Guild Wars 2

I’m a lvl 50 Elementalist and specify in the Water element. Most of my perks are +Healing and things that will benefit my allies.

Since there is a longish cooldown on most of my skills, I tend to switch between all the elements, depending on situation. I give continuous buffs to my allies and I CC, heal and do damage all at the same time without losing out on anything.

I made this comment to a lvl 74 Fire Elementalist I was doing a dungeon with, because she never switched, especially to Earth in order to save herself from unnecessary damage.

Her reply?
-“lol i’m being taught how to play by a lvl 50 nublet.” Well yes, you are. Because you need to be taught, you nublet.

Why is it that so many, almost all in fact, Elementalists refuse to use any other element but their primary? I find it extremely idiotic and plain dumb, to be fair.

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.
Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.
Ironic that the class that is supposed to be all about swapping attunement is… all about not swapping.
Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

I’d get bored if I stayed in one element too long. I use staff so I find a lot more benefit by swapping elements, laying down fields. 30 points in Arcana – faster swapping, buffs on attunements, blasting staff, and spells on dodge rolls. Pretty fun stuff.

Pneumothorax.2964:

I’d get bored if I stayed in one element too long. I use staff so I find a lot more benefit by swapping elements, laying down fields. 30 points in Arcana – faster swapping, buffs on attunements, blasting staff, and spells on dodge rolls. Pretty fun stuff.

Don’t forget on certain occasions, chain dodging!

snaplemouton.1294:

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.
Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.
Ironic that the class that is supposed to be all about swapping attunement is… all about not swapping.
Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

Either you didn’t read what I said properly, or you misunderstood what I said:
I’m talking about when switching elements makes a difference.

Example: Although you might be specced to compliment Fire, switching to Earth can still save your life. In case you didn’t know, Earth allows you to immobilize (stun and slow) enemies. You don’t need a certain spec for this to be effective. Using Earth when the time is right gives you a big chance of survival.
Not to mention the Arcana tree, where you can get Elemental Attunement and Blasting Staff, two excellent traits for any Elementalist no matter the spec.

Blasting Staff weakens Meteor Shower and Static Field, doesn’t it? I like that trait, but I have my doubts about how useful it is.

As a dual dagger ele, I wouldn’t have gone this far (I’m currently level 77) without crazy attunement dancing, but I admit that I have margin to get lazy and stick to fire during group events, and get better results.

We already are slightly underpowered, if we get stuck at one element, we’re laughably bad.

I think that swapping attunements makes an ele more powerfully then staying in 1 element the whole time.
But our traits wont contribute much to this type of playstyle because they don’t sync very well with each other.
On the other hand i think that the 16s cooldown on attunements after you switched to an other is to high. I only use like 2 from 5 abilities of the water, earth and wind attunement because some are just to specific to cast everytime. Then how should i switch to an other element that can help me master a situation when it is on such a long cooldown.
imo there are only two ways of playing an ele:
1. Stay in 1 or 2 elements and spec into the appropriate trait trees OR
2. Switch around all elements but you have to assign 20 or more points into the arcane tree, so that you can switch faster

The odd thing about blasting staff is that I noticed that there were more meteors when I had the trait equipped. It could be just my imagination though (I hope I’m wrong).

In terms of traits, it seems to me that for a class that is supposed to switch between 4 elements in a fight, the granting of specialized bonuses should be much greater than just 10% extra damage while attuned to a certain element.

If anything, specializing to an element means you’ll be using that particular attunement as your dominant element. If anything, there should be some better specialized bonuses that represents the core of what that element is supposed to do.

snaplemouton.1294:

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.

Because damage is the only benefit that a Ele can bring to a group apparently. Nope, we have no CC, boons, or condition clears to add. Might stacking the group, regen stacking the group, swiftness stacking the group, and toughness stacking the group simply by switching elements when specced properly brings no benefit to group play…

Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.

unless you’ve specced 10 pts into arcane and can get your entire group a 33% dmg reduction when switching right before a big damage item. And it’s not like Earth has any other useful skills, like massive bleeds, ranged shields, cripples, and immobilizations. Oh wait…

Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

Unless of course you have to the foresight to notify your group that (w/ a staff at least) both your 3 and 5 skills (geyser and healing rain, respectively) classify as water fields and can be used with THEIR blast and leap finishers to provide massive AOE healing that fills the entire group to full…

Seriously, it’s thought-processes like this that lead people to think the Ele is massively underpowered when we’re clearly not (although I will admit we may not be up to par in certain aspects of other classes. I’m not trying to turn this into a UP/OP argument).

snaplemouton.1294:

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.
Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.

No you won’t. This thinking comes from the error of thinking the traits actually matter much like they do on other classes. But on ele traits are extremely underwhelming. The most effective damage build is fire/earth anyhow so you should be losing negligble damage even from traits.

Bsquared.3421:

/snip

Don’t go making sense Bsquared. That’s not allowed on a forum. It’s gotta all be overreaction and QQ because my pew pew isn’t strong enough.

Besides, it’s not like every single selectable trait is element specific. For example, the 30% chance of burning on a crit (though it’s not very powerful) happens in any attunement. Cause more damage to targets with less than 25% health is another one.

I switch attunement all the time and it’s better for following reasons.
1) You can keep casting skills without waiting for recharge. This means more damage, and multiple conditions on mobs.
2) While you are doing damage, you can also throw heal/defense/crowd control to keep you and your party safe. (Ele is squishy)
3) If you have Elemental Attunement trait, you and your party get boon every time you switch attunement.

snaplemouton.1294:

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.
Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.
Ironic that the class that is supposed to be all about swapping attunement is… all about not swapping.
Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

You couldn’t be more wrong.

snaplemouton.1294:

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.
Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.
Ironic that the class that is supposed to be all about swapping attunement is… all about not swapping.
Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

If your build takes only those kinds of traits, then you’re doing it wrong. 1 or 2 of them, sure, but not all of them. I take the 10% increased damage in fire trait and I use fire attunement as my execute skill. We do plenty of damage but you have to look at more than “oh, this makes my damage go up a little bit! I NEED IT!” Our damage is highest when you are swapping attunements correctly.
Also, staff Ele is not meant to be a pure damage weapon set. Kinda like you’d have to be a fool to think you could be a top DPSer as a staff guardian. It’s just simply not possible. Staff Ele is combat support. Yes, you do damage, but as a way to control the battlefield and help compliment the other people you’re working with. Even as a fire staff ele, it’s on your allies to draw the enemies to the right place for you AoEs and (in PvP) it’s on you to control the battlefield by using your damage AoEs to push the enemy where you want them to go. But your main role is to support with CCs, combo fields, and the like. As a staff ele, you’re not supposed to be the most undefeatable person ever. You’re supposed to make your team the most undefeatable team ever.

The reason soo many people fight about this is because we are extremely BUGGED

ie:

• We can channel a spell like Meteor shower, and during channel attune to any other element, and be ready for our next spell (heal/stun/imobilize) this is a good thing
• Staff compliments changing attunements due to it’s high CD and verocity of spells
• Scepters and Daggers are pretty strict to clinging to only 1-2 elements, or we would be lost in number of skills, actions and wasting some cool skills because we’re in wrong element, and CD ain’t so high (Fire Breath)
• Our Elemental traits don’t have any type of synergy with each other unlike other professions
• Grandmaster traits are soo wrong, especially Water/Air
• Conjures suck

conclusion :
We need Synergy, we need REASON to switch stances OTHER then CoolDowns

And we need HELL of a Buff ^^ <3

Vixen.8045:

I’m a lvl 50 Elementalist and specify in the Water element. Most of my perks are +Healing and things that will benefit my allies.

Since there is a longish cooldown on most of my skills, I tend to switch between all the elements, depending on situation. I give continuous buffs to my allies and I CC, heal and do damage all at the same time without losing out on anything.

I made this comment to a lvl 74 Fire Elementalist I was doing a dungeon with, because she never switched, especially to Earth in order to save herself from unnecessary damage.

Her reply?
-“lol i’m being taught how to play by a lvl 50 nublet.” Well yes, you are. Because you need to be taught, you nublet.

Why is it that so many, almost all in fact, Elementalists refuse to use any other element but their primary? I find it extremely idiotic and plain dumb, to be fair.

Hold on tight, let them be a noob.

I was stuck on Fire Attunement for a long time and I had 30 points in Fire Magic. One day I decided to switch because I believe there is more and should be better than staying in one attunement the whole time.

I got bored, so I completely revamped my traits and stats gears.

I’m not a Crit build anymore, not a condition built, not a tank build, not a healer build and what is it then?

I’m a Dance build. Mix bag support and combos build.

Air 20
Earth 20
Arcane 30

- Mass infinite buffs and combos burst damages on AoE. Switch dance on every fight and speedy + dodges.

I had issue before for staying in Fire burst build. I cannot take on Champion and more than 2-3 mobs at a time. Very squishy.

Now, 5-6 mobs + Champion. Come at me Bros! So powerful! 3-4 mobs just dies at my feet at the same time because of my constant burst of combo finisher damage and debuff damages. Mass buff during the fight + distributing Boons to everyone around me.

Also forever 33% speed all time and anytime and anywhere except you get into combat.

I was damage dealer in our guild group that flew you through the instance, you should be grateful for the quick xp instead of bashing my play style first in game and now on the forums.

I am entirely geared for power, preci and critical damage = damage dealer. Switching attunement only reduces my damage since even with autoattack I’m doing atleast double the damage than in any other attunement(splash damage, traits for fire).

For survival I’m using lightning flash, burning retreat and signet of restoration and those are usually enough when I’m not getting one or two shotted by dungeon mobs. Prolly going a bit more survival oriented gear would be better for the overall damage output, but switching water with 0 healing or any other attunement is waste of time and damage.

On my elementalist I have 30 points into air but I actually spend very little time in air, except when im just running around.

Fast element swapping is definitely the best way to play elementalist in my opinion, and by extension I would also say at least 20 points into arcana is also necessary. Effectively rotating and fully utilizing all your cds is the way to go.

As an scepter/dagger ele with 30air, 10water, 10fire, and 20 arcana i regularily rotate between all elements with most of my time being spent in fire or earth and the least amount of time being spent in air and water.

fire- main dps/burst and aoe might stacking (swap>ring of fire>arcane blast>dragon tooth>phoenix>earth attune>EQ>churning earth=16 stacks of might for you and nearby allies/pets)

air- In combat I typically only stay in air attunement for 2-3 seconds at a time. Lightning Strike on attunement+lightning strike skill+blind are all instant casts (zero animation) which you can do while lightning rodding to your target and updrafting for CC/dodge/swiftness. Also the attunement I spend me time in while running around, perma swiftness from the Glyph heal and lightning rod get you around fast.

water-specced 10 pts for condition removal on attunement (SO GOOD) also attune here for the 2 heals (#3 and 5) to heal self/allies as well as for popping your glyph heal which grants 20 secs of regeneration when specced for it (hence the pts into air attunement). Also gives soothing mists gives aoe regen that does stack with normal regen. Typically you don’t want to stay in water attunement for very long, just swap in for your heals then swap out, the sooner you swap out the sooner you will be able to swap into it again to remove more conditions.

earth-3 main uses for earth attunement..
a) go from fire>earth for aoe might stacking (explained above)
b) go from air>earth for lockdown (2 blinds and 2 knockdowns can keep mobs locked down for a long time in dungoens
c)Swap to earth when you get CC’d or otherwise can’t dodge for instant protection (33% reduced dmg) from the buffs you get on attunement.
-also Stone shards is probably our best auto attack as a specter/dagger

DJRiful.3749:

Hold on tight, let them be a noob.

I was stuck on Fire Attunement for a long time and I had 30 points in Fire Magic. One day I decided to switch because I believe there is more and should be better than staying in one attunement the whole time.

I got bored, so I completely revamped my traits and stats gears.

I’m not a Crit build anymore, not a condition built, not a tank build, not a healer build and what is it then?

I’m a Dance build. Mix bag support and combos build.

Air 20
Earth 20
Arcane 30

- Mass infinite buffs and combos burst damages on AoE. Switch dance on every fight and speedy + dodges.

I had issue before for staying in Fire burst build. I cannot take on Champion and more than 2-3 mobs at a time. Very squishy.

Now, 5-6 mobs + Champion. Come at me Bros! So powerful! 3-4 mobs just dies at my feet at the same time because of my constant burst of combo finisher damage and debuff damages. Mass buff during the fight + distributing Boons to everyone around me.

Also forever 33% speed all time and anytime and anywhere except you get into combat.

YAY! Good for you! I feel like this forum is turning into kind of a support group, but I’m happy with it.

More stories and builds from elementalists recovering from a misplaced feeling of dejected inferiority!
We did it! SO CAN YOU!

I stick primarily to Fire, as I have the cooldown reduction trait. This means that Lava Font is re-castable almost as soon as its duration is done. Which means I can keep it up almost all the time, hitting multiple mobs, and it does pretty good damage. Not to mention the bonus damage trait I also have. I do significantly less damage in other Attunements.

I do swap howerever. Whenever I or my group are in need of some healing or snaring, I hit water and drop all the spells. If I do swap to water I generally go into Air next, burn those spells, then do the same in Earth, while I wait for fire to be back up.

Vixen.8045:

I’m a lvl 50 Elementalist and specify in the Water element. Most of my perks are +Healing and things that will benefit my allies.

Since there is a longish cooldown on most of my skills, I tend to switch between all the elements, depending on situation. I give continuous buffs to my allies and I CC, heal and do damage all at the same time without losing out on anything.

I made this comment to a lvl 74 Fire Elementalist I was doing a dungeon with, because she never switched, especially to Earth in order to save herself from unnecessary damage.

Her reply?
-“lol i’m being taught how to play by a lvl 50 nublet.” Well yes, you are. Because you need to be taught, you nublet.

Why is it that so many, almost all in fact, Elementalists refuse to use any other element but their primary? I find it extremely idiotic and plain dumb, to be fair.

That is a pretty hilarious story. Never switching between attunements is directly analogous to having 2 weapon sets equipped but never switching.

Vixen.8045:

I’m a lvl 50 Elementalist and specify in the Water element. Most of my perks are +Healing and things that will benefit my allies.

Since there is a longish cooldown on most of my skills, I tend to switch between all the elements, depending on situation. I give continuous buffs to my allies and I CC, heal and do damage all at the same time without losing out on anything.

I made this comment to a lvl 74 Fire Elementalist I was doing a dungeon with, because she never switched, especially to Earth in order to save herself from unnecessary damage.

Her reply?
-“lol i’m being taught how to play by a lvl 50 nublet.” Well yes, you are. Because you need to be taught, you nublet.

Why is it that so many, almost all in fact, Elementalists refuse to use any other element but their primary? I find it extremely idiotic and plain dumb, to be fair.

Because people are still used to how “specs” work in other games. That’s really all there is to it.

Dime.4586:

I was damage dealer in our guild group that flew you through the instance, you should be grateful for the quick xp instead of bashing my play style first in game and now on the forums.

I am entirely geared for power, preci and critical damage = damage dealer. Switching attunement only reduces my damage since even with autoattack I’m doing atleast double the damage than in any other attunement(splash damage, traits for fire).

For survival I’m using lightning flash, burning retreat and signet of restoration and those are usually enough when I’m not getting one or two shotted by dungeon mobs. Prolly going a bit more survival oriented gear would be better for the overall damage output, but switching water with 0 healing or any other attunement is waste of time and damage.

Well if you were downed multiple times without switching attunements that is probably a pretty good clue you weren’t doing enough to stay alive. Being downed = dps goes down by 95% at least. Not very good for your dps.

Also discounting the damage available in earth is pretty silly. On almost all weapon combos earth has some serious damage capability, either direct or condition or both. It also combos naturally with fire.

bacalao.2083:

That is a pretty hilarious story. Never switching between attunements is directly analogous to having 2 weapon sets equipped but never switching.

Well if I could swap attunements every 7 seconds (like every other class) without having to go deep into one trait tree I might not have gotten used to staying in one element in those most important low level learning times.

There are some good ideas in this thread BUT I also think that we need to respect that for some builds it might be best not to constantly dance through attunements. The ONLY way to play elementalist isn’t to constantly switch attunements.

It’s still early, too early to be proclaiming what is the right way and wrong way to play. Let people find out what works for them and what builds work at all.

DJRiful.3749:

I’m a Dance build. Mix bag support and combos build.

Air 20
Earth 20
Arcane 30

- Mass infinite buffs and combos burst damages on AoE. Switch dance on every fight and speedy + dodges.

Sounds good can you provide a link to your build on 1 of the build websites? Or more specifically what are your air and earth traits? The combo builds I’ve seen spec 20 or 30 into water.

Dime.4586:

I was damage dealer in our guild group that flew you through the instance, you should be grateful for the quick xp instead of bashing my play style first in game and now on the forums.

Well he didn’t call you out… but instead you exposed yourself to criticism.

I am entirely geared for power, preci and critical damage

I am too minus the critical damage (vit and some toughness instead). In fact I also have 30 Fire and 20 Air too.

= damage dealer.

Yet this doesn’t define my role.. interesting.

For survival I’m using lightning flash

Unless it is paired with Soothing Disruption, Lightning Flash is basically an extra dodge and is not nearly as useful as either Mist Form or Armor of Earth.

burning retreat

… Really?

and signet of restoration

REALLY? The Glyph is far superior for reactive healing. The Signet of Restoration, ironically, doesn’t really give you that much support unless you have a great deal of +healing (or are in a DE where you rarely get hit). In all other situations, Glyph is superior.

and those are usually enough when I’m not getting one or two shotted by dungeon mobs. Prolly going a bit more survival oriented gear would be better for the overall damage output, but switching water with 0 healing or any other attunement is waste of time and damage.

The thing you seem to be missing is that when you’re dying all of the time and going into downed state, you’re not dealing DPS. On top of that, someone has to stop THEIR DPS to get you off of the ground.

I run an almost full damage set and traits (with some survival stats like vit) and switch attunements in dungeons all the time. In outdoors PvE, I hardly switch; I, like you, sit in Fire and DPS mobs down. But in dungeons, where not only do I need to survive, but so do my group members, I switch attunements frequently.

First of all, even with 0 healing (why are you running Signet again?), Healing Rain is nothing to be trifled with. Also, if you used combos effectively, you can start in Earth, use Eruption (which should deal appreciable damage with your gear and traits), quickly switch to Water and chain Geyser + Healing Rain together. Not only will you get healing from Rain and Geyser, but Eruption is a Blast finisher and also perform a very nice AoE heal for your group. Even with 0 healing, you’re looking at 60% health restoration AT LEAST for your GROUP that you just did (and don’t forget that HR removes conditions).

I also don’t see how you would never think to switch out of Fire to snare mobs, because Burning Retreat does not cut it in dungeons. If you are dying a great deal then you aren’t being an asset to your group.

Don’t be mad at the OP for being frustrating that someone was playing poorly and said person decided to call HIM the noob.

morrolan.9608:

DJRiful.3749:

I’m a Dance build. Mix bag support and combos build.

Air 20
Earth 20
Arcane 30

- Mass infinite buffs and combos burst damages on AoE. Switch dance on every fight and speedy + dodges.

Sounds good can you provide a link to your build on 1 of the build websites? Or more specifically what are your air and earth traits? The combo builds I’ve seen spec 20 or 30 into water.

Here you go here (long link) I’m not sure if it will load properly. The site is buggy sometime.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#5|0|2771|627|3983|3984|4480|0|0|0|0|20|1613|1889|0|20|2254|1646|0|0|0|0|0|30|2250|1630|965|0|0|1|28028|0|53500|53500|53500|53500|53500|21025|48789|48789|48789|48789|48789|

Alternative link: http://goo.gl/MKzty

As the post above me said Glyph is very powerful. The build I just linked is basically tuned for Glyphs purposes. I use short cooldown Glyphs and constant heal myself overtime and keep Boons up.

So many people defending elementalist it’s funny.
I was so serious in my post people actually bothered trying to explain to me how to play elementalist.
Because I totally need to be explained how to play an elementalist.
I am only 5 years old you know.

My post was absolutely not a post about how elementalist is worthless because half of the traits doesn’t benefit attunement swapping.

I totally won’t talk about how every abilities the elementalist has is a downgrade version of other professions abilities. Because they believe having 20 weapons skills required all weapons skills to be only about 30% effective compared to other professions weapon skills.

P.S. Remove ride the lightning and you remove the only ability that allows an elementalist to actually survive a fight for more then the duration of vapor form.
And don’t go explaining me how to play elementalist to survive. Because I don’t feel like teaching you everything other professions have to counter anything you have to say about it.

snaplemouton.1294:

I totally won’t talk about how every abilities the elementalist has is a downgrade version of other professions abilities. Because they believe having 20 weapons skills required all weapons skills to be only about 30% effective compared to other professions weapon skills.

Yes, thats how it works.

Having more tools at your disposal means that each of them has to be weaker. Its called balance.

I believe we are winning in this trade-off. For example I’d prefer having two 1s stuns on separate cooldowns, rather than having one 2s stun on a single, long cooldown. More flexibility, yada yada.

To come back on topic, has anyone actually ran some tests (Against dummies or something?) I mean, specced as full fire, it seems to me that switching to earth to apply a kitten-ton of bleeds, then water for vulnerability, then coming back to fire will outdps just staying in fire.

Octomyde.6107:

snaplemouton.1294:

I totally won’t talk about how every abilities the elementalist has is a downgrade version of other professions abilities. Because they believe having 20 weapons skills required all weapons skills to be only about 30% effective compared to other professions weapon skills.

Yes, thats how it works.

Having more tools at your disposal means that each of them has to be weaker. Its called balance.

I believe we are winning in this trade-off. For example I’d prefer having two 1s stuns on separate cooldowns, rather than having one 2s stun on a single, long cooldown. More flexibility, yada yada.

To come back on topic, has anyone actually ran some tests (Against dummies or something?) I mean, specced as full fire, it seems to me that switching to earth to apply a kitten-ton of bleeds, then water for vulnerability, then coming back to fire will outdps just staying in fire.

And care to explain me where in the world of CC we have more CC then other professions?
Last I checked a warrior could get 7 stuns/knockdown with most of them having lower CD then ALL of our CC.

An elementalist not swapping their attunements is like other classes not swapping their weapon sets. Stick to only one and you will be bad at this game. Remember that your weapon set of choice gives you 20 skills to use, not 5.

snaplemouton.1294:

Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

While true that the water healing spells heal for very little on their own they are not actually supposed to be used like that. When I do support in dungeons I use blast finishers to do aoe insta heals using regen fields and not only my own fields, you would be amazed at the amount of healing an arcane traited dodge roll + arcane wave output, graphically its enough to bog my gtx 680 :P

On top of that might stacking the group, slowing, crowd control, and defensive combos make sure your group stays alive an kicking, it’s more then enough to offset any potential dps loss by not doing any of those things.

What is wrong with you people? let others play their class like they seem fit.
If i want to play 30 fire 30 air no survival and only stay in fire then so be it.
This doesn’t have to mean they are downed all the time.
Through smart play and positioning it’s well possible to stay alive in dungeons.

Stop forcing your opinion on others, it’s annoying, especially through ingame messaging (wtf?)

I wouldn’t say this is forcing opinions on others. I’m reading this forum to help form my own opinions. An elementalist was my first character and I wanted to deal max damage. My gear is pure glass cannon so I’m super squishy, but moving will cause my Dragon’s Tooth to miss so I stand still and only fight 1 mob at a time.

I haven’t tried any dungeons yet because people say there aren’t tanks in this game and if the mobs are moving my damage may suck and I don’t want to bring down the group. Now after reading this thread I’m thinking elmentalist fill more of the support or control role instead. I may re-gear for that and try it out, but in the mean time I’m leveling a ranger, which I hope will be better at the pure dps role.

Zeemag.1024:

I wouldn’t say this is forcing opinions on others. I’m reading this forum to help form my own opinions. An elementalist was my first character and I wanted to deal max damage. My gear is pure glass cannon so I’m super squishy, but moving will cause my Dragon’s Tooth to miss so I stand still and only fight 1 mob at a time.

I haven’t tried any dungeons yet because people say there aren’t tanks in this game and if the mobs are moving my damage may suck and I don’t want to bring down the group. Now after reading this thread I’m thinking elmentalist fill more of the support or control role instead. I may re-gear for that and try it out, but in the mean time I’m leveling a ranger, which I hope will be better at the pure dps role.

I wasn’t targeting constructive critisism, i was targeting at something like “I find it extremely idiotic and plain dumb, to be fair.”.
Yes you can play glass cannon, yes it is effective, provided the team compostion is laid out for that and playing well.
The thing with a glass cannon in gw2 is that you have to be twice as aware of what your team is doing, because you will die if you can’t read the situation.

[quote=98211;Zeemag.1024:I haven’t tried any dungeons yet because people say there aren’t tanks in this game and if the mobs are moving my damage may suck and I don’t want to bring down the group. Now after reading this thread I’m thinking elmentalist fill more of the support or control role instead. I may re-gear for that and try it out, but in the mean time I’m leveling a ranger, which I hope will be better at the pure dps role.[/quote]

You don’t need to respec to play support I do it fine in the first 3 dungeons ( all I’ve done so far ) in full power / crit, fire / arcane build basically I’m built for glass cannon d/d in PvE open world but I also enjoy the staff combo field utility in dungeons so far I have not needed to trait / gear into a support build.

tbh if everyone in your group was to help out with all of their abilities then no class would have to go fully support.

RizziVanizzi.1532:

What is wrong with you people? let others play their class like they seem fit.
If i want to play 30 fire 30 air no survival and only stay in fire then so be it.
This doesn’t have to mean they are downed all the time.
Through smart play and positioning it’s well possible to stay alive in dungeons.

Stop forcing your opinion on others, it’s annoying, especially through ingame messaging (wtf?)

If you’re grouped with someone who is constantly dying because they spec only for damage and refuse to switch attunements it would be pretty weird if you DIDN’T call them out on it.

Is glyph really that useful for healing? I play a human ele and I use prayer to dwayna since it heals much more at once. Is there some combo or strategy that I’m missing out on??

Even for a fire/air/crit/damage build there is a lot to be gained from doing a tour of all the other elements. Just because you can roll through a lot of long cooldowns. Staff as an example, but scepter/x can do it just as well:

Air – stun (if mob is moving), AE blind, single target knockback. This is all support
Water – AE chill and large damage vuln attack. Heals also if necessary
Earth – blind, AE massive bleed, single target immobilize with damage and bleed, personal projectile reflect

As long as you have 20+ in arcance, by the time you roll through all of that, you can get back to fire and all of your cooldowns besides meteor shower are back up. I usually do a tour of the elements right after putting fire #2 and #3 on cooldown. The above is more damage and much more support than fireball spam and one extra lava font. Chill is a massive DPS drop for most mobs.

Vixen i think you shouldnt put all traits on water skills, yes they are usefull but you will have a hard time to solo since water skills do low damage.

Im my case i use all elements all the time, if i wanna do quick damage i use fire, if i wanna stun and bleed a oponent that doesnt movearound i use earth, water skills only to heal and wind skills as emergency to escape.
My traits are going mostly to fire and earth those two grant me attack and defence, only some to water skills.

I have 4 elements as my primary. Although I only use air for speed because the dagger main attack skill seems to bug out and miss 80% of the time, no matter what I do.

But yeah, I only use my primary elements.

@RizziVanizzi
Honestly, I couldn’t care less if people want to make a glass cannon build or whatever build they want. If they want to play a build and try to make it work, more power to them! That’s what this game is about.
What I don’t like and what I try to respond to are people who do that and then complain to everyone else about how their class is underpowered because they aren’t doing as well as they think they should be.

I use mostly Scepter /dagger and sometimes dagger/dagger and I use the abilites of 1 element then I instantly swap to next. Fire and Lighting for dmg and Earth if i get attacked or need to stun, and water when i need to heal up some dmg.

I must add i use the arcane 30 points with traits that give u buffs for each time u swap Element, wich makes it AWSOME to play ele. This talent is all about what elementalist is about. If you havent tried that do it.

I swap attunements as needed for situational reasons. Swapping attunements doesn’t actually add very much DPS when using staff. (Quick back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates about 60-70 dps added at lvl 80 if you get the rotation absolutely perfect as opposed to just staying in fire.)
The issue is that the vast majority of the important, damaging cooldowns are shorter than the cooldown to swap back to the previous element, even with arcane’s bonus to recharge rate. Thus, by swapping attunements you actually are forced to miss cooldowns, so the DPS gain is offset quite a bit.

If I sat in one element in PvP, I would be an idiot.

Bsquared.3421:

snaplemouton.1294:

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.

Because damage is the only benefit that a Ele can bring to a group apparently. Nope, we have no CC, boons, or condition clears to add. Might stacking the group, regen stacking the group, swiftness stacking the group, and toughness stacking the group simply by switching elements when specced properly brings no benefit to group play…

Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.

unless you’ve specced 10 pts into arcane and can get your entire group a 33% dmg reduction when switching right before a big damage item. And it’s not like Earth has any other useful skills, like massive bleeds, ranged shields, cripples, and immobilizations. Oh wait…

Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

Unless of course you have to the foresight to notify your group that (w/ a staff at least) both your 3 and 5 skills (geyser and healing rain, respectively) classify as water fields and can be used with THEIR blast and leap finishers to provide massive AOE healing that fills the entire group to full…

Seriously, it’s thought-processes like this that lead people to think the Ele is massively underpowered when we’re clearly not (although I will admit we may not be up to par in certain aspects of other classes. I’m not trying to turn this into a UP/OP argument).

Well said.

/clap

o m g OP. You may have uncovered a coorelation between players who don’t know the advantages of attunement swapping and players who think Elementalists need significant buffs, between those who would rather moan in the foums about an underpowered class and those who pick up the techniques in here and apply them to better effect.

Having said that, calling out a player in a dungeon on their play skill is rarely going to end well. Unless there is a specific thing they could be doing at that moment in time that will yield an immediate positive effect, and change the outcome, keeping quiet is usually best. imo If she was enjoying herself and the group was successful, fine, leave it alone. Point is, unless there are some issues completing and something specific would help…being critical of others is, well… don’t be surprised if things don’t go well.

Because all the traits help only 1 attunement. So it’s worthless to switch to another attunement since you’ll get more damage staying in one.
Better just stay in fire if you have 30 points in fire since you get +20% damage from 10% trait and 2x 5% on burning. No real reason to go to earth since you will just reduce your damage by doing so.
Ironic that the class that is supposed to be all about swapping attunement is… all about not swapping.
Water without water traits doesn’t help your team. It slows the fight as you will be dealing no damage. The heal without +healing is barely noticeable.

This couldn’t be any more inaccurate. Not leaving fire while meteor storm, lava font and flame burst are on CD to hit earth and drop erruption/shockwave, then to water to cast ice spike, then back to fire is just playing your class about as poorly as you can.

Plus if you aren’t utilizing your own burst combo fields with erruption then you’re even more unprepared not only on how to play your class properly but in how to provide proper boons for your party.

You still get the dmg boosts to targets burning in any attunement.

Too bad they don’t have parsers or it would show that staying in fire with staff would way outperform all of your unneeded attunement swapping just for fun. If you are in a good dungeon group your biggest asset would be dps and with your “support” builds many of you probably aren’t providing much. If you aren’t good enough to stay alive in just fire then you probably need to swap attunements often to make up for your mistakes. Sure it is boring sitting in one attunement, but it is the most effective dps (for staff).

Side note: I think the lack of parsers are why so many of these people like eles. They are probably the people that were never competitive for top dps in raids, etc in other mmos. Without parsing, they are happy to be oblivious to the fact that eles are inferior to the other classes and are simply mesmerized by our pretty spell effects.