi damage built in, and the 30% duration. I’m not sure how I feel about losing 10% crit damage from the divinity set, but it would definitely make the tornado/heal more potent (and the heal is huge because you’re usually dropping arcane brilliance every 20 seconds).

I’ll give that a try, for sure. Thanks again!

lislis.8075:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Biomanz.9302:

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

You don’t even need blasting staff. You just need to make sure you cast the guyser in front of you, so your roll finishes inside it. You’ll miss the initial tick, but you’ll get the blast finish (which is far more valuable)

without the blasting staff i feel like the ele fire lava become too small to be useful…

In my humble opinion, the size increase in blasting staff does very little for lava font. I have found that 90% of the time, even with proper CC, you can only expect your opponent to stand in a lava font for 2 seconds maximum. Most of the time, you will only want to place a lava font after your target has been stunned/immobilized and not before. And in that case, the size increase matters very little.

The main reason you would take blasting staff is for the increased size in Eruption/Ice spike/Frozen ground/meteor shower (and to a lesser extent, static field. But if you practice, the increased size is actually a detriment because they’re more likely to just walk around inside the inside).

Even healing rain has a huge radius already and really doesn’t need any more. But more healing area never hurt anybody

In the video I said that blasting staff is required for all staff builds. That may not necessarily be true. But I would not recommend running a build without it unless you’ve already got plenty of experience wielding a staff.

Inoence.6907:

Here are my thoughts about your build (& video):

Showing combos like you did is really helpful for starters, especially for the weapon which none used in s/tPvP (until now )!

I’ve had great experiences in soloQ where for example thieves were QQing at me… “If only I could catch you”. Or when I somehow managed to get rid of two foes at the Skyhammer Cannon (evil laugh). Although we eles are squishy as hell wearing only cloth, I prefer to use the Berserker Trinket over the Celestial one (To increase our squishi… umm… I meant damage obviously).

Also I switched out the Lava Axe for Signet of Fire (atm; couldn’t really decide), because I don’t really like it. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t find it effective though! It’s just that… when I use it, I feel like it’s a burden. Usually in combat with more than 1 opponent I don’t have the time to think how I should pull off a triple burst/leap heal.

Back to the zero-toughness build: My survivability is pretty high albeit wearing a Berserker Amulet. Until now I rarely had problems with conditions (maybe because there are few running them in tPvP? I’ve observed that about 90% were running power builds) and generally no problems with many classes. The only opponents who really ‘pwned’ me were:

• Minionmancers (Those minions do such op high sustained damage QQ) But seriously, I am downed before I killed every minion of those Necros. (I even check the other team whether any necros are present, and try to avoid them, if any are)
• A shortbow ranger who critted 1k per hit (Crossfire!)
• Hambow warriors, who aren’t that frequent fortunately (Only 1 stunbreaker is kind of… meh)
• And lastly, thieves, when I didn’t pay attention

P.S.: My ele fittingly bears the name “Glàss”. Maybe you’ll meet me in soloQ

Thanks! It was really just the combos that I made this video for. The build itself is really only the sideshow. I’ve seen a lot of elementalist staff videos which make me sad because of how easily people just throw away their attunements without any clear display of why they’re using each specific ability. So i’m glad you enjoyed it!

Skyhammer is, by and large, my favorite map (watch everyone /unsubscribe after I said that). Elementalist is freakin’ amazing at taking skyhammer. I rebuild myself to run 0/0/10/30/30 protection/regen stacking staff elementalist. Utilities: Lightning hammer, Armor of Earth, Earth Shield

Knockbacks: gust, tornado, Wind Blast (LH 3), Magnetic Shield (ES 4, 600 range pull)

Skyhammer control room becomes a game all on its own. I liken it to playing Super Smash Brothers with edge-hugging and every time I use Wind Blast I think: “FALCON PAUNCH!!!”

And as for Fire Axe – I understand completely. The axe really does provide much needed time to cooldown your abilities, but lately (as I’ve risen in ranks) i’ve been ditching it in lieu for Mist Form. It reduces my overall damage potential, but it gives you that invuln-stomp utility which you can use once your meteor shower+tornado inevitably puts someone down (it also helps to deal with thieves).

Signet of Fire is also a great alternative if you plan to be doing more 1v1.

Minion master necros also give me trouble. The best way to deal with them is in multiple engagements. I go in, meteor shower/Combo 1 and kill some pets. Burning retreat. Heal. Return and fight again (you can heal more frequently than they can, and those pets come back slowly).

Gorni.1764:

I tried alot of builds and amuletts lately and I think that a defensive spec (I run 0/0/20/20/30 now) brings the most benefit for the team. Due to the high amount of power (~3000) Your AoEs will still do very good damage (even with soldiers amulett) and force dodges from opponents, Frostbow can still oneshot squishy thieves and overall I think that the role of a staff-ele shouldn’t be pure damage anyways because of the enourmous support-potential it has. You won’t get oneshotted when focused in team-fights and you can even tank thieves for some time. Additional to your healing, with stability on earth-attunement you can stomp any enemy (or ensure that your mates get the stomp) and rezz your mates. You can engage in group-fights without fearing to instantly die in AoE. You can kite better and defend points 1v1 without larger problems against most classes. You can also do objectives like carrying orb in spirit watch. Since you can’t win 1v1 with staff anyways you’re always kinda dependent on your team-mates so I think a more support-orientated build fits staff better. Best thing above all: you won’t melt against AI-builds like minion-necro or spirit-ranger like GC-eles do.

I’d say it’s a matter of taste but overall I’ve won more games with a defensive build than with a pure GC-build.

Defensive spec is most likely the way to go in a lot of cases (most notably, solo Q) as a bunker is always useful in those situations.

When I play Solo Q, I actually have a few builds which I will use in the event of:

A) Skyhammer
B) More than 1 thief on the enemy team (Bunker hard, bro!)
C) Multiple minion-master necros.
D) Team PvP.

I strongly advise being flexible in your builds as you are an underpowered weapon choice. You need to be very good in every aspect of your class to even be moderately competitive in sPvP as a staff elementalist. Being good at bunkering, and having a build for this, is a large part of that.

I don’t use different weapon sets, however, as a matter of preference. But it’s also a good idea to have a few D/D or S/D sets as well in case your team is truly pooched.

yeah I actually play only Solo-Q and your parameters are pretty much the reason why I mostly play defensive (there seems to always be a thief and/or a minion-necro in the enemy team and skyhammer pops up way too often). Sometimes I switch to D/D (usually on spirit-watch when we don’t have an orb-carrier).

so basically this is my build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kZ;3BJVU0-5NN-Z0;9;6JJT;427-28-47A5;5sV2DsV2D6Ro
Berserker-Amulett is only equipped when my team consists of something like 2 guards and 2 warriors. Against teams without much CC I choose Arcane Wave instead of armor of earth and against teams without much stability I always pick tornado, etc. When there’s no thief or petting-zoo I sometimes pick vital striking in water for more damage.
I’d love to have 10 more points for Internal Fire or Bolt to the Heart – But Rock Solid and Healing Ripple are just too good to give up on them.

I still don’t know which runes are best though. I don’ really benefit from the crit-damage from divinity but you’ll still get the best stats out of them. I tried ogre and scholar but ogre is kinda contra-productive since you should avoid beeing hit at all costs and scholar seems to not be active very long (even with a defensive spec). Boon-Duration might be a good idea but these seem too defensive.

I have the same problem with the weapon-sigill. I think battle, bloodlust or force are best. I can’t really decide though. Thanks to soothing disruption I always have enough endurance for dodges so I don’t really need sigill of energy (would be my first pick otherwise).

Btw: Have you ever tried frost-bow? At first I was sceptical but it really kicks in, especially when your mates know how to use it. Bunker-Guards can basically be oneshotted with it (just time 4 and 5 with a team-mate and the guard can’t do anything about it). The CC is also nice to interrupt rezz or stomps (there’s nothing more satisfying than an enemy beeing frozen mid-air while trying to stomp your team-mate).

Gorni.1764:

yeah I actually play only Solo-Q and your parameters are pretty much the reason why I mostly play defensive (there seems to always be a thief and/or a minion-necro in the enemy team and skyhammer pops up way too often). Sometimes I switch to D/D (usually on spirit-watch when we don’t have an orb-carrier).

so basically this is my build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kZ;3BJVU0-5NN-Z0;9;6JJT;427-28-47A5;5sV2DsV2D6Ro
Berserker-Amulett is only equipped when my team consists of something like 2 guards and 2 warriors. Against teams without much CC I choose Arcane Wave instead of armor of earth and against teams without much stability I always pick tornado, etc. When there’s no thief or petting-zoo I sometimes pick vital striking in water for more damage.
I’d love to have 10 more points for Internal Fire or Bolt to the Heart – But Rock Solid and Healing Ripple are just too good to give up on them.

I still don’t know which runes are best though. I don’ really benefit from the crit-damage from divinity but you’ll still get the best stats out of them. I tried ogre and scholar but ogre is kinda contra-productive since you should avoid beeing hit at all costs and scholar seems to not be active very long (even with a defensive spec). Boon-Duration might be a good idea but these seem too defensive.

I have the same problem with the weapon-sigill. I think battle, bloodlust or force are best. I can’t really decide though. Thanks to soothing disruption I always have enough endurance for dodges so I don’t really need sigill of energy (would be my first pick otherwise).

Btw: Have you ever tried frost-bow? At first I was sceptical but it really kicks in, especially when your mates know how to use it. Bunker-Guards can basically be oneshotted with it (just time 4 and 5 with a team-mate and the guard can’t do anything about it). The CC is also nice to interrupt rezz or stomps (there’s nothing more satisfying than an enemy beeing frozen mid-air while trying to stomp your team-mate).

My normal rotation for Frost Bow is 3 (solely for the chill, I’m too squish to be in melee range to get the most out of it), 5, 4. The really nice thing about 5 is that even if they have stability up, it still applies chill every second which makes landing 4 pretty easy.

Gorni.1764:

yeah I actually play only Solo-Q and your parameters are pretty much the reason why I mostly play defensive (there seems to always be a thief and/or a minion-necro in the enemy team and skyhammer pops up way too often). Sometimes I switch to D/D (usually on spirit-watch when we don’t have an orb-carrier).

so basically this is my build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kZ;3BJVU0-5NN-Z0;9;6JJT;427-28-47A5;5sV2DsV2D6Ro
Berserker-Amulett is only equipped when my team consists of something like 2 guards and 2 warriors. Against teams without much CC I choose Arcane Wave instead of armor of earth and against teams without much stability I always pick tornado, etc. When there’s no thief or petting-zoo I sometimes pick vital striking in water for more damage.
I’d love to have 10 more points for Internal Fire or Bolt to the Heart – But Rock Solid and Healing Ripple are just too good to give up on them.

I still don’t know which runes are best though. I don’ really benefit from the crit-damage from divinity but you’ll still get the best stats out of them. I tried ogre and scholar but ogre is kinda contra-productive since you should avoid beeing hit at all costs and scholar seems to not be active very long (even with a defensive spec). Boon-Duration might be a good idea but these seem too defensive.

I have the same problem with the weapon-sigill. I think battle, bloodlust or force are best. I can’t really decide though. Thanks to soothing disruption I always have enough endurance for dodges so I don’t really need sigill of energy (would be my first pick otherwise).

Btw: Have you ever tried frost-bow? At first I was sceptical but it really kicks in, especially when your mates know how to use it. Bunker-Guards can basically be oneshotted with it (just time 4 and 5 with a team-mate and the guard can’t do anything about it). The CC is also nice to interrupt rezz or stomps (there’s nothing more satisfying than an enemy beeing frozen mid-air while trying to stomp your team-mate).

I’ve tried frost bow, but ultimately decided against it. The area is too small, and once your enemy knows what to look for it becomes a completely useless utility (and more people are becoming aware of it). Besides Icebow #4, the weapon is worthless. Icebow 5 is great if you can actually land it. But because the channel is so quick (and again, its the only useful skill in the entire weapon) it doesnt even give you something to do while waiting for cooldowns. It’s basically a one-trick pony.

Took a look at your spec and it looks solid. Bunker builds takes practice to make them work, but can be very rewarding. Although I might use tornado instead of elemental—since you’re probably going to be bunkering a point, tornado guarantees to disable the point by throwing your opponent out (provided you pulled their stability first).

Made it to the leaderboards:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/kildron/Top1K_zpsa98fa5fc.jpg

I realize nobody’s probably reading this post anymore (Threadnaught!) But here’s the proof of concept.

Today, I made top 1K players using staff as an elementalist. It CAN BE DONE.

The final build (Which has been put to a thorough test) is as follows:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWnEEFcYnBWGQlYAI8gADKQUwiyjYmxGA-TkAAyCsIqRVjrGTNyas1M+A

There will be another video up soon.

Look forward to the new vid. Still can’t bring myself to lose Blasting Staff. Would like to see how you handle guardians – their blocks seem to block everything when I go zerker and they just burn me down fast, especially with sword then GS.

I was ~150 last week as staff-ele ^^ haven’t played since then so I dropped to 500 lol

Staff eles own i love them,
http://youtu.be/pFcTTfZEkZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_O_3v9pGTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYv8h7bEYyU