Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing Ele for the last month or so. I generally like caster classes and “glass cannons” so I wrongfully assumed Ele was similar.

The best PvP build is with melee weapons that require close range.
The biggest perk is survivability and uptime/sustain.
The long range (staff) build is used mainly for buff/backline benefits.
There are no real “nuke” spells.
Ele still has horrible survivability but not on-demand damage to justify it.

I’m a relatively new player and I feel that Ele is not at all what I expect when playing a caster class. It also seems that everything is justified around D/D which seems sort of stupid.

I’m not sure what I’d even do to change it. I just know that playing an Ele feels nothing like a caster archetype I’d expect it to. I don’t think I like it.

Guild Wars 2 likes to subvert mmo sterotypes by making things like D/D ele, which, in the hands of an experienced ele, is very fun to use. Staff ele actually does pull up some of the best dps for PvE. In WvW, Staff ele is vital for water fields and D/D ele is great for skirmishes. However, Scepter, the single-target burst weapon of ele, is not quite at the glass cannon nuke that is expected.
If you want something that uses scepters and staves to do bursty damage, Ele is really the only option, because on Mesmer and Necomancer, Scepter/Staff are the primary condi weapons.

Strangely Mesmers and Necros are much more like the normal caster class you expect in an RPG. Ele isn’t really a mage archtype here, gameplay wise.

Luvok.5697:

The best PvP build is with melee weapons that require close range.

Welcome to GW2, where we don’t have to follow the extremely rigid stereotypes about magic.

The biggest perk is survivability and uptime/sustain.

For D/D or D/F ele this is true. For other ele builds it’s not true at all. Also GW2 in general is all about survivability. There are no tanks or healers because each class has its own basic survivability.

The long range (staff) build is used mainly for buff/backline benefits.

That is one use, but it is not in any way the main use. Staff ele is the second highest damage dealer in the game, and has significantly more burst damage than the number one damage dealer (sinister engi).

There are no real “nuke” spells.

Meteor Shower, Glyph of Storms in air attunement, and Ice Bow #4 are three of the hardest hitting abilities in the game. In fact Ice Bow #4 is often touted as being so strong that it is just below “exploit” status. If used on a large mob, Meteor Shower and Ice Bow #4 are THE number one hardest hitting aoe abilities in the game (and are stronger than most single target abilities).

Ele still has horrible survivability but not on-demand damage to justify it.

Staff ele has poor survivability compared to most other classes, but as mentioned before has incredible damage to make up for it.
D/D and D/F have amazing survivability (D/D especially has some of the highest survivability in the game and is nearly immortal when played properly) and have less damage to make up for it.

Luvok.5697:

I’m a relatively new player and I feel that Ele is not at all what I expect when playing a caster class. It also seems that everything is justified around D/D which seems sort of stupid.

I’m not sure what I’d even do to change it. I just know that playing an Ele feels nothing like a caster archetype I’d expect it to. I don’t think I like it.

I’m sorry you feel that way. It is true that D/D is the meta build for PvP (although it is nearly useless outside of sPvP/WvW roaming), but the reason it is meta is because it is currently one of the strongest builds to play in PvP. A good D/D ele can survive just about anything and is extremely powerful once the player has self buffed themselves with enough might.

While it is true that D/D breaks heavily from the standard mage archetype in PvP, when you are in PvE the staff is the strongest build available. Staff ele is the quintessential mage.

So if you are strictly a PvP player then ele might not be for you, but anywhere outside PvP you will find that ele is exactly the caster archetype you were looking for.

Luvok.5697:

Ele still has horrible survivability but not on-demand damage to justify it.

Low survivability? Guess again, Ele is immortal even in full zerk.

No damage? Sure, 65k dps on Ice Bow linecasting is sooo low. So low that even the strongest Guardian can only reach 15k dps when full buffed. And even without Ice Bow, Ele already has over 17k dps.

Maybe 1 month is not enough. Ele is not an easy class, but at the moment it’s the strongest in the game, by far. Even the other OP class, Mesmer, is not even close to Ele.

Yea, the class is very strange. It was imagined as a “low survivability, high dps class” but not given the survival tools to fill that role.

Instead, they are given access to a lot of sustain options that have to be stacked, but get a little too strong when stacked together.

In exchange for maxing out survivability, you are left with only:
1) A brawler that stacks might to do damage, of which d/d does it best
2) Pure support/survivability, in the form of staff

The problem all stems from the incredibly fragility of the class without traits (skills and utilities have long CD’s for the defense they provide). The only time you get a working ele build is when you take all the OP survival options from traits, which therefore pigeon-holes you.

If you want the “fragile” dps, mesmer (shatter) and necro (well) can do it pretty well. Ele dps build (fresh air) ends up being TOO fragile with not enough dps.

Luvok.5697:

I’m not sure what I’d even do to change it. I just know that playing an Ele feels nothing like a caster archetype I’d expect it to.

As an Ele main, yep, that’s pretty accurate. Going in to GW2, I was expecting the Ele to play similarly to the Ele from GW1 (glass cannon burster) and what I got was a flexible bruiser specializing in general irascibility. Others have dismissed this as just another example of GW2 trying to shake things up, but I do think it’s a legitimate grievance. It’s really cool that we have this unexpected playstyle, but it’s really lame that it’s far and away our dominant playstyle, to the point where glass cannon burster Ele pretty much isn’t a thing at all.

That said, I have come to really enjoy the bruiser Ele playstyle. We have the ability to act and react to virtually every situation without changing builds, which is something few other professions can boast. We can heal, lay down some DPS, toss out some conditions, survive heavy fire, lock someone down, and dart around the fight with the fluidity of a dancer. It isn’t what I expected and I’m sad that what I expected isn’t really available, but it’s quite fun in its own right all the same.

If you want a burst caster, go S/D ele. It doesn’t have the survivability or sustain of D/D and against a full team of pros you are going to have a hard time, but a good S/D ele playing against average/experienced players will do just fine.

Scepter/Dagger has incredible burst damage, though it requires a high level of skill to play. Single target burst is the hallmark of the scepter. It is also a ranged weapon, so you’ll get the feel of a caster archetype.

Wow, so many great responses.

I notice people mentioning frost bow which kind of makes my point. The best ranged weapon for a caster class…is a bow. It’s very weird.

I also noted that D/D’s main benefit is survivability which is also very odd for a caster archetype.

I’m not saying Ele is “wrong”- that’s completely subjective. It’s just between the dagger builds, conjured weapons, stance-dancing etc. it feels/plays nothing like what I expected. I also looked over what we know about the Tempest and it seems even stranger!

Luvok.5697:

Wow, so many great responses.

I notice people mentioning frost bow which kind of makes my point. The best ranged weapon for a caster class…is a bow. It’s very weird.

I also noted that D/D’s main benefit is survivability which is also very odd for a caster archetype.

I’m not saying Ele is “wrong”- that’s completely subjective. It’s just between the dagger builds, conjured weapons, stance-dancing etc. it feels/plays nothing like what I expected. I also looked over what we know about the Tempest and it seems even stranger!

The idea behind attunement dancing is to allow you to get a “Jack of all Trades,” though some would say D/D ele is a little too good at everything right now. Fire is your standard MMO nuker, Air is single target burst, Water is healing, and Earth is defense. Of course, each weapon set accentuates a few of those different things. Staff is focused around powerful Fire and Water attunements, Scepter focuses on Air, Daggers focus on a bit of everything but have an exceptionally strong Fire Attunement, and focus “focuses” on defensive stuff (Can you tell I don’t use focus?).

If you’re looking for something that feels more traditional, try Necro. It can be really fun.

Luvok.5697:

I notice people mentioning frost bow which kind of makes my point. The best ranged weapon for a caster class…is a bow. It’s very weird.

Ice Bow 4 is objectively overpowered. It deals far too much damage to targets with big hitboxes and there’s a way to cheese it out that causes the damage to focus even more. This is a balance problem and really needs to be addressed by Anet.

Outside of Ice Bow 4, though, the Ele’s Staff is still an extremely strong weapon as well; I might even argue it’s the strongest long-range weapon in the game, though there are a few other contenders. In general, I never feel stronger at 1200 range than when I’m slinging fireballs on my Ele. The single-target damage and survivability isn’t as good as S/D or D/D but against large groups, the Staff boasts some of the highest total DPS numbers in the game. Fire 2 and 5 tick for a tremendous amount of damage, and even the autoattack hits really hard. As one might expect, though, the Staff leaves you rather vulnerable to melee attackers, which is why you don’t see it much in PvP or high-level PvE (where dealing with melee opponents is an inevitability).

Luvok.5697:

I also noted that D/D’s main benefit is survivability which is also very odd for a caster archetype.

Agreed, though this is a good thing in itself. Games that only try to replicate the same experiences and expectations you have about the genre tend to be boring and unimaginative. They should allow you to experience those genre tropes (and currently they don’t, outside of Staff in certain game modes), but they should also go beyond them.

Luvok.5697:

I’ve been playing Ele for the last month or so. I generally like caster classes and “glass cannons” so I wrongfully assumed Ele was similar.

The best PvP build is with melee weapons that require close range.
The biggest perk is survivability and uptime/sustain.
The long range (staff) build is used mainly for buff/backline benefits.
There are no real “nuke” spells.
Ele still has horrible survivability but not on-demand damage to justify it.

I’m a relatively new player and I feel that Ele is not at all what I expect when playing a caster class. It also seems that everything is justified around D/D which seems sort of stupid.

I’m not sure what I’d even do to change it. I just know that playing an Ele feels nothing like a caster archetype I’d expect it to. I don’t think I like it.

This is one of the issues I keep bringing up as to why they decided to make an elite which function at melee range rather than giving us better range options.

Fresh air Scepter is as close to what you are looking for as ele can get.

Phantaram.1265:

Fresh air Scepter is as close to what you are looking for as ele can get.

Only problem with fresh-air scepter burst is that its just not very good anymore. It doesn’t have enough counter-burst to consistently pressure enemy bursters (and lacks their methods of hard mitigation to escape pressure), it doesn’t have enough condi cleanse to succeed where other burst are weak (vs. condi pressure), and doesn’t have enough pressure to put a big dent in sustain builds.

No matter what your goal is with fresh-air, nowadays you are just better off playing mesmer. You used to have a tradeoff of: Ele was a ranged-ish burst build that was better vs. condi pressure while mesmer was better everywhere else, but now mesmer with inspiration is straight up better than fresh air ele against condi too.

mayby try fresh air with ramapger equipement and do the CD wait in earth? ITs A/E/Ar. Use cleansing flame on toolbar. Its an intresting varaint to try. Its trads burst for condi damage but still hits hard with high crit %.
The heal is great here! fast, blast, ferocity gain, crit effect and follow up lifedrain.
An you have a lot of blinds. This is my prefered utility setup when running arcane.
But i didn´t try that till now. I just think it might work.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdnMIC9Mg1NAOOA8RgBJAb+ATgUocHDAVwaP2CPCA-TJRHwAm3fQwJAAwDAwZZAA