Guild Wars 2

I’ve essentially played elementalist exclusively in structured pvp, and won multiple tournaments with them with my team. After playing every class, I honestly find Scepter/Dagger to be the most fun, easily. I find the damage actually has a lot of potential with proper traiting and teamwork, and I also am able to dodge more frequently than any class when traited properly.

That said: I find raw damage soaking to be incredibly lacking. In major fights, I can dodge that bull rush, stunbreak that knockdown, remove that immobilization from the thief, and it still isn’t enough, because I die simply to passing autos and standard AoE.

Without going glass cannon, unfortunately, the damage just isn’t there. Our hard hitting spells are already incredibly slow to cast (dragon tooth, fire grab, churning earth) , and need to hit as hard as possible to be remotely worth it.

Not only that, but Mist Form, and at some times even Armor of Earth
Personally I see two potential options: Either increase the overall speed of our spells cast (my favorite), or simply improve our base toughness and potentially vit.

Dragon’s tooth and Fire grab are the main offenders here. They simply cast too slow to be relevant, and many times require an immobilization in order for it to work. Churning Earth could also stand to have 1 second shaved off the cast time.
The Staff abilities, as well, could stand an improvement in this regard.

This would not only make our damage combos feel more fun and rewarding, it would also potentially open up the viability of tougher setups.

Any other ideas? Overall I find Elementalists to be an extremely well balanced and fun class in structured pvp, but definitely could stand for a slight reduction in the amount of setup they require.

well I am full vitality and split between toughness and healing.
i survive well and heal decent but i couldnt kill a “torcan”

Use the focus off-hand. Yes I realise you lose ride the lightning and fire grab but the survivability gains are insane. If the mobility loss is too much switch to the dagger main hand which has 2 built-in gap closers.

I’m loving dagger main-hand focus off-hand.

To improve our survivability without increasing our vitality and toughness I would propose the following changes:

1. Attunements no longer have a cooldown and go on a 0.5 second cooldown after swapping.
2. Add Element only buffs that as long as you stay in this attunement you get the following bonuses: Fire – Retaliation Water – Regeneration + Condition Removal every 10 seconds Air – Fury + Swiftness Earth – Protection.
3. Decrease all weapon skill cooldowns that are over 40 seconds by 5 seconds.
4. Attunement Recharge Trait will now decrease the weapon skill cooldowns in all Attunements by 10%, 20% and 30%.
5. Lingering Elements now has a 10 second internal cooldown.

I think this would be a nice start but you tell me.

Better, more creative traits that give us means to counter spikes in several traitlines, including in fire/ air.

Example: phoenix is automatically cast if over half of our HP was lost in three seconds for fire (defensive and offensive).

DeanAdamFry.7106:

To improve our survivability without increasing our vitality and toughness I would propose the following changes:

1. Attunements no longer have a cooldown and go on a 0.5 second cooldown after swapping.
2. Add Element only buffs that as long as you stay in this attunement you get the following bonuses: Fire – Retaliation Water – Regeneration + Condition Removal every 10 seconds Air – Fury + Swiftness Earth – Protection.
3. Decrease all weapon skill cooldowns that are over 40 seconds by 5 seconds.
4. Attunement Recharge Trait will now decrease the weapon skill cooldowns in all Attunements by 10%, 20% and 30%.
5. Lingering Elements now has a 10 second internal cooldown.

I think this would be a nice start but you tell me.

These changes are a little too much man. Real balancing requires tact, small (but impactful!) changes are generally key.

I would say potentially reduce the cooldown between swapping would be nice, and I do agree that a 40 second cooldown on frost armor might be a little much.

How to improve survivability.
Pro Tip: Learn to kite and LOS

1. Use soldiers rune (Pwr/Tough/Vit)
2. Spec 30 points into water (Make sure cantrips give you regen and vigor, and take condition removal)
3. Take 3 cantrip utilities (Mist/Earth/Teleport)
4. Kite
5. Profit – ???

I also have to say, we’re lucky enough to be one of the only classes that CAN do great damage in a tanky spec. We have an attunement that is both burst damage AND condition damage (Fire). Conditions cannot crit, so you don’t need crit to do damage as an ele. We get free fury when we swap attunements so that when you are bursting you are still getting crits.

I have a base crit chance of about 35 on dagger/dagger before element swap fury kicks in, giving me a 55% chance to crit on my spike chains. I use Berserker’s Amulet with a Valkyrie Jewel. I have about 16k health and absorb damage fairly well considering I’m a light armor class in melee. Learning how to approach each profession and their specific weapon sets will also help you benefit from your close range weapons.

I think dagger/dagger could use a few damage increase tweeks on a few skills and a casting time decrease on Churning, but it’s much more solid than people give it credit for. Pop Shocking Aura and watch melee characters cry while they kill their own spikes and lock themselves for you to RtL Updraft.

DeanAdamFry.7106:

To improve our survivability without increasing our vitality and toughness I would propose the following changes:

1. Attunements no longer have a cooldown and go on a 0.5 second cooldown after swapping.
2. Add Element only buffs that as long as you stay in this attunement you get the following bonuses: Fire – Retaliation Water – Regeneration + Condition Removal every 10 seconds Air – Fury + Swiftness Earth – Protection.
3. Decrease all weapon skill cooldowns that are over 40 seconds by 5 seconds.
4. Attunement Recharge Trait will now decrease the weapon skill cooldowns in all Attunements by 10%, 20% and 30%.
5. Lingering Elements now has a 10 second internal cooldown.

I think this would be a nice start but you tell me.

You sir have no idea what it means to balance. One of ele’s most powerful traits is Elemental Attunement which grants base 5 second buffs on attunement. Imagine if these were permanent, that is insane. Reducing the cd of all skills by 30%. Dear lord. No cd on attunement is also far too powerful. Remember, other classes have a 10 second cd on weapon swap.