Guild Wars 2

So…I’ve gotten my Ele to level 62. Unfortunately…I have NO IDEA what I want to do with this class. I’ve waffled back and forth on specs, checking out certain trait builds as well as slot skills. I played one in Beta and really enjoyed a glass cannon spec but now I want more survivability. I’ll list off a few things about the class I’d like to be able to do and hopefully some of you more experienced players can help steer me in the right direction.

• I love the staff. It’s my main weapon and I enjoy the range and AOE it provides. I tried Dagger/Dagger and just could not enjoy it.

• I’d like survivability but not at the ‘extreme’ sacrifice of damage. I’m not particularly worried about crit. I’d rather have sustained damage then massive damage spikes.

• I like being able to move faster all the time. I spend a good majority of my time in Air Attunement just for the movement speed and generally have 10 points of traits in Air just to get the ‘One With Air’ trait. I do enjoy the multiple hits that come from chain lightning but sometimes get annoyed when the chain hits mobs in PvE I didn’t want to disturb to begin with LOL.

• I switch attunements a lot while in combat. I try and maximize my combo fields to give myself or my allies as many boons as possible.

• I play WvW a lot. I try and never solo and I’m always with a large group of guild-mates. If I can, I support their efforts in any way that I can (combo boons).

• I do not play sPvP and have no intention of doing so with my Ele.

• I’m not interested in playing a support healing role in any venue (I already have a full support tank/heals Guardian. That’s enough support for me)

Any advice on armor stats & runes, weapon stats & Sigils would be greatly appreciated as well.

So…that’s all for now. I’m having the hardest time trying to find what works for me and provides a good number of the list above. I’m open for any suggestions and would be grateful for any help in this regard.

Thanks everyone!

I know you said you don’t like D/D that much, but if you like moving around fast, D/D is the weapon set that gives you perma-swiftness. If you put 10 points in Air for Zephyr’s Boon, then Dagger Water 4 and Dagger Air 3 abilities will each apply swiftness and fury. With Elemental Attunement from the Acrane tree, you get swiftness from attuning to Air, and you also get swiftness from Air Dagger 5.

Combine all these abilities with 2x Superior Rune of the Monk, 2x Superior Rune of the Water, and 2x Major Rune of Water or Monk, and you get 40% increased duration on all boons. With 30 points in Arcane, you have 30% increased boon duration on top of that.

It’s very easy to stack over a full minute of swiftness by using this combination of traits/runes/abilities. D/D can also be one of the most survivable builds, because in addition to perma-swiftness it also uses a lot of Cantrips (defensive utilities) and traits that give you extra benefits from Cantrips, such as regeneration and vigor.

Note that the playstyle with D/D is completely different than Staff. It totally takes getting used to, but once you do, you can confidently roll into a group of 5+ people, do some respectable AoE damage, and get out without dying. It’s very challenging, but it’s a total blast.

Build looks something like so: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImkbwx5gjDAkHn4CLiCPUegzM2A;TsAA1Cto6y4lwL7Ouuk7ME5UwsAA

mouse.1689:

I know you said you don’t like D/D that much, but if you like moving around fast, D/D is the weapon set that gives you perma-swiftness. If you put 10 points in Air for Zephyr’s Boon, then Dagger Water 4 and Dagger Air 3 abilities will each apply swiftness and fury. With Elemental Attunement from the Acrane tree, you get swiftness from attuning to Air, and you also get swiftness from Air Dagger 5.

Combine all these abilities with 2x Superior Rune of the Monk, 2x Superior Rune of the Water, and 2x Major Rune of Water or Monk, and you get 40% increased duration on all boons. With 30 points in Arcane, you have 30% increased boon duration on top of that.

It’s very easy to stack over a full minute of swiftness by using this combination of traits/runes/abilities. D/D can also be one of the most survivable builds, because in addition to perma-swiftness it also uses a lot of Cantrips (defensive utilities) and traits that give you extra benefits from Cantrips, such as regeneration and vigor.

Or you can, you know, take One with Air, have 25% perma movespeed and be free to choose your weapon and runes based on what you like instead of speccing everything towards ms. Also, staff air 4 is quite nice for running around since it removes slows and roots.

Anyway…
I find the superior sigil of battle rather nice(gives 3 stacks of might for 20s on attunement swap), especially if you swap often. The “ends on downed” are rather situational, but if you can maintain the buff, it’s probably better than swaps.
For armour/runes/jewellery…depends on how tanky you want to be really. I suggest looking through wiki and gw2db.com to see what’s out there and pick the combination that sounds good(spvp is a good place to test the result for free and get a general idea about the char’s performance in the "real’ game).

If you’re going to dump points into Air for the speed boosts, you’re going to have to sacrifice a bit of defense or offense for it. If you want to go strong offense, you’ll probably want to go Fire/Arcane. Your last 10 points can go into water or earth for a bit of survivability, or you can drop them into air for your speed boosts.

This build focuses mostly on direct and burning damage:

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#5|0|1119|627|3975|3986|4480|30|1664|1655|915|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|10|1673|0|0|30|1627|1630|1890|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

If you’re playing staff, I highly highly recommend 30 in Arcane for Evasive Arcana. Dodgerolling in your own fields causes blast finishers, and each attunement has a separate 10-second cooldown. (Right now you’re getting more blast finishers than you should — IE, every time you dodgeroll — but imo, don’t get used to relying on a bug). Since you already seem to know about combos I’m sure you’ll understand why that’s so awesome. I have a Sigil of Energy slotted in my staff so that I can afford to use dodgerolls offensively as well as defensively.

TWMagimay.9057:

Or you can, you know, take One with Air, have 25% perma movespeed and be free to choose your weapon and runes based on what you like instead of speccing everything towards ms.

Sure, if you like staying in air attunement for 50 seconds. Which I don’t. D/D’s perma-swiftness is up at all times, even while you’re attunement swapping during combat.

As for choosing weapons and runes based on what I like, I like increasing the duration of my fury, might, swiftness, regeneration, and protection by 40%. It’s pretty great.

Rainshine.5493:

If you’re playing staff, I highly highly recommend 30 in Arcane for Evasive Arcana. Dodgerolling in your own fields causes blast finishers, and each attunement has a separate 10-second cooldown. (Right now you’re getting more blast finishers than you should — IE, every time you dodgeroll — but imo, don’t get used to relying on a bug).

Wouldn’t be surprised if this got fixed in the upcoming patch, so yeah, definitely don’t get reliant on it.

mouse.1689:

Sure, if you like staying in air attunement for 50 seconds. Which I don’t. D/D’s perma-swiftness is up at all times, even while you’re attunement swapping during combat.

As for choosing weapons and runes based on what I like, I like increasing the duration of my fury, might, swiftness, regeneration, and protection by 40%. It’s pretty great.

Oh, my bad, I thought this topic was about what Siliconhobbit likes. You know, the guy form OP who not only said he likes staff, but made it pretty clear that he doesn’t enjoy daggers. I guess I should’ve been more blunt about it instead of going for sarcasm, but, meh, thought it was obvious enough.

And, yes, I know it’s a trend for everybody to push their build at every topic, but, c’mon. It’s the main reason I decided to tackle staff builds on my own instead of asking. Figured I dun wanna read 2 pages about daggers, scepter and focus for 2 posts about staff(yes, I also happen to love staff and generally dislike the other weapons).

So this is not completely off-topic:
Depending on the attunements you use most often during combat, I’d suggest:
- precision for fire(it’s actually pretty easy to score ~50% crit rate and you can totally see that in 1, 2 and 5 skills)
- condition dmg/bleed duration for earth(because, duhhh, 2 and 5)
I was pretty much looking for the same gameplay you mention and eventually went for power/precision/toughness set with 30 in earth(because I like them signets). I find my dmg satisfactory(although mobs in dungeons love me a bit too much) and survival is not an issue(except for dungeons thus i refuse to do them xD). You can trade that precision for condition dmg(which, granted, would make more sense with maxed earth trait) or vit(if you’d rather have the survivability).

Staff is great. You can kill the mobs without them ever reaching you. Open with ice spike and frozen ground. Cast eruption and schokwave. Then lava font on your eruption, flame burst, couple of auto attacks. usually mob dies.

If need be, switch to air, push them back and static field.
Or burning retreat
Or glyph of storms in earth attunement.

Ow and my favorite heal while on the run is dodging in my own gyser field.

You want swiftness on the cheap? Get the weapon sigil that gives 5sec swiftness for each mob you kill.

As for traits I speced into defense 30 earth 20 water and 20 arcana. I then spec into dps with my gear. I like to be well rounded.

To be fair, I can get permanent swiftness through Glyph of Restoration and Windborne Speed…of course, I do have 30 points in Arcana…but really, the number of ways to get permanent swiftness on a elementalist are so numerous that it’ll happen almost automatically in some way. No need to trait or gear for it, imho.

As Rainshine has said as a Staff user you want to have 30 points in Arcane Power for [Evasive Arcana] because all the spells count as a blast finisher. [Elemental Attunement] is another must-have. For the last Arcane Power trait you have the choice between [Renewing Stamina] and [Blasting Staff].
Because you like survivability 15 points in Water Magic is also a good choice because now each time you attune to Water you apply Regeneration and Soothing Mist to yourself and nearby allies and an AoE heal and an AoE condition remove. Because you already put 15 points in Water Magic why not put 10 more in it to get [Bountiful Power]? +2% damage per boon results in more extra damage than any +5% damage and comparable damage to any +10% trait. And if you already have 25 points in Water why not 5 more for in total two AoE condition removes every time you attune to Water?
The last 10 points can go into Air Magic for faster recharging Glyphs or Earth Magic for either Armor of Earth or more damage against bleeding foes.

Equipment is either Knight or Rabid if you want maximum defensive or Berserker or Rampager if you want maximum offensive (I’m assuming you’ve chosen [Renewing Stamina]). 2xWater and 2xMonk runes for altogether 60% longer boon duration. I’ve chosen 2xEarth as my final two runes to get one more second of Protection each time I attune to earth but you can choose other.

Link to the build and equipment: (copy the link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImmbwR5gjCAkHm4CLlHzkjNA;TkAA2Coo6y4lwL7Ouuk7M+A
(of course you can swap around some Water traits and utility skills)

This build deals about as much damage as a 30/30/x/x/x Ele and slightly less damage than a 30/x/x/x/30 Ele but has much more flexibility and survivability.

If you use Staff Earth #2, Air #5, Air #4 and then swap out off and back in Air and repeat the whole combo ~40 seconds later you don’t only grant yourself permanent Swiftness but to your whole group.

Your play style sounds very close to mine! I set my trails 10/10/10/20/20. Maybe you want to try rampager armor with runes which give cond dmg and/or duration. I believe if you want burning, you should get cond dmg, if you want bleeding, then get cond duration bonus. This is because bring is short, in order to get and extra dmg from burning, it has to get 1 sec more, but since it so short, you can’t (or very hard to) get 1 sec more from increasing burning duration. As for sigil, I think you should try sigil of battle. As often as we switch attuments, this sigil is super awesome. Even with staff, with help of trait and combo, I can sustain 13 to 19 might + if someone else is giving you might it can go all the way to 25!. (for this you might want to get runes with might duration). Maybe 3 rune of fire and 3 rune of krait?

TWMagimay.9057:

Oh, my bad, I thought this topic was about what Siliconhobbit likes. You know, the guy form OP who not only said he likes staff, but made it pretty clear that he doesn’t enjoy daggers. I guess I should’ve been more blunt about it instead of going for sarcasm, but, meh, thought it was obvious enough.

He said he likes swiftness. D/D provides permanent swiftness. The playstyle differences between the various weapon sets are immense. When you’re used to playing staff, switching to D/D or S/D can feel completely crappy until you’ve had plenty of time to get acclimated to it. I was pointing out the benefits of the weapon set, since they actually provide a lot of the things the OP said he wanted.

And, yes, I know it’s a trend for everybody to push their build at every topic, but, c’mon.

I primarily run Scepter/Dagger with Arcane utilities, actually. The build I posted was a fairly close approximation of Daphoenix’s tanky D/D build. I posted it not for self-aggrandizement, but because it fulfills a lot of the OP’s requests, namely: high swiftness uptime, extreme survivability, and solid damage output.

Siliconhobbit.4361:

• I love the staff. It’s my main weapon and I enjoy the range and AOE it provides. I tried Dagger/Dagger and just could not enjoy it.

so u were able to discern that the OP liked swiftness but u somehow missed the bolded statement?

mouse.1689:

He said he likes swiftness. D/D provides permanent swiftness. The playstyle differences between the various weapon sets are immense. When you’re used to playing staff, switching to D/D or S/D can feel completely crappy until you’ve had plenty of time to get acclimated to it. I was pointing out the benefits of the weapon set, since they actually provide a lot of the things the OP said he wanted.

It’s not a “crappy feeling”. It’s long range vs short range. Some people just don’t like being in the middle of the fight and prefer nuking from behind. Having in mind OP is looking for sustain dps with -some- survivability, staff would work much better exactly because of the range(which provides some extra survival by being outside the battle). The only thing daggers provide that OP wanted is swiftness. And I didn’t see him complaining about One with Air trait or looking for an alternative. Air is a very good fight opening attunement for staff. For one, air5 allows you to restrict the enemy in a certain location then drop sand storm/bleed/cripple and go into fire aoes.

I primarily run Scepter/Dagger with Arcane utilities, actually. The build I posted was a fairly close approximation of Daphoenix’s tanky D/D build. I posted it not for self-aggrandizement, but because it fulfills a lot of the OP’s requests, namely: high swiftness uptime, extreme survivability, and solid damage output.

So do staff builds. You know, the weapon OP actually likes playing. Yes, you can get that with pretty much any weapon combination as long as you get the right traits and gear. OP already made his weapon choice(which is basically the one thing he’s not asking about). If you don’t have a working staff build, why post? Yes, I’m also touchy on the subject. I looked through every staff-related topic on this forum hoping for tips. Most of them look like this:
- 20 posts total
- 10 posts about scpeters, dagger, focus and how they’d be better than staff
- 5 pointing out OP was looking for staff advice(and sometimes those would even give staff advice)
- 2 saying OP should roll xxx class instead
- 3 rambling on about smth else(like we are right now)
It is annoying.

TWMagimay.9057:

You should prolly make some more post flamming people that are trying to help, seems really helpful and makes the whole Ele community seem like super awesome people.

Weapon X.5163:

TWMagimay.9057:

You should prolly make some more post flamming people that are trying to help, seems really helpful and makes the whole Ele community seem like super awesome people.

As you wish. Although I woudn’t take the opinion of smb who’d rate an entire community based on one person as very, ammm, legit. Or intelligent for that matter. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t leave the house at all… Although being on the internet doesn;t make much sense either, with all those hackers and stuff around…the whole community is so bad. And you are part of it…

TWMagimay.9057:

Weapon X.5163:

TWMagimay.9057:

You should prolly make some more post flamming people that are trying to help, seems really helpful and makes the whole Ele community seem like super awesome people.

As you wish. Although I woudn’t take the opinion of smb who’d rate an entire community based on one person as very, ammm, legit. Or intelligent for that matter. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t leave the house at all… Although being on the internet doesn;t make much sense either, with all those hackers and stuff around…the whole community is so bad. And you are part of it…

Well atleast i derailed you and now you are on to more pressing things like personal attacks on internet forums. Well played, sir. Well played.

Weapon X.5163:

Well atleast i derailed you and now you are on to more pressing things like personal attacks on internet forums. Well played, sir. Well played.

That’d be as opposed to your very helpful and constructive comments, right? I do believe you played yourself. But you do have a point, I should just give OP advice. Here we go:

I see OP likes staff and swiftness, wants decent survival that doesn’t come at the cost of dmg. That’s cool. OP should play a necro. You can have perma swiftness(even underwater), get extra survivability from the high hp and life force and since those are basic proff characteristics, you don’t lose dmg. You also get pets, which can tank for you in pve or cc/deal dmg in pvp. I’d suggest checking out the necro forum for more detailed information on pet/well/etc builds.

Oh, but OP wanted to play ele? Well, beep that, necro is just as fun once you get used to it and OP’s playstyle or preferences shouldn’t be taken into account when giving advice, right?

So, how did I do? Great, right? I expect to see you defending my awesome advice with everything you got^^

TWMagimay.9057:

It’s not a “crappy feeling”. It’s long range vs short range. Some people just don’t like being in the middle of the fight and prefer nuking from behind. Having in mind OP is looking for sustain dps with -some- survivability, staff would work much better exactly because of the range(which provides some extra survival by being outside the battle). The only thing daggers provide that OP wanted is swiftness. And I didn’t see him complaining about One with Air trait or looking for an alternative. Air is a very good fight opening attunement for staff. For one, air5 allows you to restrict the enemy in a certain location then drop sand storm/bleed/cripple and go into fire aoes.

Nah, I think it’s a ‘crappy’ feel. That’s just how it’s going to feel when you swap to an unfamiliar weapon/style. I know because I’ve done the opposite, swapping from Daggers to Staff and it did and still does feel a bit crappy. It has mundo support but its damage and control is different and niche. When I’m using a staff, it very much feels clunky because the meat of the skills foes can simply move away from.

It’s not so much short vs long because you can make up for that with utilities and tactics same as your long range and control. But that never changes the feeling you’ve trained yourself to recognize as a player of a specific weapon. You’ll see a situation you could have capitalized on with this weapon or that but you’re stuck with the one you have and that thought and hesitation make one just that bit less capable.

So do staff builds. You know, the weapon OP actually likes playing. Yes, you can get that with pretty much any weapon combination as long as you get the right traits and gear. OP already made his weapon choice(which is basically the one thing he’s not asking about).

Why limit the topic though? For one, I don’t think staff needs anyone defending it…practically all elementalists use staff. I think it’d be healthy for the topic if ALL possibilities are open for discussion. Even if it doesn’t help the OP it might help someone else that is reading the topic and is also lost.

~chuckles~ Ya’ll are funny bickering like this in the thread. Makes for a good laugh for me.

Anyways. I do appreciate the posts here, even those that are suggesting things that I feel do not fit my play-style or likes. Even the last post about becoming a Necro was enjoyable to read as eventually I will create one but we will see what kind of play I will adopt when I make one.

Let’s see…what can I add that may be able to steer some suggestions towards more of what I am looking for.

• After respecing a few times again and experimenting with a few things I’m finding I am really enjoying burns and bleeds (conditions). I like the sustained damage they provide as well as the combos that can come from Lava Font (Area Might) and Radiation Field (Area Weakness) when coupled with Eruption.

Combining Arcane Blast with any of those as well doubles up on each of those combos as well. Of course Area Swiftness (Static Field), Area Healing (Geyser) and Area Frost Armor (Frozen Ground) are nice added benefits.

• I really would like to use runes that would increase the duration and damage of both of those 2 conditions. I find myself switching between Fire and Earth attunements a lot and of course anything with an increase in boon durations would be of a benefit as well.

Just to add to the topic, just curious if, as a staff main elementalist, do you use the Arcane Wave as just a blast finisher or as an attack?

I’m still rather clumsy with staff but I tend to forget arcane wave and just swap out for arcane shield because I’m too busy laying down fields to keep bursting off them. Of course I only have 10 points in Arcane so no Evasive Arcana but even then, you’re looking at sitting right in the thick to get/spread the effects of those fields which seems rather counter to the range of the weapon to be standing close enough to blast off them (not counting Eruption).

This is mainly discussing the combos fields. I always found Dagger to be limited as you’re looking at Churning Earth, Earthquake and Magnetic Grasp for any type of finisher effects which are all in Earth. I found Scepter combined with Focus as a super handy teaming tool although it lacks team heals. You’ve got Comet, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix and Magnetic Wave spread though out 3 attunements to burst off of as well as your projectile finishers.

I guess my perspective is Dagger is limited but Arcane Wave is a really nice tool that adds more to it, IMO, than the other sets; Scepter/focus has a bit more variety but even less field options while Scepter/Dagger has a similar numbers but a better fire field; Staff seems to have all the fields but limited bursts and not as much use from Arcane Wave since you won’t be in range of it to hit lots of stuff often. All those fields though makes Evasive Arcana an even better pick for a staff user but I find its usefulness as a Daggers or Scepter user limited. I tend to use my dodges for dodging which may be close-minded of me.

Siliconhobbit.4361:

• I really would like to use runes that would increase the duration and damage of both of those 2 conditions. I find myself switching between Fire and Earth attunements a lot and of course anything with an increase in boon durations would be of a benefit as well.

This is the general list of runes: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Runes I guess 5x Nightmare + 1 other or 2 of the bleed duration ones. This topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Ele-s-Staff-Dps-Other-weapons-in-group-PvE/first#post688991 eventually went into staff dps options discussion Jaedenaar is the bleed oriented one(think he mentions his rune set-up for 25 stacks of bleed solo at some point, but am really too lazy to read through all of that xD).

Leo G.4501:

Nah, I think it’s a ‘crappy’ feel. That’s just how it’s going to feel when you swap to an unfamiliar weapon/style. I know because I’ve done the opposite, swapping from Daggers to Staff and it did and still does feel a bit crappy. It has mundo support but its damage and control is different and niche. When I’m using a staff, it very much feels clunky because the meat of the skills foes can simply move away from.

It’s not so much short vs long because you can make up for that with utilities and tactics same as your long range and control. But that never changes the feeling you’ve trained yourself to recognize as a player of a specific weapon. You’ll see a situation you could have capitalized on with this weapon or that but you’re stuck with the one you have and that thought and hesitation make one just that bit less capable.

Mmmm, I went S/D → D/D → Staff. When I started using D/D, I suddenly saw earth weapon skills in a whole new light(3 just gives 4 and 5 a new sense). When I tried staff, it just clicked for me, I’d found the right weapon for me and it felt right, not crappy. Now I’m using D/D again(for the stupid achievement) and it does feel crappy, I constantly get the “I could’ve done this so much better/easier with a staff”-feeling. To the point where I sometimes leave events to change weapon. Because staff fits my preferred playstyle and I’ve been a healer(ranged mage) for a long time now.

Why limit the topic though? For one, I don’t think staff needs anyone defending it…practically all elementalists use staff. I think it’d be healthy for the topic if ALL possibilities are open for discussion. Even if it doesn’t help the OP it might help someone else that is reading the topic and is also lost.

Well, I already explained that. When I found staff to be the weapon I like, I wanted to get some tips about it(it’s how I approach new games, tips → test them → decide what’s best → go deeper into the class on my own). Since I also don’t like making the 100th topic about smth, I decided I’ll just look around and see what’s out there. It was beyond frustrating and guess I still have that dislike(it actually pains me to derail the topic even further, but I have issues with keeping my keyboard still so…). It’s not about defending staff as a weapon, it’s defending staff as the topic choice. If OP had said “daggers” and smb gave staff advice, my reaction would’ve been the same…

I can see you’re passionate on this issue and that’s fine. I simply suggested Daggers because it actually does a lot of what the OP said he wanted. He said he tried them and he didn’t like them. That’s exactly how I felt about them after playing Staff for a long time. It took hours of play to get accustomed to them, but once I did I really liked them.

The very first line of the OP’s post says he has NO IDEA what he wants to do with the class. I was simply encouraging him not to give up on D/D right away, because with some practice he might find it provides a lot of what he’s looking for.

My post was not intended to disparage Staff; I’ve played with it extensively and it’s a very good weapon, in certain scenarios. Personally, I find it to be best either with a total bunker build in sPvP (which has virtually no damage, so not what the OP wants) or when you’re defending keep walls or fighting from a mostly stationary position, (in which case high movement speed is a rather low priority.)

I get your frustration, and you can keep being aggro at me for it, I really don’t mind. I just want the OP to have as many options and ideas presented to him as possible.

From my experience, I find d/d (dagger/dagger) to be the most enjoyable and fastest paced gameplay. Although, I do keep a 2h staff with me at all times to switch to in order to better damage to against keeps, towers, and siege weapons.

The rest of the time? D/D baby!