Guild Wars 2

Ok, after some tea and Beethoven’s piano sonatas I have decided to start gathering ideas on how to fix Elementalists;

The problem;

1. Survivability outside 60 points Water/Arcane and Cantrips.
2. Damage reliability vs targets guided by humans.
3. Traits
4. Staff

Basically I believe that cantrips were intended to be a core mechanic of elementalists, where you would equip at least 2-3 of them in order to remain alive. This is ok when you go into water since they give incredible rewards for them. Regeneration, vigor, condition cleanse on regeneration, -20% CD on top of what they do. Arcane tree is probably the most-have tree in all elementalists traits. Not only do we have 15 seconds second swap (element swapping) but also many speccs need to have Blasting staff (VIII, 20 points in) or 30 arcane for spells on dodge. This is incredibly good for speccs that want to remain alive, as proved by D/D.

But what happens when you want to run a damage specc, specifically without water points or as little as possible into arcane?

The fire tree is still lacking, nothing there other than the extra power you get in the tree. It is incredibly lackluster. They really lack something to go for them other than power. If they were to remove the traits but still give us the power most wouldnt probably notice the difference. You put 30 points into it and only power increases.
A 25 point trait is 5% vs burning targets, a 20 point worth trait is aother 5% vs burning target. A total of 25 traits in order to get 10% vs burning target. guardians get 10% vs burning targets in Radiance II. They can have 100% burning upkeep. Staff ele has 5 seconds upkeep, 10 CD.

Air got something good; fresh air. Only works for scepters but good nonetheless. Staff attacks are too slow to benefice, most of the time unless you are full zerker you will reliably be able to switch back to air most often than the crit will proc it.

Without any way to increase our survival other than cantrips, we are pretty much pidgeon holed into playing with 2-3 cantrips, with minimal effects without water and with long recharge without arcane.

I can definitely see scepter’s burst been nerfed in the not so distant future, every now and then I see people complaining about it, it is only a matter of time before they nerf another build born out of necessity, necessity because the core hasnt been addressed yet. When will we find a balance between damage/survival that does not include D/D bunkers and kamikaze scepter (because thats what they are, 2 arcanes with maybe lighting flash, sneeze on them and they die, combo incredibly easy to avoid with ONE dodge and 2 brain cells). When will staff get some buffs to its damage? Not about the coefficient (which does need help) but rather how unreliable it is vs non-golems.

Perhaps the tea wore off, if so then sorry if it came out edgy, it is just that at 13 mon ths from release I expected a little more for staffs than; “increase the radius of water #1 so that now it isnt totally useless and ineffective, but totally useless, ineffective and the only buff you will ever get from us” and number increase on our gimmick mechanic conjures. Anet, where is my strong caster? Where is my strong mage? Where is master of the elements?

Solutions Redesign the class mecahnics, defense/offense, leave cantrips as an option, not a requirement, leave conjures as an option, not the only way to adquire viability. Make staff a strong offesive weapon if chosen to.

Thoughts? Improvements

I dont expect an answer to the thread like Warriors got, since Warriors was not on the tittle and elementalist was. But a man can only hope.

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Traits like this, that improve yet simplify the class.

• No attunement focused traits, but general attunement swaping focused traits.
• Reduce base CD of attunement swap -> Arcane doesn’t reduces it.
• Higher health and toughness base so we don’t have to spend so many stats on them and focus on damage. OR better ways to survive (aegis, invis…). (like more the first option)

Daecollo.9578:

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Traits like this, that improve yet simplify the class.

Simplifying the class screams incompetence.

Daecollo.9578:

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Traits like this, that improve yet simplify the class.

That seems like a pretty bad idea.

Getting rid of the incompetent devs & hiring some monkeys to take their place would be a great start.

But like the one above said, Warriors cried & got a reply on the same page (within two posts if I recall).

Daecollo.9578:

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Traits like this, that improve yet simplify the class.

Ohai, I like to limit build versatility by creating traits that lock me out of some of my skills.

I’m not 100% sure this is a thing, but I was looking at the dagger skills today… and noticed that dragon’s claw, vapor blade, and I think impale get reflected by “reflects projectile” spells. Particularly the mesmer type ghosts out in blazeridge steppes.

Maybe that’s why damage is so low? ‘cause the attacks from the melee weapon are considered projectiles, which with the exception of specific skills like the warrior’s rifle burst and such, seem to do significantly less damage than melee. Like, I noticed on my short bow on my thief, the auto-attack does absolute kitten. Sure, it bounces and that’s nice, but… the damage isn’t as much as my melee. While I think it’s a decent mechanic, and far removed from other MMOs, if they maybe added more -melee- attacks, not projectile attacks, to D/D… maybe that would give the bump in damage needed? Scepter and staff make sense to be projectile, but not dagger. At least not in my opinion.

Again, I’m not completely sure about this. Just something I noticed. And I do get that it is technically magic, so… I know it -could- be projectile based stuff. But, when you have an entire class that has all of their skills, and most of the gimmick weapons, be ranged and then give them a weapon that’s meant to be close quarters, it just doesn’t seem to add up to me.

I dunno. It could be the boon crack I smoked on my ele earlier. Just thought I’d bring it up.

Are you sure impale got reflected? I’d bet it was just fire and water autos on dagger, water and earth on scepter.

Not entirely. I should go back and see if it actually does, ‘cause now I’m curious. I could’ve sworn I saw it get reflected, but I’mma kitten , so… xD I shall have to test it. With science.

Daecollo.9578:

Drastically Improves the Fire Attunement, completely locks out Air.
Drastically Improves the Water Attunement, completely locks out Earth.
Drastically Improves the Air Attunement, completely locks out Fire.
Drastically Improves the Earth Attunement, completely locks out Water.

Traits like this, that improve yet simplify the class.

I disagree with destroying the mechanic and playstyle.

But instead, I would like skills animation/graphics be replaced instead. If I wanted to be an Earth Elementalist, I could buy skill animations. So my Meteor shower would look like rock falling. My Lava font would look like Eruption with steam all over it. Healing spring would be swampy water etc etc.

I have been pushing for a reconsideration of mainhand dagger skills. I also question all channeling skills on daggers. I’m sure you are already familiar with my posts. I wanted to support your post by continuing with specific recommendations for change.

~. Doesn’t it seem like breath weapons would fit better as focus 4 skills? I imagine the Ele lifting the focus to the mouth and blowing the essence off it. There is an animation already like that in-game.
~. I concur with the OP. Why is dagger (that uses melee range or 2x melee range) using projectiles? Mainhand dagger skills need to be fast melee cone like other melee types. The difference is that it should scale direct damage at half the rate of normal melee, but conditions should always apply with either 50% greater scaling or an additional crowd control condition with normal scaling.
~. Any channel that takes longer than the invincibility on focus earth 5 is too long. Currently, invincibility is 3s, so channeling should not be greater that 2.5s for anything, which still allows for up to 10 rapid hits (2 per 0.5s) or one big bang. I realize that dagger earth 5 will lose damage from this change, but does everyone remember the damage nerf to it done a long while back? All they had to do was reduce the time, so they could actually give the better damage back.
~. Condition Damage bonus should be under fire, just like Crit Damage bonus is under Precision. I know people will hate this idea because con. dmg under earth gives some dps to a survival line, but resisting this change only perpetuates the broken state of the class.

Every single Anet Dev I’ve seen running around in Lion’s Arch or WvW is a warrior. What else did you expect?

You folks still believe eles are gonna get balanced while you’re still interested in this game? I’m guessing we’re talking about sPvP here?
It’s been over a year now and the elementalist is actually worse off than it was at launch, which if you exclude the fact that we could bunker all day long, and still not kill anything with a clue, it was in a pretty sorry state.

Just seriously… give it up, we’ve had near zero dev communication on the elementalist situation, not even an acknowledgement that there is a problem.
Accept you’re playing a broken class that will stay like that for a very long time, re-roll or quit. Those are the three choices available to elementalist players.

Thing is, about survivability, Elementalist cannot both do damage and have survivability (anymore). Even the D/D at the height of its power would be eaten alive by the current meta.

The ele simply doesn’t have the tools it needs to survive the tiny health pool, the low armor, and lack of mitigation that other classes can ‘cheat’ with, like thieves and mesmers.

On top of that, the longest range weapon the ele has is staff. The staff is a support weapon. Or supposed to be, anyway.

The other two weapon sets are short ranged. Focus is generally considered to be a joke.

Maybe a long range power or condi (or both) weapon might act as a stop-gap, but still, Elementalists have a pretty raw deal.

Unfortunately, Anet seems stuck on some things, like Elementalists currently should work like in GW1. Or that Elementalists are squishy wizards so they must have the lowest armor and lowest HP in the game.

At least they’ve hit Ele versatility in the right spot. In all modes, in all roles, Ele’s are simply mediocre. At best.

I quit the game for about 3 months and came back just a week ago. I really liked GW2, and still do, but I kinda have this thing where I don’t wanna play anything but an elementalist for roleplaying reasons, and I just couldn’t bring myself to play anymore.

The class has the Fresh Air trait now. It’s not the equivalent of a warrior’s rifle that I wanted, but it’s an improvement on ranged combat, so it’s nice.

That and the change to Persistent Flames are about all the positive changes in that time, though, which is just depressing.

Fortus.6175:

The problem;

1. Survivability outside 60 points Water/Arcane and Cantrips.
2. Damage reliability vs targets guided by humans.
3. Traits
4. Staff

-1 Problem no longer exists, or at least not in the severity you make it out to be. Arcane isn’t chosen for defense, it’s because it combines boon duration with attunement reduction and then provides 2 very powerful traits (Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement). These effects boost your offense just as much as your defense. As for Water, you’re half right. The first 15 points can do a LOT for your survivability, but 30 are no longer required. It’s not perfect but it’s an improvement. Cantrips are ok skills, but not the end to all. Dare venture beyond them and you’ll notice we have a lot of very useful utility skills.

-2 Somewhat a problem. The way I go around it personally is by using the snares from Glyph of Elemental Power combined with my weapon’s snares and those of my elemental summons. It would be nice if they weren’t needed but it’s not impossible.

-3 We have some very useless traits. We have some mandatory traits. They need to be balanced out. Agreed on this one.

-4 Staff has some issues, but not as many as some claim. The aforementioned GoEP tactic helps staff out a lot. The other thing is combos. They’re not optional for staff, they’re required. People often dismiss them as worthless or weak but they add up a lot. If you take Ice Field projectile finishers from example, they only give 1 second of chill. Worthless right? But if you get 4 of them through a single Frozen Ground (fairly common) they suddely provided as much chill as just about all player skills in the game. The same goes for Fire fields and Might Stacking/perma burning, heals from water fields, etc. Most of staff’s combo fields outperform individual skills in group play. Some even do in solo play. Use them well and you’ll actually add a lot more to a party than you think were possible. Or solo for that matter.

Fortus.6175:

1. Survivability outside 60 points Water/Arcane and Cantrips.
2. Damage reliability vs targets guided by humans.
3. Traits
4. Staff

1. Like already said, 30P in water are no longer necessary – especially because they nerfed Cleansing water and Bountiful Power. But 15P still are needed to survive. Same goes for arcana, 30P may not be needed, but 20P are mandatory. Not only for the Attunement-CD reduction but also for survivability. This is the main reason for having such a low amount of viable builds. Creating build-variety could be so easy, yet Anet seems not to realize it.
2. That’s exactly what makes the ele the hardest class to play. In order to deal any damage we have to CC our enemies. Otherwise our attacks are easily dodged because of slow and obvious animations (Phoenix, Dragon’s tooth, Burning Speed, Earthquake, Churning earth, every spell on staff) or miss on their own like Fire Grab or again Burning Speed. These are our heavy hitters – and all of them can be avoided easily. So we have to intelligently combine (which seems to be unique to elementalist) our CCs (Slow, Snare, Daze, Knockback, Launch) with these attacks – which requires excellent knowledge of your spells and their cooldowns. I know that other classes may also need CCs to hit their spells, but to be blunt – every class can kill an elementalist without intelligent use of CCs. Since we have 40 spells and also have to make use of all of them (also unique at least in comparison to some other classes that don’t even have to use weapon swap to kill enemies) the gameplay becomes even more difficult, makes 20+P in Arcana mandatory and requires a very fast play. Put together: Elementalist is high risk, but usually low reward (the exact opposite of what Anet wants classes to be). Only exception is the Fresh-Air build which offers reliable burst and therefore makes this build the only viable build to play with berserker-amulet. People cry about it – but they forget that this trait only boosts eles sustained damage that other classes already have through low CDs or strong auto-attacks.
3. Nothing more to say, totally agree. Fire is garbage. Air has 3-4 traits that are viable (depending on choice of weapon). Earth is garbage (also maybe except 2-3 traits). Even Water and Arcana don’t offer that much good traits – every player takes the same ones. Even most of our minor traits are crap – except those from air and water. A reason for that may also be the circumstance that our utilities are weak except cantrips (and 3-4 other exceptions). So we can only build around cantrips – which further restricts build-variety. I would add a fifth point (weak Utilities).
4. Staff is a difficult topic. I played quite a lot hotjoin last week with staff. Though I know that hotjoin isn’t really meaningful compared to tPvP the weapon still seemed to be viable. It is extremely hard to kill an enemy – you have to make excessive use of your combo-fields and a might-stacking build (10-0-0-30-30) to deal damage at all and I was kinda proud of myself everytime I managed to down an enemy. But your survivability is quite nice (tanking 2 players or kiting 3-4 was often no problem at all). Support is nice too, but still I gave up on staff after playing with it for a week because of the very intense gameplay and the total lack of mobility. It was exhausting. Warriors could simply outrun me (didn’t even have to make much use movement spells) and outheal my incomming autohit-damage with their signet (both tick for about 400-500 heal and damage respectively). S/D or D/D is by far more effective and requires less effort compared to staff – but still much more effort compared to most other classes. The only thing that makes staff somewhat viable is the conquest-mode. People tend to have a tunnel-vision to stay on the point or they just want to defend it. The borders of the capture points work like a static field ^^ But outside conquest mode (WvW for example) where people have endless room to move – staff is complete garbage when it comes to 1v1. I agree with Anet though that buffing Staff might not be a good idea – because if all of your AoE-Spells would permanently hit or do insane damage you could easily kill a whole bunch of players without much effort. This might fit the description of the elementalist (low defense – high damage) but it would still be kinda unfair. Tl;DR: Staff needs some buffs, but this should be done carefully not like the Nekro-buff for example.

Personally, I never had a problem with points 1 and 4. I never pvped much so I can’t comment on 2 either. I would say that the traits could use better synergy.

The elementalist is meant to use all 4 attunements at once, but the only line that really supports that is arcana. Trying to do a balance between the 4 while still using some arcana is near impossible because there are always traits that seem vital to that attunement you seem to miss. I ended up doing a 20/20/10/10/10 with a focus on fire which works rather well for my needs.
However, compared to other professions, like the Necromancer whos traits just flow so well, our trait system sucks. When I planned my elementalist traits I am pulling out my hair deciding which I have to cut since I don’t have enough points to make the core build I want. When I planned my Necromancers trait, I was able to focus around minions like I wanted and the rest just feel into place without the feeling that I missed a huge mechanic of my profession.
So yes, the traits could still use work. Personally I think the 5 point minors could just be added directly to the attunements and some of the basic traits could replace them to make it feel like you need to invest as much in each line. Although most of the grandmasters, as well as other traits, seem a bit to focused on a certain attunement to really be of value most of the time.

As for point 4, I been playing staff since beta and never had any problem with it in pve. In pvp, it may be another issue, but I’d assume pvp would be left to point 2 and not mentioned twice. Although I will say some of the attacks are a bit too slow to hit the monster in time before it dies in some areas.
For point 1, I never had this issue. I have used 10 in water and 10 in arcana with no cantrips and I have learned to survive rather well. Once again, if this is purely focused at pvp this may not be the cast. And while I never compared the number closely, I have heard and do believe that other professions, like warrior, can easily surpass our defense while dealing more damage as well. But when playing other profession I always end up missing the versatility of the attunements for a quick condition removal, heal, speed boost, aoe, finisher, stun, or such.

my idea to revamp the ele:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post2825766

ThiBash.5634:

Fortus.6175:

The problem;

1. Survivability outside 60 points Water/Arcane and Cantrips.
2. Damage reliability vs targets guided by humans.
3. Traits
4. Staff

If you take Ice Field projectile finishers from example, they only give 1 second of chill. Worthless right? But if you get 4 of them through a single Frozen Ground (fairly common) they suddely provided as much chill as just about all player skills in the game.

YES gEnIuS and you only have to stand auto attacking with ZERO dps for 4 seconds while the enemy “dare not touch you”, its just an AWESOME way of applying chill and much better or on pair with instant cast instant effect skills of other classes weapons. can totally see why this is not bad when you explain it for me like this :P
(and i know you mentioned group play, but in that case every other class combo will be able to have the fields, as a team, that is needed, putting all your field casting on one person would be a bad tactic in itself);

.
joke aside:

the finishers on the staff is ALL on earth, and they are terribly bad to combo with becouse of how attunement switching cd, coupled with the delay on one of the finishers and the zero dps on the other.
the only valid use is to gain fury+might from erupt->firefield before the fight starts (or in rare cases doing it while you are getting your head smashed in by a meleeing enemy)

You guys want all your cake but refuse to see how much frosting you will receive if they buff attunement skills.

0/0/0/0/30 will always be top dog, unless you make staying in two attunements only viable. The only way to balance out would be to make one attunement very powerful and locking out another, otherwise people will just stay in 0/0/0/0/30 forever.

You say it would limit Viability? NO, IT WOULD MAKE YOU AT LEAST HAVE 3 x Each Weapon set in viable specs!

Your not going to gain anything unless your willing to sacrifice and simplify your class, right now if they give you any meaningful buffs, it will just make highly skilled people gods.

It would make people who can’t play that well, normal. People that play very well so good that nobody will want to play anything besides Ele.

Daecollo.9578:

You guys want all your cake but refuse to see how much frosting you will receive if they buff attunement skills.

0/0/0/0/30 will always be top dog, unless you make staying in two attunements only viable. The only way to balance out would be to make one attunement very powerful and locking out another, otherwise people will just stay in 0/0/0/0/30 forever.

You say it would limit Viability? NO, IT WOULD MAKE YOU AT LEAST HAVE 3 x Each Weapon set in viable specs!

Your not going to gain anything unless your willing to sacrifice and simplify your class, right now if they give you any meaningful buffs, it will just make highly skilled people gods.

It would make people who can’t play that well, normal. People that play very well so good that nobody will want to play anything besides Ele.

Seriously guy, shut up and go back to your warrior already, or learn to use LH if you want something that dumb and pointlessly easy to play.

REWARDING SKILLED PLAYERS PLAYING A HARD CLASS? OMG NO DONT EVER DO SOOOOOO ;____;

Daecollo.9578:

Your not going to gain anything unless your willing to sacrifice and simplify your class, right now if they give you any meaningful buffs, it will just make highly skilled people gods.

It would make people who can’t play that well, normal. People that play very well so good that nobody will want to play anything besides Ele.

I’ve found people play what they like. I have a mesmer and enjoyed it, however I fell in love with playing an elementalist, and playing it well. Yes Ele’s are crazy in the right hands, doesn’t mean you keep nerfing them because a few are really good at playing an elementalist.

Also are you saying there are no highly skilled players playing anything else? Cause that would be silly, and then should also be stated that no other classes should get buffs either with this logic.

Axelifus.3269:

Daecollo.9578:

You guys want all your cake but refuse to see how much frosting you will receive if they buff attunement skills.

0/0/0/0/30 will always be top dog, unless you make staying in two attunements only viable. The only way to balance out would be to make one attunement very powerful and locking out another, otherwise people will just stay in 0/0/0/0/30 forever.

You say it would limit Viability? NO, IT WOULD MAKE YOU AT LEAST HAVE 3 x Each Weapon set in viable specs!

Your not going to gain anything unless your willing to sacrifice and simplify your class, right now if they give you any meaningful buffs, it will just make highly skilled people gods.

It would make people who can’t play that well, normal. People that play very well so good that nobody will want to play anything besides Ele.

Seriously guy, shut up and go back to your warrior already, or learn to use LH if you want something that dumb and pointlessly easy to play.

REWARDING SKILLED PLAYERS PLAYING A HARD CLASS? OMG NO DONT EVER DO SOOOOOO ;____;

Yes, its called Jedi in SWG and was an Alpha Class.

Classes should not be balanced around how hard they are to play.

K cool just make sure to send me my reroll ticket and convert all my weps to their engineer version once you are done sacking the class of whatever good it still has.

I think we all agree that the ele really well played is quite a strong class.

I like to think that, after more than a year exclusively playing the ele and in love with D/D since last October, I am good playing the D/D ele and know it really well. I’ve tried conditions based builds and lately critical damage builds (everything WvW focused, yeah D/D for WvW roaming AND zerging).

I’ve lived all the nerfs and survived. I used to be able to solo easily solo a 3 enemy group; now I still can, with a lot of trouble and not being sure to succeed. I have to play really well to do it, but I’ve done it. And in other cases I just can’t beat just one enemy, I like to think that it is because the build they run is a counter to mine, not just a overpowered class.

I don’t feel the ele is underpowered. Of course sometimes I’d like it to be easier to play (specially when I’m half asleep :P). But then I find myself being the last one standing when we, my guild, wipe out after a lost confrontation, and it is funny and weird at the same time.

Of course I’d love to be able to kill everyone I face, but that would just mean that the class is broken and I’m quite happy this class is that hard to play well, otherwise it would be boring. Warriors in a WvW zerg they just spam 1-3 keys (N of keys, not skills :P); I instead of that have to fully play the ele and it is SO funny, I wouldn’t change it for anything easier/simpler. With my actual build, I have to almost perfectly play the ele to deal all the damage I can while not dying.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with me? Should they make the ele a easier and less challenging class to play?
For now I’ll just happily play my ele.

The only way to play Ele is to cycle through all 4 attunements and manage them.

A lot of people can’t do that, but as I stress… it is THE ONLY WAY to play Ele right now.

There is no playstyle or other way.

Daecollo.9578:

The only way to play Ele is to cycle through all 4 attunements and manage them.

A lot of people can’t do that, but as I stress… it is THE ONLY WAY to play Ele right now.

There is no playstyle or other way.

Why would you not want to use all of the attunements?? It’s like underusing the class, it’s like not using the weapon swap with other classes… It is what make the ele unique!

Galbar.7843:

Daecollo.9578:

The only way to play Ele is to cycle through all 4 attunements and manage them.

A lot of people can’t do that, but as I stress… it is THE ONLY WAY to play Ele right now.

There is no playstyle or other way.

Why would you not want to use all of the attunements?? It’s like underusing the class, it’s like not using the weapon swap with other classes… It is what make the ele unique!

Ask J.Sharp, he said on a live stream that most elementalists only use 1-2 attunements….

I’ve never understood the whole “ele is hard to play” thing. Coming from SWtOR, 25 skills is pretty standard, and eles don’t even have access to every skill at any given time.
You just kinda go through your appropriate skill rotation, maybe mixing things up a bit to bait dodges in PvP, and you’re good to go.

I mean, there’s a lot more micromanagement with the Elementalist than the Warrior, but that’s only as difficult as memorizing the skills and their functions.

A warrior that baits condition removal and goes for a Throw Bolas > Killshot combo is doing something a lot harder than going through a memorized damage rotation. Also probably less effective, unfortunately, but that’s another matter.

It’s not just the skills, it’s all about survivability. It is quite hard to deal damage while trying not to get hit. But it is also fun

Chaosky.5276:

I’ve never understood the whole “ele is hard to play” thing. Coming from SWtOR, 25 skills is pretty standard, and eles don’t even have access to every skill at any given time.
You just kinda go through your appropriate skill rotation, maybe mixing things up a bit to bait dodges in PvP, and you’re good to go.
.

I cant stress how true this is. I find playing ele is not as technically hard as people make it out to be, there is absolutely nothing complicated, I dare people play other game with more micromanagement without macros (which for the sake of discussion I wont mention) which were 2x-3x times harder than this “complicated class”.

It just take some critical thinking and game time spent on the class to realize that even when playing at best, they are still underwhelming for the most part.

I cant stress this enough, almost anything an ele does ion game can be outdone by a guardian or a warrior not only skill wise, but effectivity wise!

Erebus.7568:

YES gEnIuS and you only have to stand auto attacking with ZERO dps for 4 seconds while the enemy “dare not touch you”, its just an AWESOME way of applying chill and much better or on pair with instant cast instant effect skills of other classes weapons. can totally see why this is not bad when you explain it for me like this :P
(and i know you mentioned group play, but in that case every other class combo will be able to have the fields, as a team, that is needed, putting all your field casting on one person would be a bad tactic in itself);

I was mainly referring to teamplay in that example, not individual play. But lets take your example and work it out truthfully shall we? If you use Shockwave to snare your target in the field so it’ll stay in there the full duration, you also get a free bonus second of chill. If you go for Stoning, you can also stack weakness on the same person while still doing roughly 700 damage per attack. Or you can dodge roll into the field to get your party Frost Aura (especially neat when combined with Zephyr’s Boon) and the target some cripple/bleed too. Or a combination of the above. And you’re not limited to those combos either, because after those few seconds you can simply switch back to another attunement and deal more damage. And that’s just your: your party can also use the field. I’d say that an engineer switching to the Elixir gun and back has a worse deal.

However, I was merely trying to show why combo fields are powerful even if the individual combos aren’t and you knew that. Combos can outperform player skills even in unorganized PuGs. To me that means they’re worth using, and a non-negligable part of the staff gameplay.

the only valid use is to gain fury+might from erupt->firefield before the fight starts (or in rare cases doing it while you are getting your head smashed in by a meleeing enemy)

You can cast all of them while moving, so preparing an Eruption for later use with one of your other fields while you move to the location of cast is perfectly viable. If the melee doesn’t enter it, you just shook ‘em off for a few seconds. If they do enter it, they get hit. Either way, you get your extra combo heal/might/frost aura/etc. There’s virtually no reason to not try and combo stuff.